Next week, President George W. Bush will submit his eighth and final budget request to the Congress. How has he fared with respect to education budget proposals thus far? Answer: although President Bush made the No Child Left Behind Act, which deals with elementary and secondary education, the hallmark of his education policy, from a federal education budget standpoint, the Bush administration's most lasting legacy thus far is in higher education. The New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project evaluated all the Bush administration's past budget requests and finds that the Bush administration has had relatively little success in enacting its elementary and secondary education budget proposals, but has seen enacted nearly all of its higher education budget proposals, including a major increase in Pell Grant program funding. Key findings are the following: (1) For higher education policy, President Bush successfully used the budget and appropriations process to advance significant reforms; (2) Funding for key federal elementary and secondary education programs increased significantly during President Bush's tenure in office; and (3) However, with the exception of budget proposals directly linked to the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush's efforts to drive elementary and secondary education policy changes through the budget and appropriations process, such as his school voucher and high school reform proposals, have been largely unsuccessful. (Contains 36 endnotes.).

Balanced Budget Gimmicks Enable Case for Making Tax Cuts Permanent The drastic level of cuts in non-defense discretionary spending in this budget, especially in the out years of the budget window, along with unrealistic assumptions about the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and AMT reform, are proposed in order to show, at least on paper, a world where the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cu. [...] Stimulus Status: The Eye of the Storm Momentum in Congress to pass a fiscal stimulus plan has halted for the moment, with the nation's political attention focused on the biggest primary day ever and, to a lesser degree, on the release of the president's FY 2009 budget proposal. [...] The legislators argue that the proposed rule ignores language in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 which preserves the responsibility of the manufacturers to "promptly update their own product labels to reflect the most current safety information available." Both the law and Congress's intent regarding the labeling responsibilities are clear, the letter states, and FDA has no. [...] "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation - to ensure the timely and fair resolution of American's FOIA requests," Leahy stated in the speech. [...] The facts and circumstances to be considered include, but are not limited to, the context for the link on the organization's website, whether all candidates are represented, any exempt purpose served by offering the link, and the directness of the links..." Rev.

"In this book, Bartlett attacks the Bush Administration's economic performance root and branch, from the "stovepiping" of its policy process to the coercive tactics used to ram its policies through Congress, to the effects of the policies themselves. He is especially hard on Bush s enormous new Medicare entitlement and predicts that within a few years, Bush's tax cuts and unrestricted spending will produce an economic crisis that will require a major tax increase, probably in the form of a European-style VAT."--BOOK JACKET.

President George W. Bush submitted his eighth and final budget request to the Congress on Monday. Under the proposal, fiscal year 2009 discretionary spending--spending subject to annual appropriations--would be at the same level as in the prior year for domestic programs and agencies not involved in homeland security efforts. The budget request for the Department of Education fits this general theme. Fiscal year 2009 discretionary spending at the Department of Education would total $59.2 billion, the same level of funding provided in 2008. Despite requesting level funding for the agency as a whole, the administration proposes increases for a number of its existing priority programs, as well as significant funding reductions or eliminations for others. In general, there are few new initiatives or programs proposed--most of the "new" education proposals have been included in previous budget requests.

Introduction / Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane -- Testing and accountability: what have we learned and where do we go? / Deven Carlson -- The limits of policy for school turnaround / Ashley Jochim -- Incentives and inducements: the feds fight federalism / Patrick McGuinn -- Federal efforts to improve teacher quality / Matthew A. Kraft -- The Bush-Obama agenda for education research and innovation: major investment, mixed returns / Robert Pianta and Tara Hofkens -- Why standards produce weak reform / Tom Loveless -- Federal support for charter schooling: a presidential priority / Anna J. Egalite -- Challenging, building, and changing capacity in state education agencies / Sara E. Dahill-Brown -- Sound and fury: education and civil rights in the Bush and Obama administrations / Joshua Dunn -- Conclusion / Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane