TODAY’S TAKE

President Obama’s plan for the next federal budget year, released Monday (February 14), includes sharp spending cuts that will be painful to residents of many states. At the same time, the vast, $3.73 trillion proposal increases funding for education, transportation and other priorities that state officials value.

The president made clear that he intends to invest in education by appearing at a Maryland middle school to announce the plan, which provides significantly more federal dollars to local schools than the last budget approved by Congress.

Among the most noteworthy line items for states is a $900 million investment in Race to the Top, the federal initiative that encourages states to overhaul their K-12 schools by doling out competitive grants to those that make the biggest and most important changes. Going forward, however, the program will target individual school districts, rather than states, according to The New York Times, which notes that the change “would make it possible, for instance, to channel money to Houston or other districts in Texas that wanted to compete in the Race to the Top initiative but could not because their state declined to participate.”

With the nation’s infrastructure rapidly deteriorating, Obama also wants Congress to pass a huge surface transportation bill that would spend $556 billion over six years on roads, bridges, high-speed rail and other priorities. The plan would spend money that many states have long sought for infrastructure, but it is not yet clear how Obama would pay for his proposal since he opposes an increase in the federal gas tax, as Reuters notes.

Among the components of the budget designed to win support from governors and state lawmakers is a provision that would give states time to shore up their badly underfunded unemployment systems. Dozens of states have borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to pay for extended aid to the jobless, and

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/63xry9WODmQ/story