Fully, Madly, Not So Much

As you may have heard, the McCain campaign's been having some surrogate trouble lately with folks like Carly Fiorina saying that McCain favors "fully funding" No Child Left Behind (i.e., appropriating a level of federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that's as high as the authorized funding level) even though that doesn't reflect his voting record or his formal campaign promises. Education adviser Lisa Graham Keegan tried to square the circle today at a New America Foundation event, saying McCain will "fund ESEA fully where it is."

What that means in practice is that at a time when inflation is rising is the number of school-age children is growing, McCain's tax and budget policies require him to keep federal education spending flat in nominal terms -- implying substantial real per capita cuts.

Comments

Well, Matt, in case you forgot, we learned during the Phil Gramm fiasco that McCain surrogates who are out speaking on his behalf do not actually "speak" for him.

Posted by David | July 24, 2008 4:25 PM

This man is full of contradictions.

Here's another whopper he came up with today:

http://strategy08.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/is-canada-not-another-country/

Posted by Dan | July 24, 2008 4:33 PM

McCain simply isn't bright enough to understand how one of his policy statements impacts another. He doesn't have the mental wherewithal or organizational skills to keep it all straight.

He's more of a broad strokes kinda' guy. (And you can read anything into that you wish.)

Posted by LFC | July 24, 2008 4:42 PM

It seems like they are counting on people not paying close enough attention. "If that HP CEO said he will fully fund NCLB, it must be so"-- heaven knows the media will never call them on any of these contradictions or flip flops or the sheer lack of math to make all his budgetary craziness pencil out.

Thanks as always for being that voice of common sense, Matt! Were it not for you and TPM my head would have exploded long ago.

Posted by Ruth | July 24, 2008 4:57 PM

I don't know why Matthew seems to think that "fund ESEA fully where it is" means "keep federal education spending flat in nominal terms", as opposed to keeping federal education spending flat in real, per capita terms.

Seems to me that Matthew is just making things up.

Posted by Al | July 24, 2008 5:29 PM

A link from your blogroll, Angry Bear, has a review of a tax debate between Obama and McCain campaign tax gurus, Goolsbee and Holtz-Eaken, respectively.

Here is a link to the Tax Policy Center 2008 debate on tax policy (mp3 of debate), dutifully ignored by the mainstream media.

Posted by Josh SN | July 24, 2008 5:34 PM

"McCain's tax and budget policies require him to keep federal education spending flat in nominal terms -- implying substantial real per capita cuts."

You say that like it's a bad thing, Matt. My guess is that no one, apart from the government workers and teachers unions would even notice if all federal funding of education and with it the Dept. of Education were eliminated from the budget.

Posted by Chicounsel | July 24, 2008 5:34 PM

Nationally, Federal spending on education has been about 7% of the total for many years. Obviously, this tends to go more to poorer than richer school districts.

Some people proudly and publicly claim they wish it would all go away. Some people suggest that only people who get paychecks from that money care about it at all. Some people are ignorant b*st*rds, but just because I used the names Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden 100s of times in the same sentence or paragraph does not mean I am trying to connect them in the minds of my readers.

Posted by Josh SN | July 24, 2008 5:47 PM