AEI's Rick Hess (our Gadfly Show co-host) picks up on some themes elaborated at last week's ???Left at the Altar??? event (video now available!) in this National Review Online article:
Despite the buyer's remorse that suffused conservative opinion on George W. Bush's education agenda, the real problem was not his administration's willingness to compromise with the Left on No Child Left Behind, K-12 reform, or higher education; this was appropriate and inevitable for a governing party. The problem was how it compromised. The administration embraced the expedience of grand gestures and good intentions instead of relying on a more principled position shaped by fiscal restraint, respect for government's limitations, and attention to the importance of incentives.
He also weighs in on the stimulus bill moving through Congress:
When it comes to education, conservatives can identify the conditions under which they might view the proposed aid more warmly by focusing on incentives, cost-effectiveness, and fiscal restraint. States and localities would have to demonstrate that they were reallocating dollars from less effective programs and services to more effective ones. School systems would identify and remove poor teachers and redirect resources to the best teachers and to those with scarce skills. Federal aid would be conditioned on its recipients' pursuing a course back to financial sustainability by unwinding unaffordable promises of benefits and pensions, as has been the case with Detroit's automakers.
Without these conditions???in fact, given the stimulus's blatant disregard for such measures???even those willing to countenance a constructive federal role are right to regard the proposed aid as ill-conceived and wasteful.
In view of the splits on the left, there are substantial opportunities for creative conservatives to help shape the debate and wield influence. While conservatives will do nothing more than make a political statement if they simply say ???no,??? they have the votes to ensure that the legislation is smarter, more fiscally responsible, and more attentive to incentives and unintended consequences than it would be if they sit this one out.
Stay tuned for my thoughts on why conservatives should get to ???yes.???
