The very link you just provided shows that California state expenditures are higher now than they were four years ago. Scroll down to the bar chart labelled "State Spending Flat After Rapid Growth in Late 1990s". It shows that California state spending is higher than it was four years ago (general fund spending four years ago was around $66 Billion and now is about 15 percent higher than that).
I did not say that with increasing revenues you can have growth in funding of education. I said with increasing expenditures you can have growth in funding of education even if the percentage of overall spending devoted to education has declined.
In another post to me today, you claimed that "The total budget in many states has been in decline in the last 4 years." You cited nothing in support, and did not identify a single state where spending was higher in 1999 or 2000 than it is today. I set out to find such a state. So far I have been through the statistics for the 8 largest states, and all spend more today than they did four years ago. Here are some examples:
1. California (general fund)
FYE 2000 Spending: $66,494,042,000
FYE 2004 Spending: $77,623,701,000
lao.ca.gov (Cells R24 and V24 of spreadsheet)
3. Texas
2000 FY Spending: $ 49,707,754,236
2003 FY Spending: $ 60,270,447,962
window.state.tx.us (2004 figures not available, but unlikely to be lower than 2000 given 20 percent increase from 2000 to 2003)
4. Florida
2000-01: $51,000,000,000
2004-05: $57,300,000,000
stateofflorida.com
5. Illinois
1999: $21,527,000,000
2003: $24,861,000,000
(see 20-Year History of Expenditures, pdf page 10 of apps.ioc.state.il.us
8. Michigan
2000: $19,342,398,000
2003: $21,742,102,000
michigan.gov
michigan.gov
The 8 states I checked so far encompass 40 percent of the U.S. population. All of them spend more on education than they did 20 years ago, and most spend more on education now than they did 4 years ago.
Check out the revenues and income for California. Increasing until the Bush Administration took over, and then in steep decline.... But now we have falling revenues and falling percentages going for education.
Do I need to spell out the result for you?
Let's spell out the result, shall we? You cited California as having declining revenues. Let's take a closer look at education spending there since Bush took office in Washington:
2000-01
K-12 Education: $29,746,390,000
Higher Education: $9,148,780,000
2004-05
K-12 Education: $33,920,871,000
Higher Education: $9,264,316,000
Both numbers are higher in the current budget year than they were in the last budget year before Bush took office.
To get some perspective, go back a few years, to 1996 when Clinton had been President for a full term already. Back then, California state education spending was as follows:
1996-97
K-12 Education: $19,893,422,000
Higher Education: $6,180,055,000
(All of the above data is from lao.ca.gov, Rows 20 and 21, Columns corresponding to the years cited).
Now, if the level of spending on education in California is something Bush can be "blamed" for, it seems reasonable to also hold Clinton accountable for the level of spending on education in California during his first term. Clinton had been in office four years by then, and California's education spending (K-12 and higher ed) reached $26 Billion. In today's dollars that is $31.44 Billion (using the CPI Inflation Calculator at data.bls.gov.
The current California expenditures for K-12 and higher education total more than $43 Billion (see numbers for 2004-05 above). Even adjusting for inflation, that is approximately 35 percent higher than just 8 years ago, when President Clinton had already been in office for 4 years.
I fail to see how you conclude that: (1) government expenditures have declined at the state level over the past four years; (2) government funding for education has dried up and caused great harm to students and educational opportunities during those four years; or (3) Clinton should have been re-elected in 1996 -- I presume from your pro-Clinton comments that you agree with that statement -- and yet Bush should not because of California's inability (?) to adequately fund its education system.
I would add that California's education system when the expenditure was at 1996 levels, in particular its higher education system, churned out many of the graduates who were the brains behind the tech boom of the 1990's, despite funding levels that were paltry by today's standards. |
