The Chicago public schools will expand its Arabic-language program to three more high schools, thanks to a three-year, $888,000 federal grant announced this morning.
[…]Already, Arabic is offered at three Chicago high schools — Lincoln Park, Roosevelt and Lindblom.
It’s also offered at seven Chicago elementary schools — Durkin Park, Agassiz, Belding, LaSalle Language Academy II, Marquette Tech and Volta.
In all, about 2,000 students take Arabic in Chicago’s schools.
The new federal grant, on top of $1.6 million in state and federal funds the schools already have gotten, will fund the expansion to three additional high schools that have yet to be identified.
Wasteful government spending is the reason why we have 10.2% unemployment. Democrats think that massive federal grants to public schools stimulate the economy. On the other hand, George W. Bush cut taxes by 2.2 trillion, and unemployment dipped down below 5%.
This article from the National Review is awesome. (H/T ECM)
Excerpt:
The odds that the stimulus package would “create or save” millions of jobs, per the administration’s promises, were never good. The government is borrowing enormous amounts of money to pay for the stimulus. That money should be funding job creation in the private sector. Instead, it is going to shore up insolvent spendthrift state governments, to expand Medicaid and unemployment benefits, and to lay the groundwork for an aid-dependent green-energy sector that is going to drain the nation’s resources for years to come.
[…]If we divide the number of dollars spent by the number of jobs the White House claims were saved or created, the result is a cost of $160,000 per job.
[…]America’s private sector is resilient, and it will bounce back. Laying too much of the blame at Obama’s feet risks setting him up to take the credit for the comeback when things inevitably improve. Republicans’ arguments should focus on the long term. Obama’s decision to double-down on the nation’s bad housing bet risks reinflating the real-estate bubble. The new taxes associated with his health-care and energy bills will dampen growth and weaken the recovery. The debt he is piling up has unnerved our creditors, and his spending sprees are distorting the allocation of resources in our economy.
[…]The president just signed yet another extension of unemployment benefits, stretching the eligibility period to nearly two years in some states. The bill funds the additional benefits by extending a payroll tax on employers that was scheduled to expire at the end of the year. In other words, the administration is simultaneously providing incentives for workers not to work and for employers not to hire them.
First Lady Michelle Obama visited the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington Tuesday. She devoted much of her talk to “the growing threat of obesity, particularly childhood obesity” in the United States, and she touted HHS’s recently-announced plan to spend $373 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on plans to, among other things, improve the healthfulness of foods in vending machines.
The first lady did not discuss how such work might stimulate the economy or speed economic recovery. But she had glowing praise for the stimulus’ role in fighting obesity. “Congress and the president included $1 billion for prevention and wellness programs in the Recovery Act,” she told the crowd of cheering DHS workers, “and that includes funding for initiatives that will give communities the resources they need to address the obesity epidemic in their communities. This includes $373 million announced last month that would be available for communities that put together comprehensive plans to reduce obesity –- $373 million — and that would include everything from incentivizing grocery stores to locate in underserved areas; it could include improving meals at school; to getting more healthy, affordable foods into vending machines; to creating more safe, accessible places for people to exercise and play; and a whole lot more.”
How does this stimulate the economy? I understand how it allows socialists like Michelle Obama to primp and preen in front of crowds and cameras, but how does it help unemployed Americans to earn a paycheck?
WINTERY KNIGHT 