More damage from the collapse of the housing bubble

For 10 years, people bought over-priced houses they could not afford without borrowing extreme amounts of money that they would never be able to pay back. When that Ponzi scheme ended and the economy collapsed, the government chose first to bail out the bankers who made those loans.

The losers in that decision? Among others, the nation's kids.

Without bubble-inflated sales, income and property tax revenue, local and state governments are cutting back. With no second round of stimulus on the way from the feds, schools will have to gut their programs to cover these cuts. (FWIW, the bubble didn't inflate property tax revenue in California - Prop 13 decimated that in the mid-1970s, though, and our schools have been suffering that damage ever since.)

Why can't Congress pass another round of stimulus spending to help the nation's schools? Because now that the nation's banks have had their fill, members of Congress suddenly have discovered the deficit they didn't care about when Washington was bailing out Wall Street, paying off the pharmaceutical industry or funding two wars.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com