Education Top Priority

Posted by: Lisa Crowley


Where should all of the money go?

President Barack Obama just recently passed a tax-and-spending bill of $819 billion. From this amount $125 billion is set aside for education. This is a sustainable amount seeing as the Federal government doesn’t usually get involved and leaves it to the local and state government. It is said that $20 billion is allocated for school and college renovations. As the economy is seeing layoffs the government is proposing another $79 billion to the states to help them avoid educational related layoffs. In addition, more than $2 billion would go to the Head Start program, which helps children in under developed areas stay on track, $13 billion to supplemental funding for high-poverty areas, and another $13 billion for special-education programs.

In addition to this $125 to improve the schools, Obama just passed a bill that will increase the States Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The bill increases the coverage for only children’s health care to an additional 4 million which is on top of the 7 million already covered. What is the cost? Just $33 billion over 4 ½ years.

Obama is tackling the economic recession in many different directions so what is he doing about the housing market?

Obama has supposedly set aside between $50 billion and $100 billion to fight the foreclosures. However, they do not have a plan yet to stop the housing market from further downfall. It is a very complicated situation and they want to make sure they are putting the money in the hands that need it the most and can use it in the best way. A possible plan is making the mortgages cheaper and lowering the interest rates so homeowners will not foreclose. Also if an institution receives any funding from the program they will have to develop a foreclosure prevention program.

There is a lot of money being conjured up out of nowhere to rebuild the economy. I just thought that it was interest the amount of money that got passed for the education, $125 billion, and the money being set aside for foreclosures, $100 billion. The housing market and the sub prime mortgages is a main reason how the economy became today and there is more money improving the school right now. The housing is more prevalent issue at hand and more money should be allocated there than trying to fix up the buildings.


Sources:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/house-passes-childrens-health-bill/
http://www.biztimes.com/blogs/milwaukee-biz-blog/2008/12/23/obama-administration-should-make-housing-market-a-top-priority
http://careerjournal.com/article/SB123315486943524321.html