Garden State Patriot

I’m no economist – and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night – but I think I’m still smart enough to know that schools don’t create jobs. Ergo I found this little tidbit regarding the so-called stimulus that Corzine and his other Dem Governor brethren are seeking to be quite interesting:

Gov. Deval Patrick and four Democratic governors called on the president-elect to include $250 billion to support schools pre-K through college in the $1 trillion economic stimulus package.

“We think it’s critical to have a safety net investment for education,” said Patrick. “Schools are the one transformative investment that lifts people out of poverty and long-term reliance on the safety net. States have made tremendous progress in raising standards and in education reform and none of us wants to lose ground during this recession.”

In a conference call with reporters Patrick, Ted Strickland of Ohio, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Wisconsin’s James Doyle and David A. Paterson of New York, the governors outlined three major categories for the infusion of cash: infrastructure for shovel-ready projects, money for essential services such as Medicaid, welfare and food stamps and school funding – pre-K through college.

So, Corzine, et al, claim they want $1 trillion buckeroos to help their state’s economies during recession but they want to take a full 1/4 of that – $250 billion – and allot it to pre-K through college education?

Certainly enabling our young people to obtain a quality education is a worthy goal – and the merits of spending that much on education are a debate for another day – but it is hardly a stimulus for the economy to buy new desks for little Johnny and little Jane. Moreover, money shouldn’t be a factor in “raising standards” or “education reform.”

Let’s take this again for what it is: a group of Governors unwilling to make the really hard choices for their state’s budgets, after having spent far too much, and now simply waiting for a handout from Obama when he takes office.