It's For The Children

It's for the children.

There is no line that is used more in justifying more government spending than attaching children to it.

That is particularly true for education spending.

We are constantly told if there was just more money we could make sure no child was left behind.

Never mind that we are now spending over $1 trillion annually on public K-12 schooling.

In D.C., spending is almost $32,000 per year, It is $31,000 in New York.

Credit: https://x.com/StephenMoore/status/2049223389789724933

This narrative is repeated over and over particularly by Democrats and the teachers' unions.

So is the claim that Republicans do not care about education.

In my home state of Ohio the personal income tax was enacted beginning in 1972 based on the primary argument that it was necessary to support education spending and alleviate local property tax burdens.

It is still incredible to think that Ohio somehow survived from its founding in 1803 for 169 years without the necessity of an income tax.

The state lottery was enacted in 1973 once again with the argument that is was necessary "for the children".

Ten years later, as it became apparent that all of the lottery money was not finding its way to education spending as advertised, the legislature earmarked all lottery profits for education.

In 1987, this earmark to education was made permanent as voters approved a constitutional amendment making lottery profits a continuing supplemental revenue stream for education.

Over the years, $34 billion in lottery profits have been transferred to support primary, secondary, vocational and special education in Ohio. 

$1.5 billion was transferred to education from lottery profits in fiscal 2025 alone.

In total, $11.5 billion was provided to Primary and Secondary Education in the 2025 Ohio state budget.

This compares to $1.2 billion in 1975.

State spending on education is up almost 10-fold since 1975.

At the same time, public school enrollment has fallen from 2,243,000 in 1975 to 1,665,000 in 1975---a 25% decrease.

School boards around the state of Ohio argue that they need to increase local taxes to support schools and children because state funding has been inadequate.

A 10-fold increase in overall state funding, which is  a 14-fold increase on a per capita student basis, is inadequate when inflation is 6x over the same period?

At the same time, despite a 25% decrease in student enrollment, the number of teachers in Ohio public schools has increased from 104,926 to 111, 646 over the last 50 years.

The numbers of administrators and student support personnel has grown even more.

What the Democrats and teachers' unions are correct about is that primary and secondary education is receiving much less of the budget pie in Ohio than it did in prior years.

This is undoubtedly true in almost every other state as well.

In 1975, primary and secondary education spending consumed 40% of state general fund expenditures.

In 2025, only 26% of the state budget went to schools.

Higher education spending took an even bigger hit--from 14% of the state budget in 1975 to a mere 7% in 2025.

For context, the size of the state's general fund budget increased 15-fold over this period.

Where is all of the additional state spending going?

Human Services.

Most specifically, Medicaid.

In 1975, the state of Ohio spent $1.1 billion on Human Services of which $359 million was for Medicaid.

In 2025, Ohio spent $23.9 billion on Human Services of which $20.6 billion went to Medicaid.

In 50 years overall spending on Human Services was up 20x.

Spending on Medicaid increased 57x!

State spending on primary and secondary education increased 10x.

What does all of this tell me?

The education lobby should not be looking for the taxpayers to provide more money.

State revenues have increased substantially.

The problem is that Welfare (Medicaid in particular) has devoured an enormous share of state spending over the last 50 years.

Democrats and the teachers' unions should be supporting reforms to social programs such as Medicaid and food stamps to free up more money for education.

However, this would put two large liberal constituencies at odds.

It is much easier for them to demand that the taxpayers pay more and tell everyone that Republicans don't care about children and education because they won't automatically vote for every tax increase that Democrats ask for.

It is also interesting to consider the fact that liberal Democrats today are having far fewer children than conservative Republicans.

A few stats that back that up.

Conservative women have more children than Progressive/Liberal women.

Source: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-growing-link-between-marriage-fertility-and-partisanship

Extremely conservative men have 4 times the kids as extremely liberal men.

In fact, 60% of extremely liberal men have NO children.

Almost half of liberal women have never had a child.

Only 1 in 8 newborn babies born today has a father who is a Liberal.

Link: https://x.com/MichaelARothman/status/2047286558735343896

Considering all of the above, how could it be said that Republicans don't care about education?

By and large, they are the ones that have a real interest in education because conservative Republicans are the ones that have children.

Do the Democrats care about education in the same way?

Is it really "for the children?".

Or is their main interest keeping the teachers' union happy and making sure the education establishment can turn kids from conservative families into future Democrat voters?