Obama To Tout Education For Midterms

From Politico:

The White House will focus on education this week as an economic issue and political wedge that contrasts Democrats and Republicans, senior administration officials said Sunday in a conference call with reporters.

“The issue of education and reforming education so we can be more competitive in the long term is a fundamental difference between President Obama and Republicans,” said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. “The Republican pledge that was unveiled a few weeks ago would include the largest cut in education in history. ... We think that is inexcusable and irresponsible.”

From Common Dreams:

As schools faced the potential layoff of an estimated 300,000 teachers across the country, Congress dawdled until the second week in August, finally approving $10 billion to save the jobs of about half that number. The catch was that Congress “found” the money by cutting $12 billion in spending on food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)—a measure that the Food Research and Action Center says will hurt 40 million people, almost half of them children, when the cuts take effect in 2014. As Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who voted for the bill, said, “I cannot in good conscience condone what we have taken away. . . . The bill shamefully pits these priorities against each other.”

So Obama takes money from food stamps to hand to schools to ostensibly keep teachers employed, but the states use the money to plug budget gaps or for data systems or just sit on it because they think next fiscal year is going to be even worse than this year.

And then he has the nerve to come around and call the contrast between Dems and Repubs on education "an economic issue."

Please.

Tell that to the family of three you just gave $521 in food stamp cuts to (starting in 2014, of course...always roll the cuts into the future so no one is quite sure who to blame...)

There is NO contrast between Dems and Repubs on these issues.

Both steal from the working and middle classes to give to the rich and powerful.