‘It’ll never go away’

As the line has stretched around the block, full of eager supplicants seeking a piece of the big federal "economic stimulus" package being pushed by President Obama and the Democratic Congress, a new risk has surfaced.

As much as 17 percent -- $137 billion -- of the porkfest dollars are to be shovelled into the massive jobs program known as public education.

But if government does that, won't the school systems grow accustomed to spending all that extra money -- using it to create new, permanent jobs? Then, when the one-time "stimulus" has been exhausted, won't there be a new set of piteous cries, referring to any attempt to trim back school spending to 2008 levels as Draconian cuts, as evidence that "these people hate education, and most of all they hate the chilllldren"?

That's what Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, warned this week. "It'll never go away," the Oklahoma senator said. "You're talking about a permanent increase at a time when we are in the worst financial shape we've ever been in."

Added California Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee: "What will happen two years from now when the Democrat spending spree comes to an end?"

Democrat Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education Committee, assures skeptics that this "is two-year money. As their revenue base is restored, as sales taxes start to grow, if the economy recovers and home values start to stabilize," the states "will have to transition to return to reliance on that."

And if they don't?

The plan would spend about $20 billion quickly to build and fix up classrooms, from kindergarten through college, in an effort to spur job creation and growth. But states would also receive $39 billion to stave off cuts in school operational spending.

And the "stimulus" would pump an extra $26 billion into two long-term programs, No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The bill also includes a $15 billion bonus fund to "encourage reforms" related to teaching and student tests.

"None of this is going to stimulate anything," Sen. Coburn warns.

Even those who asked for the money acknowledge it will be difficult to cut later.

Terry Hartle, lobbyist for the American Council on Education, the leading Washington lobbyist for tax-funded schooling, called it "the tail problem," for spending that stretches far beyond the short-term stimulus package.

Sending the money through government programs such as Pell Grants and No Child Left Behind gets the cash out faster, Mr. Hartle said, but it is also harder to cut later.

Democrats don't see that as a problem. Almost as though higher permanent spending is their actual goal -- with the current need for an "economic stimulus" serving as little more than an excuse to lock in the kind of higher taxes and higher spending they've dreamed of for years. Watch.