Taypayer Handouts and Ripoffs

No, We Don't Need a Teacher Bailout

May 27, 2010

Cato Institute - From the recent apocalyptic pronouncements of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others, you may think our schools are selling their last bits of chalk and playground sand to employ mere skeleton crews of teachers and staff. The truth is "apocalypse not."

Yes, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten last week warned that, without a huge infusion of federal cash, public schools face "draconian cuts." And the American Association of School Administrators declared a few weeks ago that without a bailout, job losses "would deal a devastating blow to public education."

Then there's Duncan's warning, while making the TV-news rounds last week, of educational "catastrophe" if a federal rescue isn't forthcoming. And now the National Education Association has launched something called "Speak Up for Education & Kids" — a campaign to get people to call their congressmen and demand a handout for education.

The scaremongering is producing results. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) is planning to put $23 billion to save education jobs in a supplemental spending package. The move appears to have widespread Democratic support.

But let's look beyond the hysteria.

Duncan estimates that, absent a federal windfall, budget cuts will force layoffs of 100,000 to 300,000 public-school staff and teachers. The American Association of School Administrators has projected 275,000 layoffs under current conditions.

Sounds pretty terrible: Six-digit job losses are certainly nothing to sneeze at, and no one wants to see people unemployed.

But these numbers — and the prophesying of Duncan & Co. — ignore some critical context.

The federal Digest of Education Statistics tells us that in the 2007-08 school year (the latest with available data), US public schools employed more than 6.2 million teachers and other staff. Losing 300,000 of those jobs would only be a 4.8 percent cut — unfortunate, perhaps, but hardly catastrophic.

And 300,000 is the worst-case scenario. The AASA figure of 275,000 would be just a 4.4 percent cut. The low end of Duncan's prediction, 100,000 positions, would constitute only a 1.6 percent trim. That's less than one out of every 60 public-school jobs.

Moreover, the projected cuts would be but a tiny step back after decades of spending and staffing leaps.

Between the 1970-71 school year and 2006-07, inflation-adjusted US public-school spending more than doubled, from $5,593 to $12,463 per pupil. The number of staff per pupil ballooned about 70 percent.

This might have been a fine investment — had it produced anything approaching commensurate improvements in achievement. But it didn't, according to scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the so-called Nation's Report Card.

Indeed, while resources were blasted into the schools with a fire hose, test scores for 17-year-olds — essentially, our schools' "final products" — remained almost completely unchanged.

So the supposedly huge cuts we're facing are actually pretty small, and we've been pouring money and people into schools for decades without producing any improvements. Those are reasons enough to say "no way" to any federal bailout.

But that's not all the context that taxpayers deserve before Congress and the Obama administration stick them for another $23 billion. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the "stimulus" — already included about $100 billion for education, most of which was intended solely to keep educators employed.

So there is indeed a looming education catastrophe — but it's not funding or job cuts. It is the bailout now moving through Congress that ignores the reality of inefficient public schooling, and adds to the already crushing burden of our federal debt.

Unfortunately, none of that seems to matter to Duncan & Co., who no doubt know the truth yet continue their Chicken Little act. All that matters to them, apparently, is that the unionized public-schooling establishment stays fat and happy.

No Consequences for Government Employees Who Charged Massive Shopping Spree to Taxpayers

May 24, 2010

FOXNews.com - Most employees caught stealing from a company would expect to be fired, forced to return what they took or worse. But a group of government employees accused of going on a massive shopping spree with taxpayer money have yet to face any disciplinary action.

During an 18-month period while the Federal Protective Service was moved from the General Services Administration to the Department of Homeland Security, employees spent thousands of government dollars on everything from clothing and flat-screen TVs to gym memberships and tuition payments, according to the General Services Administration inspector general's office.

But two referrals to federal prosecutors have resulted in no criminal charges in the case, The Washington Times reported Monday.

Investigators said the 21 employees hid more than $100,000 worth of "unauthorized" purchases made with government cards in 2003 and 2004 by not logging them into the computer system that processes the agency's financial transactions.

After the findings of the five-year investigation into the matter were revealed in September, three employees resigned, four retired and five employees faced possible reprimand. No action was taken against nine others, the Times reported.

The abuse of government charge cards is hardly a new problem.

A March 2008 report issued by Government Accountability Office estimated that “nearly 41 percent” of purchase card transactions made from July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006 failed to meet “basic internal control standards.”

One cardholder embezzle more than $642,000 over 6 years from the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service firefighting fund “for personal expenditures, such as gambling, car and mortgage payments” but wasn’t caught until a whistleblower turned her in, the GAO report said.

That cardholder was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of more than $642,000.

In addition, the report said agencies were unable to locate 458 of the 1,058 expensed items the GAO had selected for testing, totaling over $1.8 million in missing goods like “computer servers, laptop computers, iPods, and digital cameras.”

Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste, says more needs to be done to stop this kind of abuse.

"According to the report the FBS workers have absolutely had no consequences. And by consequences I mean punitive but also restitution,” Paige told FoxNews.com. “I don’t know why Congress is not moving to force them to claw the money back. There should be a claw back measure for sure when people have transgressed in this kind of a way whether it rises to the level of criminal prosecution or not."

Paige said since the last GAO report on the issue there’s been an “explosion” in the number of government purchase cards, with 300,000 federal employees currently carrying them. By turning a blind eye when they are abused, she says, the government is inviting more of the behavior.

“If the worst you get is not even a slap on the wrist, you’re not made to pay the money back, you don’t have your name published, you don’t get drummed out of your job, if there are no consequences for this behavior, you’re going to see more and more of it,” Paige said.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment over the phone and has not yet responded to emails from FoxNews.com regarding this issue.