'Slashed' spending to education, other programs is myth

News reports about the president's budget overflow with dismay over "deep cuts" and "slashed" spending. Images of schools and anti-poverty programs chafing under the fiscal knife abound. Which proves one thing: Hardly anybody actually reads the federal budget. If they did, they'd realize just how much of a myth this tale of "slashed" spending really is.

Alleged "deep cuts" over the last few years to education, anti-poverty and discretionary spending can be disproved easily by examining the federal government's budget historical tables (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/hist.html, particularly tables 3.2 and 8.1). The gulf between the facts and what's widely reported and blogged is astounding.

Myth 1: Massive education cuts. From 2001 through 2006, nominal education spending will more than double — from $35 billion to $84 billion. That is not a misprint. K-12 education spending increased from $23 billion to $40 billion, and college student financial aid skyrocketed from $10 billion to $40 billion. The remaining money was spent on research and general education aids.

Yet when the president's budget called for shaving $2 billion off the large discretionary education programs, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called the request "scandalous," and various news articles questioned whether schools could carry out their missions without another funding increase. Apparently a 137 percent budget increase isn't enough.

Myth 2: Anti-poverty spending cuts. From 2001 through 2005, nominal anti-poverty spending rose 39 percent and is set to increase another 5 percent in 2006. In those four years, Medicaid caseloads increased by 10 million and Food Stamps caseloads by 8 million as their budgets expanded by 40 percent and 71 percent, respectively. Combined payments from the refundable Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit surged from $27 billion to $48 billion. All four categories of anti-poverty spending — health care, food, housing and cash aid — grew by more than double the inflation rate, and significantly faster than under President Bill Clinton.

Overall, anti-poverty spending reached 16 percent of the federal budget for the first time ever in 2002 and has remained above that level since. And the new budget reconciliation law won't change that; the only significant anti-poverty program reform merely lowered Medicaid's projected five-year growth rate from 41 percent to 40 percent.