There was a guest column in the Oregonian Tuesday in which the author was indulging in the political left's favorite pasttime ... twisting facts and statistics in a familiar and transparently partisan attempt to leave readers believing Bush did something bad when he didn't. The author reported that education spending decreased 8.9% during Bush's last four years, which is true but intentionally misleading. The decrease happened during Bush's last two years and the other SIX years he increased it by =>record<= amounts. We don't want to talk about Bush doing more for education than any other president because that doesn't fit the left's template for the Bush years ... that he lied and failed. Here's what the author didn't report based on the Department of Education's own statistics.
Federal K-12 spending actually increased from $38.4 billion in 2000 to $68.6 billion Bush's last year in office which is about a 50% INcrease, adjusted for inflation. No other president has ever come close to that kind of accomplishment. The ONLY decreases on Bush's watch were during his last two years when Democrats controlled the Senate and House and therefore had the power to increase it if they wanted to!
I'll bet that most readers will also be surprised to know that education spending increased from $32.2 billion to only $38.4 billion during Clinton's eight years, which is an inflation-adjusted DEcrease of about 3%. Which president actually deserves criticism? Which deserves credit for, in fact, record education spending?
President Obama recently used the exact same statistical distortion as a basis on which to claim he'll rebuild education spending that Bush broke. Obviously, Bush didn't break it but, in fact, did far better than any other president since the Department of Education was created. President Obama may have his hands full just trying to do as well as Bush.
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