It’s budget time again. And Democrats are once again taking down and dusting off all their human shields and straw people, in order to convince those Americans, who are still unable to think for themselves, that they will die if the government doesn’t provide them with every form of aid from the day of their birth.
So far we have the Obama administration declaring that at least 70,000 children will die if the Republicans pass their spending cuts. No hyperlink to the authoritative study on how they came up with this number because, well, there is none. But, if children could be endangered in any way due to a cut in a program, could we skip the farm subsidies so that we can still make sure kids don’t die if we can help it? Make a note of that.
Then we have all the women who will be dying of breast cancer because they won’t be able to avail themselves of a mammogram at Planned Parenthood if this organization is defunded. Trouble is, Planned Parenthood doesn’t seem to offer mammograms. Oops.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says the nation will lose 1,000,000 jobs if the Republicans pass their cuts. In Democratic lingo, that’s lost and destroyed, instead of saved and created. But, they use the same math to get their numbers.
Such concern for children and families. Yet, on Wednesday of this week, no concern was shown by the House Democrats when Republicans passed the SOAR Act (H.R. 471), which reauthorizes and expands the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, the hallmark school choice program for low income children in the nation’s capital.
186 of House Democrats, and 9 Republicans, voted against the bill, which was sponsored by Speaker John Boehner himself, in the House, and co-sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) in the Senate.
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According to Heritage Action for America, those House members who voted against the measure were protecting the teachers unions and special interest groups that have long wanted to end the successful program.
Heritage Foundation expert Lindsey Burke states that while funding has consistently increased for public schools over the past 30 years, student reading and math achievement levels have not improved. In addition, Burke notes that graduation rates have remained at the same level as during the 1970’s.
Yet, Patrick Wolf, a researcher who conducted various studies of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), reported that 91% of DCOSP students graduate, compared to 70% of students with similar characteristics, and compared to about 55% of all DC public school students.
SOAR will allow the capital district a savings of $15 million. The program provides vouchers of $7,500 to low income, primarily minority students, to attend a private school, but takes no money away from public schools or charter schools.
Speaker Boehner, who once served as chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said of DCOSP, “There’s only one program in America where federal government allows parents from lower-income families to choose the schools that are best for their children, and it’s right here in DC.”
Parents are thrilled with the ability to choose the school that provides their children with the best learning environment for them. And, why not? The President himself chose to send his children to a private school. Yet, the White House dismissed the rigorous evaluation studies of DCOSP, a decision that led the Washington Post to assert that the administration is allowing “ideology to trump evidence.”
No surprise that SOAR was opposed by the ACLU, the NEA, and NOW. Still no surprise that the NAACP opposed the bill, and that this organization is acting at cross-purposes, as it often does, for members of its own minority group.
One more thing. As we continue to hold the Republicans to their pledge to cut spending, let’s also thank them when they come forward to clearly support a main conservative principle: school choice for American families.
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