This will likely be an under-reported aspect of the Trump cuts--because #### kids, they don't vote--but it speaks the outright racial motivation for much of what the Trump administration finds itself doing. Education budget being hugely slashed, with the exception to an increase in funding to 'School Choice' initiatives.
What is school choice you ask? The creeping encroachment of federally sanctioned segregated schools:
Quote:
The Trump administration is seeking to cut $9.2 billion — or 13.5 percent — from the Education Department’s budget, a dramatic downsizing that would reduce or eliminate grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to #low-income and first-generation college students.
Along with the cuts, among the steepest the agency has ever sustained, the administration is also proposing to shift $1.4 billion toward one of President Trump’s key priorities: Expanding charter schools, private-school vouchers and other alternatives to traditional public schools. His $59 billion education budget for 2018 would include an unprecedented federal investment in such “school choice” initiatives, signaling a push to reshape K-12 education in America.
The president is proposing a $168 million increase for charter schools — 50 percent above the current level — and a new $250 million private-school choice program, which would probably provide vouchers for families to use at private or parochial schools. Vouchers are one of the most polarizing issues in education, drawing fierce resistance from Democrats and some Republicans, particularly those in rural states.
PBS Frontline did an absolutely stunning piece of what School Choice looks like in Louisiana. I highly recommend taking the 55 minutes to watch it later:
Quote:
n the wake of the Brown decision, the percentage of black students in majority white southern schools went from zero to a peak of 43.5 percent in 1988. But those changes have reversed in recent years, with data from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project showing that by 2011 that figure was back to 23.2 percent, just below where it stood in 1968.
The UCLA researchers attribute the decline to legal attacks on desegregation orders under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, as well as the 1991 decision in Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell. By a 5-3 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that a school district can be freed from an injunction to desegregate if it can demonstrate compliance with the order and also show that it will not “return to its former ways.”
The south today is still the most integrated region in the nation for black students, but the trend has increasingly been away from integration. As the Civil Right Project has warned, “the direction of change … suggests that things will continue to worsen.”
Yet the proposal is dead on arrival. To appropriate funding as the White House wants, Trump would need to repeal or subvert sequestration. To do that, he would need to overcome the threat of a Senate filibuster. To do that, he would need to woo some number of Democrats. To do that, he would need to overhaul his budget figures. And in doing that, Trump would almost certainly lose too many Republican votes to pass his budget.
Sequestration shoots. Sequestration kills.
“Show me the budget deal that would increase defense spending, lift the budget caps, keep all Republicans, and bring in eight [Senate] Democrats,” said Todd Harrison, a military spending expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a foreign-policy think tank. “It doesn’t exist.”
Meals on Wheels. They want to cut Meals on Wheels.
Those senior citizens are just going to die from lack of healthcare, so they won't be needed meals anymore.
Trump also wants to cancel a program that helps those in severe poverty afford to keep their heat on. So if the old people don't starve, they'll just freeze instead.
And between Trumpcare/Ryancare and this budget, he's sticking it good to the people who voted for him:
Quote:
On page five of his blueprint Trump proposes the elimination of funding for 19 independent agencies—those that exist outside of federal departments headed by a Cabinet secretary. One of those agencies is the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership focused on economic development in a region encompassing all of West Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Its inclusion is notable, because it serves a region that largely supported Trump, and which he has promised to revive economically.
Yep, promise all those old coal miners that you're going to save them, and then cut a program that was specifically started to help that region economically:
Quote:
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a United States federal-state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established ARC to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation.
Trump also wants to cancel a program that helps those in severe poverty afford to keep their heat on. So if the old people don't starve, they'll just freeze instead.
And between Trumpcare/Ryancare and this budget, he's sticking it good to the people who voted for him:
Yep, promise all those old coal miners that you're going to save them, and then cut a program that was specifically started to help that region economically:
Just watched the highlights of Spicey's press briefing. Wow, that was embarrassing. I hope Melissa McCarthy and the SNL writers are hard at work, because they've got a gold mine of material with this one.
what a freaking mess this administration is.
Good choice Merka.
From a prior administration on their mistakes:
Quote:
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
America has follow greatly since those days of good accountable governance, or at least the guise thereof.
I presume that it has something to do with the Department of Agriculture, via the allocation of "excess" food to needy people (in this case, seniors), and the Department of Health and Human Services, via ensuring that seniors are not dying due to starvation.
In any event, why should states take on the bulk of this project and receive federal funds in order to do so? That method of funding doesn't really reduce federal involvement in any meaningful way--sure, the administration of the program might be on a state level, but the funding comes from the federal government and there will be plenty of federal involvement in ensuring that the funds are spent by the states in the manner intended.
In any event, if you are truly a "states rights" person, you would object to any transfer of federal funds to the state level and instead insist that each state should only fund those projects that it can maintain through funding sources obtained from each state's own citizens. Perhaps you support that sort of program, but, in doing so, surely you realize that your mobility options within the USA would be severely limited as a result of all states enacting such a program, as there "have not" states will far exceed the "have" states.
All taxation and spending should occur as close as possible to the end user. I'm not really a states rights person so would be okay with Canadian style transfers but having the federal government be responsible for things the local government should be responsible for doesn't make sense. Each layer you add just adds inefficiency. Even the whole following up with the states to ensure it is spent appropriately shouldn't be done. The states can put on their big boy pants.
The US budgeting and governance structure is so messed up a kill the patient mentality might just be needed. People need to change how they vote at the state level and party primary level in order to fix the current mess so that extremism in safe seats is eliminated. To motivate people to do that some education is required.
Now I don't live there but when the mess that is created needs to be fixed hopefully not starting from bloated inefficient structures will help.
How has no one just stood up and started screaming at this guy? How has someone not punched him in the face? The restraint is remarkable.
Especially with the avalanche of bulls--t constantly pouring out of his mouth. Just once I'd love to see a journalist stand up and rip Spicey a new arsehole in front of those cameras. Sure it would be unprofessional and the person (and their network/newspaper) would likely be banned from any future briefings. But man, it would be so worth it just to see it happen once.
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