Big bucks for education

There are many issues that I would like to write about right now, especially with the General Assembly in session. However, Ron Charest provided an answer to my previous question, which was: “In
today’s dollars, exactly how much money (per child/per year) would be required to provide an adequate education?” Mr. Charest is curious as to how I will respond to his answer.

In his letter to the editor, Mr. Charest stated:

“Data360.org shows that in 2008, U.S. defense spending per capita (per person) was $1,960. Note that this is federal spending, not state or local. Sourcebook.governing.com shows our national average
per capita K-12 education spending in 2006 was $1,763. However, the U.S. Census Bureau shows that only 9 percent of this money is federal, with 47 percent from state funds and 44 percent from local
sources. Therefore, the average per capita federal spending on K-12 education is only $159. As 91 percent of all education funding is provided by state and local sources, the actual amount per state
varies, with Virginia spending $1,742 per capita.”

I may be wrong, but according to the numbers provided, it seems to me that the per capita spending for education and defense are rather close. If per capita spending in Virginia in 2006 was $1,763 for K-
12 education and per capita spending in 2008 was $1,960 for defense (assuming these are the most recent years for which data was available), then we are talking about a difference of $197 per person.

I am ignoring the source for these amounts (federal, state or local), as it is not important with regard to the core issue — how much money should be spent per child on K-12 education. The fact is that
the federal government is tasked with defending our nation, and states and localities are tasked with educating children. It is all taxpayer money.

Mr. Charest stated that, “In consideration of Thomas Jefferson’s views on education, we should be spending at least as much on education as on defense.” Mr. Charest concludes: “With current levels of
funding from state and local sources, Virginia’s total per capita education spending should be $3,545.”

Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Charest is suggesting that we ignore how much the state and locality spend on education and increase federal spending to match that which is spent on our national defense.
That doesn’t seem reasonable.

Taxes are way too high. Our government is demanding more than a third of what we make (if hidden taxes, fees and unnecessary regulations are included, that amount reaches 50 percent). Yet this is not
enough for some.

My views are also those of Thomas Jefferson. However, Jefferson was a firm believer in limited government. Instead of increasing the size of government, he undoubtedly would have fought to reduce the
size and financial demands of our government. Rather than demand that we increase taxes to spend as much on education as we do on defense; I argue that Jefferson would have questioned why such a
large percentage was being wasted on both.

Thomas Jefferson was adamantly opposed to a standing army. We need to reduce our military force to one that can adequately defend our nation from threats. This can be sufficiently accomplished with
a navy and air force.

We are the only nation that can win a war and be worse off for it. I was opposed to our invasion of Iraq. When it is clear that our nation is threatened, we should declare war, raise an army and attack
another country. This was what we did with Afghanistan, not Iraq. However, Congress (including Democrats) abdicated their responsibility and voted to give President Bush the power to invade Iraq without
a formal declaration of war. This is something that has been conveniently forgotten by the Democrats.

Now that we are in Iraq and have defeated Saddam and the Iraqi military, we should require Iraq to pay to rebuild itself. Instead our government is spending taxpayer money to rebuild a country that has
one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

We also have our military deployed throughout the world defending many other nations that can then spend their tax money on things other than national defense — we subsidize dozens of nations with
American taxpayer dollars.

So my conclusion is that we need to reduce spending for both military and education, remove the pork from both, use what is being taken from taxpayers more effectively and try to fix the fact that, on
average (as mentioned in a previous column), only $45,000 of $185,000 per year/per class of 20 students is going to teacher salaries.

James Simpson lives in Lake Ridge.