The Government Should Not Cut Education Budgets To solve Its Financial Problems - Research Paper Example

The proposed way to give the United States a continued competitive edge in today’s complex world is to give students in the U.S. an excellent education. Educational funding should not be used to solve the national budget crisis because: 1) money needs to be cut from the national defense budget, which is overcompensated; 2) education is too important to be relegated to lesser funding; and 3) cutting the budget for education will promote an elitist society because many people will see an education as a privilege and not a right.

A Bloated National Defense Budget Defense spending being cut could be the solution to solving not only the nation’s budget crisis, but could also be used to funnel more money into education as a result. More money for the budget would then allow one to logically then conclude there would be more money for education in the national budget. "Consistent with US military needs and declining threats, defense spending will be cut [emphasis added], which will help reduce the deficit and provide funds to invest for economic growth.

"1 Unfortunately, military spending in the United States has gotten out of control. “Government control over the military's budget is also deficient, because the government lacks the ability to estimate the army's needs and to evaluate the manner in which its budget is utilized.”2 First when Pres. George W. Bush invaded Iraq without consulting Congress or the international community, he pledged American troops to eight years of combat in Iraq—from which the country still has not recovered.

It has been ten years that the United States has been engaged in combat in Afghanistan as well. Both wars have drained the U.S. of its budget surplus which was in effect when Pres. Bill Clinton left office. That surplus quickly dwindled with the advent of the two wars. If less money was spent on wars and more money was pumped into education, perhaps schools all across the country would not require restructuring due to failing Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks since the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act.

America, frankly speaking, must prioritize in order to realize what is really important—having an educated public to make good decisions, or keeping the American people safe from all the possible dangers of the world by getting involved in every major conflict in the globe that could potentially endanger vested U.S. interests. These are difficult choices but they must be made, because the country’s energies are being divided in a haphazard fashion. Education: Too Important to Ignore The problems began when President Bush got elected to office in 2000 and started whittling down the surplus Bill Clinton had left behind when he left the office of the President—severely making cuts to education.

“[President Bush’s] budget cut…funding for elementary and secondary education, denying 3.2 million children the extra reading and math help they were promised by the so-called No Child Left Behind Act.”3 Although President Barack Obama came to office in January of 2009 promising “change,” unfortunately he is also making cuts to education, including grants for history. “The President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Department of Education once again eliminates Teaching American History Grants (TAH) as a separately funded program…