Obama Stimulus/Splurge K-12 Reform Initiatives Gone?

Mike Petrelli:

I'm writing about the Democrats' intra-party squabbles on schools, the kind that exploded during the campaign and grew more vociferous in the election's aftermath but quieted down somewhat with President Obama's appointment of (consensus candidate) Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Well, they've returned. Word is that Senate Democrats have stripped virtually all of the reform-friendly provisions out of the House stimulus bill (a bill that was not terribly reform-friendly to begin with ). The Teacher Incentive Fund (which supports merit pay programs): gone. Charter school facilities dollars: gone. Money for data infrastructure projects: gone. Language ensuring that charter schools have equitable access to the money: gone. The teachers unions firmly in control of the Democratic Party: back with a vengeance.

Related: Carl Hulse talks with the Splurge's author: 40 year congressional veteran David Obey (D-Wisconsin):

Indeed, it was Mr. Obey, the third-most-senior member of the House, who, in large measure, shaped the bill, in concert with other House Democratic leaders. And though Mr. Obama has embraced the bill, not a single House Republican has lent it support. The president himself is scheduled to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to try to address Republican concerns that Mr. Obey and others are using the legislation to push vast amounts of money into health care and other favored initiatives.

Mr. Obey's impatience, temper and occasionally cutting tone are well known. Even as he outlined the economic plan before Mr. Obama's inauguration, he flippantly referred to the new president as "the crown prince." The remark was evidence that Mr. Obey, like other veteran chairmen involved in writing the stimulus package, might not be entirely deferential to the new president until he proved he could exert his influence.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California placed Mr. Obey in charge of producing the economic measure and shares his view that the spending for health, nutrition and unemployment programs is justified and a quicker way than tax breaks to pump money into the economy. Ms. Pelosi is very loyal to the chairman, who was a top ally in her 2001 race for Democratic whip.

Putting the economic bill together turned out to be challenging. Mr. Obey and a contingent of Democratic staff members worked over the holidays, meeting with other lawmakers. They were in talks with Rahm Emanuel, who was soon to be the White House chief of staff, and Rob Nabors, a former staff director of the Appropriations Committee who had left to join the Obama team as a budget official.

More here:

For some House Democrats, the problem is less a matter of balancing the short and long term than a shortage of focus and will on the part of the administration. Their disappointment centers on the relatively small amount devoted to long-lasting infrastructure investments in favor of spending on a long list of government programs. While each serves a purpose, the critics say, they add up to less than the sum of their parts, and fall far short of the transformative New Deal-like vision many of them had entertained.
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The bill to be voted on today includes $30 billion for roads and bridges, $9 billion for public transit and $1 billion for inter-city rail -- less than 5 percent of the package's total spending. Administration officials have said they did not push for more infrastructure spending because of concerns about how many projects are "shovel ready" -- a view that House members say is held most strongly by Lawrence H. Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 28, 2009 4:11 AM
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