of course- Cuts for schools..as long as the rich get those tax cuts- what else matters? Bush logic at it best..

[reeds]

Bush plan eyes cuts for schools, veterans
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration has told officials who oversee federal education, domestic security, veterans and other programs to prepare preliminary 2006 budgets that would cut spending after the presidential election, according to White House documents.
The programs facing reductions — should President Bush be re-elected in November — would also include the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.

Many of the targeted programs are widely popular. Cuts could carry a political price for a president who has touted his support for schools, the environment and other domestic initiatives.

A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said the documents, obtained by The Associated Press, contained routine procedural guidelines so officials could start gathering data about their needs for 2006.

Decisions about spending levels "won't be made for months," said the spokesman, J.T. Young. "It doesn't mean we won't adequately fund our priorities."

Democrats said the papers showed the pressures that a string of tax cuts Bush has won from Congress have heaped onto the rest of the budget.

"The only way we can even begin to pay for these huge tax cuts is by imposing cuts on critical government services," said Thomas Kahn, Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee.

A May 19 memorandum from the White House budget office to agencies said they should assume 2006 spending levels specified in an internal administration database that accompanied the 2005 budget that Bush proposed in February. The government's 2006 budget year begins Oct. 1, 2005.

"If you propose to increase funding above that level for any account, it must be offset within your agency" by cuts in other accounts "so that, in total, your request does not exceed the 2006 level assumed for the agency," the memo read in part.

The memorandum and portions of the internal database were obtained by The Associated Press from congressional officials who requested anonymity. The officials read other portions of the database to a reporter.

Congress is just beginning to consider the 2005 federal budget, which will total about $2.4 trillion. About two-thirds of it covers automatically paid benefits like Social Security, and the remainder — which Congress must approve annually — covers agency spending.

According to the database, that one-third of the budget would grow from the $821 billion Bush requested for 2005 to $843 billion in 2006, or about 2.7%.

But that includes defense and foreign aid spending, which are both slated for increases due in part to wars and the battle against terrorism.

The remaining amount — for domestic spending — would drop from $368.7 billion in 2005 to $366.3 billion in 2006. Though that reduction would be just 0.7%, it does not take into account inflation or the political consequences of curbing spending for popular programs.

"Continuing the strategy of last year's budget, the 2006 budget will constrain ... spending while supporting national priorities: winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland and strengthening the economy," the memorandum said.

The documents show spending for:

• Domestic security at the Homeland Security Department and other agencies would go from $30.6 billion in 2005 to $29.6 billion in 2006, a 3% drop.

• The Education Department would go from $57.3 billion in 2005 to $55.9 billion in 2006, 2.4% less.

• The Veterans Affairs Department would fall 3.4% from $29.7 billion in 2005 to $28.7 billion.

• The Environmental Protection Agency would drop from $7.8 billion in 2005 to $7.6 billion, or 2.6%.

• The National Institutes of Health, which finances biomedical research and had its budget doubled over a recent five-year period, would fall from $28.6 billion to $28 billion, or 2.1%.

• The Interior Department would fall 1.9% from $10.8 billion in 2005 to $10.6 billion.

• The Defense Department would grow 5.2% to $422.7 billion in 2006, and the Justice Department would increase 4.3% to $19.5 billion in 2006.

The documents were first reported by The Washington Post.

[reeds]

Medical research- screw it..environment- screw it..schools- who needs em? Only thing I see that isnt cut is defense..what a shock..we gotta protect this country from Sadaam...

[u2sarajevo]

Originally posted by: reeds
Medical research- screw it..environment- screw it..schools- who needs em? Only thing I see that isnt cut is defense..what a shock..we gotta protect this country from Sadaam...

Sadaam? I don't think so, we already kicked his butt. He is rotting in a military prison. Who we do have to protect ourselves from is Al-Qaeda and the like.

Al-Qaeda was the terrorist organization that brought down the World Trade Center towers and killed over 3000 of our countrymen.

[FishForLunch]

If Kerry is elected he will increase taxes, pump money into schools without reforming the system - at the same time he will respect the right of the terrorists to bomb the crap out our citizens.

[reeds]

"If Kerry is elected he will increase taxes, pump money into schools without reforming the system - at the same time he will respect the right of the terrorists to bomb the crap out our citizens.


Kerry will increase taxes- to the wealthy that can afford it...makes sense to me....

[mavsman55]

Originally posted by: FishForLunch
If Kerry is elected he will increase taxes, pump money into schools without reforming the system - at the same time he will respect the right of the terrorists to bomb the crap out our citizens.

hehehe, couldn't have said it better myself.

[mavsman55]

Originally posted by: reeds
Medical research- screw it..environment- screw it..schools- who needs em? Only thing I see that isnt cut is defense..what a shock..we gotta protect this country from Sadaam...

This is a joke, right?

schools-who needs em?

hate to break this to you pal, but there are hundreds of thousands of schools in the united states today... that certainly shouldn't be the 1st thing on Bush's mind.

Why is defense spending all of a sudden non-important in your mind? Tell me, would you rather be alive going to a mediocre school, or dead and going to a well-funded school? Get a grip.

[Murphy3]

[quote]
Originally posted by: mavsman55

Originally posted by: reeds
Medical research- screw it..environment- screw it..schools- who needs em? Only thing I see that isnt cut is defense..what a shock..we gotta protect this country from Sadaam...

this is a joke, right?

Reeds?

[reeds]

NO JOKE..school spending should NEVER be cut..the population is only increasing..you think Education is expensive? Try IGNORANCE- see how expensive that is

[MavKikiNYC]

Bush's fault, right, Reeds?


NEC to Pay $20 Million in School Fraud Case

By Matt Richtel and Gary Rivlin
05/31/04 12:22 AM PT

Under the settlement, NEC will pay a $4.7 million criminal fine and $16 million to settle the suit brought by the San Francisco schools, including $5.6 million in equipment and services.

Criminal investigations into corruption and waste in the so-called E-rate program, a federal program to bring Internet access to poor schools and libraries, have yielded the biggest legal settlement to date.
NEC Business Network Solutions, a subsidiary of the computer giant NEC, agreed on Thursday to plead guilty to two federal felony counts, one for wire fraud and one for antitrust violation, and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution.

The settlement, announced in federal court in San Francisco, comes amid increasing scrutiny of the multibillion-dollar E-rate program. Congressional hearings on waste and fraud in the program may be conducted as early as next month, according to congressional staff members. Lawyers involved in the case said there were likely to be additional, and even larger, settlements with other technology vendors.

"This is just one piece of a nationwide scheme that is all coming to light," said Eric Havian, an attorney for the San Francisco Unified School District, which tipped off federal prosecutors about the fraud. "There are many school districts that were victimized."
Gerald Kenney, general counsel of NEC America, said in a statement: "We made mistakes with E-Rate. We've acknowledged and accepted responsibility for those mistakes, cooperated fully with the government and taken action to ensure that these problems can't happen again."

Established in 1996 with great fanfare, the E-rate program added a tax to telephone bills, with the proceeds to be distributed mostly to poor and rural schools. The program has been used by school districts to pay for network infrastructure, like routers and switches to direct Internet traffic, computer servers to manage the system and cables to connect it.

Mounting Evidence

The program gave schools the ability to seek competitive bids from vendors to provide the services. But there is mounting evidence that some companies hired to provide equipment and services persuaded schools to forgo competitive bids, inflated their prices or defrauded the E-rate administrators when presenting the final cost for services.
"Schools are being promised million-dollar systems when a system costing $10,000 would make more sense," said John Dunbar of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. "That's one of the flaws of the system. If the schools had vested interest in making sure that the money was being spent wisely, then it wouldn't be so easy to defraud the program."

The case that includes NEC involved a number of companies and individuals accused of conspiring to defraud the San Francisco school district and several other districts across the country. The case led to criminal charges, filed by the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, and a civil lawsuit filed by the San Francisco school district.
According to the civil lawsuit, filed in 2001, the scheme was engineered by a company called Video Network Communications. That company, which was working with several computer companies, helped to bribe at least one school district employee to forgo competitive bids for the network infrastructure, according to the lawsuit.

That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. Last year, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Havian, the attorney for the school district.

Twice Normal Profit

According to the complaint, several computer companies, including the NEC subsidiary, persuaded the district to purchase more equipment than it needed, charging rates that yielded twice their normal profit margins.
"They sold the district stuff it didn't need, didn't want or didn't know what to do with," Havian said.

He said, for example, that NEC had persuaded the district to stock individual classrooms with powerful computer servers when the district needed just a handful of servers to manage the entire system.
In addition, Havian said, NEC then sent a bill to the E-Rate administrators, a quasi-governmental agency called the Universal Services Administrative Company, for tens of millions of dollars more than the actual cost of the equipment.

Havian said the scheme had affected not just the San Francisco school district but five other districts, two of them in Michigan and one each in South Carolina, Arkansas and Wisconsin.
Under the settlement, NEC will pay a $4.7 million criminal fine and $16 million to settle the suit brought by the San Francisco schools, including $5.6 million in equipment and services.

Aimed to Aid Underprivileged
"Congress established the E-Rate program to help educate the underprivileged," said Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco. "This criminal attempt to steal funds from the program comes at the expense of children across the country and is totally unacceptable."

A person answering the phone at the Universal Services Administrative Company in Washington said the company would not have anyone available to comment on the NEC settlement until next week.
A spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee said that staff members had been looking into irregularities in the E-rate program since early last year. Hearings by the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee could come as early as June.

© 2004 International Herald Tribune. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company i/a/w MarketWatch.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2004 ECT News Network. All rights reserved.

[mavsman55]

Originally posted by: reeds
Try IGNORANCE- see how expensive that is

Ignorance isn't expensive. And since when is Bush being ignorant? I wouldn't consider avenging and justifying the deaths of thousands of innocent American civilians being ignorant. But then again, oh yeah, education is more important than that. My bad.

[madape]

Starve the leviathan. Put more money in the private sector.

No more government tit for you to suck on, Reeds.

[dude1394]

Whiners on the left, whiners on the right, whiners in front of me, whiners in back of me.

[reeds]

Just to make you happy DUDE- thats FRENCH WHINE to you!!!lol

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: reeds
Just to make you happy DUDE- thats FRENCH WHINE to you!!!lol

Not tonight, a fine austrailian vintage. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I was looking for a cabernet from italy but couldn't find one. Too bad about spains appeasement, they had some nice reds. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[reeds]

"Not tonight, a fine austrailian vintage. I was looking for a cabernet from italy but couldn't find one. Too bad about spains appeasement, they had some nice reds. "

On a serious note DUDE- I just started wine drinking myself...actually went to NAPA valley last summer..ever been?? We went to Mondovi Vinyards..it was great...Bought a few bottles..does the California wine compare to that in France? Sorry- this should probably be a PM...

[sike]

to quote the famous theologian/philosopher fred durst, "i know why you want to hate me, cause hate is all the world's even seen lately".....

[dude1394]

I don't particularly like pms, I'm too nosy and I like a lot of posts. .. I like to keep it all out in the open. Actually the French wine is really excellent that I've tasted. California wine DOES compare favorably however. In fact I was really tempted to get a california wine tonight and bought a really nice Fetzer Cabernet a couple of weeks ago. 25 bucks which for me is pretty steep. It was interesting I was in france oh about 3 months ago and was talking to the locals about wine. It's almost like micro-brews over there. Each region markets their wine not by the grape cabernet, chardonay, etc. but by the region. Pretty good stuff.

[reeds]

Its funny- 10 years ago I would have never imagined myself drinking wine...strange how things change

Robert Mondovi Savignon Blanc is very good.. bright fruit, floral, mineral and spice flavors with a crisp balance..since I was at his vinyard, I have been drinking mostly wines in that region of California..someday soon I will branch out and try other wines from around the world...

[u2sarajevo]

Reeds.... go a little north and try some Oregon Pinot Noir. It's red wine, but there is nothing finer.

If you have it in your area, get Ponzi Wineries Pinot Noir.

[reeds]

I will look for it- I am not certain we have it here in Wi..but thanks for the tip...

[madape]

Funding for the Department of Education rose 58% during Bush's first three years, a bigger increase than during the previous eight years under Clinton.

[LRB]

Education should be primarily be the state and local governments concerns, most especially below the secondary education level. If education is so damned important, and I believe it to be so, then we should administer it's funding at a level where the people can participate and have a highly vested interest in it's use. This is not possible doing it through the federal government. Many communities have many different needs in education and a behemouth like the federal government does not have the flexibility to meet those needs the same as our state and especially local governments do. Kiki's article above is a fine example of how the federal system is continually exploited.

Now it we look at our national defense. The federal government is the only reasonable entity to adminster this. So it makes sense. Also without defense to keep terrorist from blowing up schools, we'll need one hell of a lot more funds to keep rebuilding them.

This is not a case of defense versus education. It is a case of adjustion priorities to meet the current needs and assigning them to the entities best qualified to provide for the public good.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: LRB
Education should be primarily be the state and local governments concerns, most especially below the secondary education level. If education is so damned important, and I believe it to be so, then we should administer it's funding at a level where the people can participate and have a highly vested interest in it's use. This is not possible doing it through the federal government. Many communities have many different needs in education and a behemouth like the federal government does not have the flexibility to meet those needs the same as our state and especially local governments do. Kiki's article above is a fine example of how the federal system is continually exploited.

Yes, many of the administrative issues are best handled locally. Cirriculum is not a tue local issue tho, and national standards (such as what No Child Left Behind mandated) are important to apply IMHO.

BTW it was the local school districts which were found to be susceptable to bribes, and the lack of ability to correctly review the equipment needs, which led to the scandal mentioned in Kiki's article, not any national education orgs.

[LRB]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

Yes, many of the administrative issues are best handled locally. Cirriculum is not a tue local issue tho, and national standards (such as what No Child Left Behind mandated) are important to apply IMHO.

BTW it was the local school districts which were found to be susceptable to bribes, and the lack of ability to correctly review the equipment needs, which led to the scandal mentioned in Kiki's article, not any national education orgs.

Curriculum should be a local issue. While it is beneficial to have have national standards, it still should be up to the local government to decide whether their schools will adhere or not adhere to a particular standard. Further more we do not need the federal government to set nor administer national standards. Separate organizatons have been and can be created to do this.

Further more nowhere has it been better demonstrated that we have a problem with bribery than at a federal level. However most of this bribery is tried to be explained away as "campaign funding". It's still bribery though. And the federal government is not as flexible to curb local bribery as the local government is itself. There are still laws against bribery, and I don't have a problem with the FBI or other federal law enforcement agency investigating and prosecuting bribery if we want to make it a federal law not to missappropriate education funds via bribery. But that is about the limit that I would like to see the Federal government involved at the primary education level.

[mavsman55]

Originally posted by: madape
Funding for the Department of Education rose 58% during Bush's first three years, a bigger increase than during the previous eight years under Clinton.

I'm waiting for reeds' response on this one. Good research madape.

[dude1394]

Funding for the Department of Education rose 58% during Bush's first three years, a bigger increase than during the previous eight years under Clinton.

Scoreboard dude.