New US Budget, New Record Budget Deficit

[Don Corleone]

Aside from which, you need to learn American political speech, Antiochus, if you intend to live here and become an actively interested citizen.

A budgetary cut, as in Bush has cut federal spending on education, defined:

Congress appropriates programs based on not only what they believe they will need now, but assumes a certain level of growth for the program, that typically outpaces inflation. If a budget comes out that increases funding to a program, but at a lesser rate than the originally approved growth rate, it's called a cut. This is what happened with the education budget, and it's ludicrous. As Xiahou rightly pointed out, the US spends more per student than any other country in the world. Raw dollars is not the answer. We need to address the causes of our underperforming school. This is what 'No Child Left Behind' was supposed to be about, before Bush decided to cave and give Kennedy whatever he wanted. What resulted was a giveaway that makes little sense. If the old adage 'If everyone is upset by it, then it must be a fair law' is true, than NCLB is quite possibly the fairest public policy program ever enacted.

Similarly, the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (MPDB) has been and will continue to be an abysmal failure. The Pharmaceutical Company Profit Restortation Act would be a better name for it. I am an ardent capitalist, and it's rare you'll hear me on a screed against 'Big ____' (tobacco, oil, what have you), but this is one case where the shoe fits:
-In most cases, the 'benefit' doesn't reduce payments by the elderly. In more than a few cases, it actually increases their payments.
-Recipients are required to scan the internet weekly to see which version of the program will fit their needs best for the coming month.
-In several tests, HHS staffers responsible for educating the public on how to use the website could not produce meaningful results and were not able to select the best program choice for a given test case, when limited to 1 hour or less of web research time.
-People who have already seen to their own needs are NOT allowed to opt out of the program.
-In many cases, drug companies will be compensated at close to twice the rate they currently are, for the exact same drugs that are currently in the market.
-Congress is forbidden, by the law itself, from negotiating prices or asking drug companies for lower cost alternatives.
-For agreeing to make all this bonus cash, the drug companies make an additional fortune in tax exemptions (the only portion of the bill I actually approve of).
And the bill for this abmonination? The most conservative estimates put forward by the White House are $400 billion over 10 years. Most analysts, including National Review, put the price tag at a much higher cost. Insanity.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I second Don C on all points. He hits the mark square. And don't get us started on the SocSec system as well.

[rory_20_uk]

With so many problems with government is that if you give money to schools for example the indirect kickbacks are limited. Who wants to be on the board for a school post whitehouse job? But get the government to spend vast fortunes on some new gizmo and you might just a 1 day a year consulting job with them that pays more than a doctor's annual salary.

Oh, and of course they wouldn't have and shares in the aforesaid companies before the large contract get given, would they...

In the UK it gets mad as well. Whiteboards that are conected to the internet - every kid with their own PC!!!

I want to a small private school and our results were way above average. We had almost no PCs, and lessons were pretty didactic (as we assumed that the teacher knew more than the pupils - heresy I know).

My entire chemistry class either did medicine or went to Cambridge. There was no lesson planning at all. No computers were ever used. We had a blackboard, eager pupils and a decent teacher. The basics were there and the school being private didn't waste money on junk that wouldn't increase success.

[BDC]

In the UK it gets mad as well. Whiteboards that are conected to the internet - every kid with their own PC!!!

I want to a small private school and our results were way above average. We had almost no PCs, and lessons were pretty didactic (as we assumed that the teacher knew more than the pupils - heresy I know).

My entire chemistry class either did medicine or went to Cambridge. There was no lesson planning at all. No computers were ever used. We had a blackboard, eager pupils and a decent teacher. The basics were there and the school being private didn't waste money on junk that wouldn't increase success.

Yes, the issue is less money not being spent on good teachers, more good teachers being wasted on retards. I sat in one of the lower-GCSE science groups today, the teacher was brilliant, enthusiastic, but his class was half full of idiots and half full of people with no interest in school. A complete waste of time, someone who can't handle GCSE science (which is really super basic, especially the stuff these people were doing) shouldn't be in school. Money spent on a nice whiteboard won't help them, they should be doing something useful like an apprenticeship.

The interactive whiteboards can be pretty useful though. It's not a central bit of a lesson though, it's just an extra help.

[Strike For The South]

Here is a novel idea. LETS COLLECT ALL THE DAMN UNPAID TAXES

[AntiochusIII]

Dammit. I made a long reply and the board simply fail.

Anyway, interesting response, thanks guys. Sometimes you (I) have to admit that you are ignorant about something and that you can learn something new everyday.

Since I don't think I want to return and quote all of that all over again...

STFS: How so? Would you care to elaborate the problem you are proclaiming? My impression has always been that the salary workers and not-too-high income freelancers are already properly taxed...in what would be expected of America even overly taxed, and that we should focus on properly bleaching out of the higher-income classes which so far, overall, avoid high taxes through legal exploitation.

BDC: That's a phenomenon everywhere, not just Britain, and I've personally heard complaints by the teachers; and I guess it happens since public education became compulsory. I don't think any absolute solution can be found unless one would agree to the social darwinism and cut the rest of the population who are uninterested in learning loose. Not a wise choice. The "wrong" is the person; you just can't change human nature.

I faced such situations myself as I observe the routines in some classes about my colleague students' conduct. "They" might tout me smart and intelligent but I don't think it's me, but them, that is not conforming to what is expected of a future capable citizen of a democratic nation.

rory_20_uk: didactic teaching, while I am perfectly fine with it, can be problematic in ignorant teachers (which exist, and is detrimental, though not that annoying), annoying teachers (which also exist, and is horrible to behold), and classes which "demand critical thinking" such as some Advanced Placement (do they have such equivalents in Britain?) classes which seems like high school versions of College philosophy courses.

Xiahou: hmm...the internet agrees with you. However, I find that rather strange as my school--by all means decent--in some classes still lack a complete amount of textbooks expected of such huge spending. I also noticed recently a rather off-putting fact that my school and another public school in a high-class district seems to have a different level of structural "elegance" and the amounts of students in extracircular activities, inexplicably so...may be it's just donations and "rich kids," or may be we have a problem.

Don Corleone: Ah...I never knew that. An assumption on my part, then, thank you; still, I never truly understand the NCLB program (from what I've gathered, it seems to me to be all about testing for scores which will affect funding, ratings, and administrative interventions--and testing has never been a truly effective way of measuring such delicate topics unless we all want to be Taiwanese kids and their test-study madness, which I was a little too familiar with than I want to. Is that correct?) and I'd be pleased to have your opinion of it.