Fighting over Edujobs, Religion, and Health Care in the States
A pair of Republican senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, have introduced a bill to allow the state access $830 million in education jobs aid, money that is caught in dispute that is part political, part legal.
As readers of this blog know, Congress approved a $26 million "edujobs" measure this summer to provide relief to state governments, and Texas was entitled to an $830 million cut of it.
But the measure also included a provision, backed by Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett and others, that required the state to maintain school funding over the next three years in order to receive the money. Doggett's goal was to ensure that Republican Gov. Rick Perry and state lawmakers did not use the funding to simply make up for budget cuts, as the congressman says they did with earlier federal stimulus aid. Gov. Perry