The Homa Files

Last week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was shrilling on behalf of the Chicken Little crowd that because of the Sequester  40,000 teachers would lose their jobs.

His claim was quickly debunked, but he left a lasting impression .. on me, at least.

“Dollars” don’t have emotional impact any more.

So, let’s start thinking in terms of full-time teacher equivalents (FTTEs).

Duncan got his estimate by assuming that an average teacher makes $70,000.

Maybe in Chicago they do.

But, according to PayScale.com the national average  is in the mid-40s.

Let’s do a hard round for arithmetic convenience and call it $50,000.

Here’s what Kerry did, evaluated using the new metric full-time teacher equivalents (FTTEs) …

Secretary of State Kerry is in the middle of his first trip abroad sprinkling around U.S. dollars like they’re penny candies.

First drop: Syrian rebels – whoever the heck they may be – get $50 million.

That converts to 1,000 teachers whose jobs could have been saved …  1,000 FTTEs …damn the Sequester.

Next stop: Egypt.

Bag drop: $250 million … or, 5,000 full-time teacher equivalents.

So, in a couple of short days, Kerry  blew through money that could have been used to save 6,000 teaching jobs.

Simple question: Where’s the outrage?

It’s all a matter of priorities.

P.S. This is a nice way to think about the Feds profligate spending, isn’t it?

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This entry was posted on March 4, 2013 at 6:59 am and is filed under Budget - Deficit, Debt - Deficit, Gov't Waste & Inefficiency, Gov't Spending, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.