Though it was not considered an election year issue earlier, an education policy analyst points out that Paul Ryan's proposed cuts to education spending could be in the spotlight now that he is a candidate for vice president.
Democrats claim that Ryan's proposals to change the eligibility rules for Pell Grants and cut billions from Title I would be devastating. But Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute believes the cuts are a move in the right direction.
"That's hard to do, and the Obama administration has shown why it's hard to do: because as soon as you say you should cut something, you are portrayed as being against education, or against poor people, or any number of horrible things," McCluskey explains. "It simply isn't true, but that's easy to smear you with, because people always tend to think well, spending money on something means you care about people and you care about that thing."
Given that President Obama has spent an unprecedented amount on education, the analyst asserts that money alone does not produce better academic outcomes.
"You can look at especially the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, because those are one of the few things we have consistent, long-term scores for," he notes. "And you see they barely move while federal spending on education, overall education spending has skyrocketed. The spending doesn't result in better educational outcomes."
House Republicans passed Ryan's proposed plan last year with no Democratic support.