Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Over 30 years ago John Allen Paulos wrote, Innumeracy, a book that that contended (accurately, I believe) the average American’s understanding of mathematics made it impossible for voters to have a rational discourse on budgets.  Among his many suggestions was to frame debates on budgets to the scale that the average homeowner can understand… a recommendation that is echoed in a NYTimes article by Aiyana Green and Steve Strogatz. The article features a graphic depicting the budget President Biden recommended to Congress scaled to a family income of $100,000 and offering this broad brush looks at the result:

…this hypothetical nation-family spends about $144,000 a year, exceeding the budget by about $44,000. Most of the expenditure goes to four big-ticket items: about $29,000 to pay for Social Security, $18,000 for Medicare, the same for Defense and around $14,000 for Medicaid…

Taken together, these four items add up to almost $80,000 in expenses for our nation-family. In addition, we must still pay off the interest on the national debt, for another $7,000, plus $36,000 on other assorted mandatory programs. So exceeding the budget by as much as Mr. Biden is proposing leaves only about $22,000 to spend on the other things we care about, the so-called nondefense discretionary spending.

If one were to apply the rule of thumb that 28% of one’s income should pay for a mortgage– which is, in my framework analogous to the national debt, then this mythical family’s $7,000 for that line item has some room for growth. If we want to add to the debt line, though, we need to scale back on some of the “other assorted mandatory programs”, look at our medical costs and defense spending, and look at the discretionary spending priorities in place…. which brings me to this paragraph:

Want to increase funding to historically Black colleges and universities? Mr. Biden does, and he is asking the nation-family to chip in 36 cents (in these rescaled terms) to that end. What about former President Donald J. Trump’s border wall? Our nation-family spent about $388 on it in 2021. In comparison, Mr. Biden is proposing to spend $255 next year to ensure clean, safe drinking water in all communities and $5 to expand school meal programs. These choices are political ones, but at least now we can wrap our minds around how much money we’re talking about.

From my perspective, this political decision starkly illustrates the difference in the two political parties. The GOP legislature bent to the will of its leader. When he ran for election in 2016, Donald Trump promised that as a result of his ability to make deals MEXICO would fund a “Big Beautiful Wall” along the border and it would not cost the American taxpayers ANYTHING. When that deal did not materialize, he asked his party’s leadership to pay for the wall in their budget and as a result the mythical family earning $100,000 dug into its pockets to pay $388 for that wall. I feel no safer from that expenditure and am dismayed that thousands of families suffered from tainted drinking water and thousands of children went to bed hungry because a fantastical promise was made to voters and “had to be fulfilled”.

We spent billions on a wall that provides no more safety for America but couldn’t afford to spend less than that amount for clean drinking water and school meals? What ARE our values? If we want to have a meaningful debate on the well being of our nation we might start with that question instead of arguing over a non-existent mandate to teach “Critical Race Theory”.