Despite his newfound cost-cutting rhetoric, President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget significantly increases federal education spending. His supporters defend the expansions as consistent with the vision of America’s founders. The historical evidence, however, refutes this argument. If enacted, the Obama administration’s $77.4 billion education spending proposal would represent a 57 percent inflation-adjusted increase since 2000, according to Heritage Foundation education analyst Lindsey Burke.
The president’s spending plan includes $1.4 billion for a new grant program for early childhood, K-12 and higher education, plus another $350 million for state early childhood programs, even though the federal government’s own Head Start preschool program and ballyhooed universal preschool programs in Oklahoma and Georgia have failed to produce dramatic improvement in student achievement.
