President Obama Thinks Big About Education, the Economy, and Jobs
The Republican Leadership, Not So Much
“In 1957 the Soviet Union beat us into space by launching a satellite known as Sputnik. That was a wake-up call that caused the United States to boost our investment in innovation and education. Our generation’s Sputnik moment is back.”
President Barack Obama, Forsyth College, December 6, 2010
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“I think the president is a citizen of the United States.”
Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Meet the Press, January 23, 2011
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Tomorrow night in his State of the Union address, President Obama will outline a bold vision for education reform tied to 21st century jobs and long-term economic prosperity. The Republican party is signaling that it will respond with a vote to slash education spending by as much as $9 billion, and will not offer any of its own plans for education reform.
On education, Republicans are poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Education is an issue on which bipartisan consensus already exists. National polls show the public wants increased federal spending in education. Outside the beltway, Republican and Democratic Governors and state legislators alike have embraced the Obama education agenda as carried out under programs like Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation (i3).
But in Washington, Republican Congressional leaders seem to be making a cynical calculation to play to the party’s anti-government fringe, and to sacrifice the nation’s long-term economic interests to its 2012 campaign strategy.
Cutting education spending and blocking bipartisan education reform is a failed strategy from both the policy and political perspectives. The American people want change and they desperately need continued federal investment. Republican leaders may think that blocking education reform and investment is the path to a 2012 political victory. But in fact they do so at their peril which, if nothing else, we hope leads them to eventually reach the bargaining table.
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A summary of H.R. Res 38, scheduled to come to the floor this week, and its potential for huge cuts to education is: here.