Houston Rep. Lee Opposes Budget Cuts

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of the 18th Congressional District in Texas wrote an editorial for the Houston Chronicle published March 10 attacking most of the proposed budget cuts made by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  In her editorial, titled "Republican budget cuts will hurt American public", Rep. Lee pleads her case against the intended shutdown of government activities and states that the Republican majority "would rather throw a tantrum" than proceed in a thoughtful, bipartisan way.  Lee also writes that proposed budget cuts would cause schoolchildren to go without education.  This remark especially stings me because of my belief that education starts in the home; my mom and my older sister took the necessary steps to ensure that when I entered Kindergarten at age 5, I was reading at a very high level and could already perform the basic four mathematical functions.  Last month on his radio show, Mark Levin took a call from a woman who was bashing the educational system in general because her son at age 16 struggled with basic schoolwork such as reading comprehension and had repeatedly failed standardized tests, which as most of us in Texas know are a complete joke and a severe waste of time.  Teachers in the Houston Independent School District receive performance bonuses, the largest of which was $25,000, based on how their students perform and improve on standardized testing.  Levin asked her how much time she spent working with her son throughout his adolescence and she responded by saying that it was not her job to ensure that her son was well-educated and prepared for post-high-school life and that the public education system had failed him.  I strongly believe that you only get out of education what you put into it.

Lee devotes quite a bit of her editorial to budget cuts and how they would effect the economy in its current state.  She wants to follow the advice of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that recommend halting cuts until 2012 or 2013.  I believe this has been one of the primary problems lawmakers have caused by standing pat and hoping things will recover or alternately throwing money at large corporations whose problems mainly resulted from major mismanagement, plowing us ever further into debt.