Education Funds Bickering

I read more about the Perry/Doggett federal education funds issue (an unusually "balanced" editorial from the Statesman- hmm!). Turns out it's a pissing contest between the two of them, where students and academic staff lose. Doggett started it, by attaching two specifications to the bill... for Texas only:

1) these federal funds cannot be offset in any way by a decrease in education funding by the state of Texas
2) Texas must split the money using Title I federal guidelines instead of our state guidelines

The state still has plenty of wasteful things they can cut before cutting education, so #1 sounds fine to me. And as a federal taxpayer, I think the federal government should be allowed to put any restrictions they want to on money they're giving out to states. So, #2 is also perfectly reasonable. I have no problem with the requirements, but Doggett should have put them on ALL states. Why just Texas? So he could stick it to Goodhair.

Perry, for his part, is lobbing the whole thing back because he's irritated by anything that doesn't allow Texas to act as its own country, and (probably rightly) irritated that Doggett is flexing his political muscle in his face.

Please stop dorking around and take the money, before they earmark it for something else. GAH.

We saw The Green Hornet yesterday. It was good!!