Liar liar pants on fire

In his State of the Union, Bush said

"And to keep America competitive, one commitment is necessary above all: We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people -- and we're going to keep that edge"

Well, he didn't really follow up on that today. In his new budget, Bush cuts federal spending on student loan subsidies. These subsidies allow students to take out loans and the government deals with the interest until 6 months after you graduate, giving you a chance to focus on school and get on your feet after you finish. So in order to "keep that edge" we are going to make it harder for people to pay for college? Sounds like a good idea. (sarcasm)

If you go to his new website which tells us to "expect more," you can see a list of all of the programs that he has labeled "not performing." How many military programs fall in the category? 4. How many education programs fall in that category? 47 (including Federal Work-study and Federal Perkins Loans). And his solution to improve this? Cut those programs. For example. My school gets tutors through Cal State Northridge that are paid for by the government through a program called GEAR UP. At Sylmar, these tutors are often used in math classes. Math is an area that Bush says we need to be more competitive in. This year the GEAR UP program had a budget of $303 million. Next year? Gone. Way to be competitive.

Look, the Federal Government's major education spending comes through Title I, which will be budgeted with $12.9 billion and the Dept. of Ed. will have an overall discretionary budget of $54.4 billion. What does the Dept. of Defense get? Over $500 billion! I know and expect that Defense will always cost more than education, but defense is going up $30 billion and education is going down $3 billion. (Link to budget)

So we need to compete Mr. President? I guess if we can't beat them with education we can at least kill the shit out of them.

Can you tell that I am pissed?