Cuts to Education Despite Obama's Words

The budget for 2011-2012 has been a heated issue for both Republicans and Democrats. The United States came close to its second government shutdown because the two parties had been unable to decide on a budget that would suit them both. Today, April 12, 2011, the Republicans gave in to some of the demands of the Democrats instead of stubbornly pushing for their own way, an attitude that has been recently exhibited by the Democrats. In an earlier post, I explained how President Obama had declared cuts to education for the next budget as something he will not allow because cutting from the education portion of the budget would be cutting from the future of America and cutting possibly an expansion of the economy. According to Ben Wolfgang of the Washington Times in his article titled "Education cuts coming, but fewer than GOP wanted," the two parties finally agreed on a budget, but there were some cuts to education, despite Obama's declaration that education is untouchable for the 2011-2012 budget:

The final spending deal struck by the White House and congressional leaders spares the Education Department the deeper cuts sought by House Republicans, according to the agreement reached Friday. Under the compromise - the details of which started trickling out late Monday night - the popular Pell Grant and pre-kindergarten Head Start programs are preserved, as is funding for the administration’s Race to the Top initiative.

Other Education Department programs weren’t so lucky, with funding reduced for about two dozen programs, though many of the multimillion-dollar cuts already had been proposed by President Obama in his 2011 spending plan.

 Both parties had to come to some sort of a compromise, with the Republicans getting fewer cuts to the budget, particularly the education portion of the budget, and with the Democrats having to deal with more cuts than they wanted to the education portion of the budget.