They’re calling it “conservative.” That’s the word being tossed around Montgomery this week after a House committee moved a staggering $10.4 billion education budget. But let’s look past the press releases and at the actual math.
A 5.7% increase is not a “return to stability.” In the real world, when a family or a small business sees their costs spike, they tighten their belts. In government, “conservative” apparently means spending half a billion dollars more than you did last year. Since when did a $569 million spending hike become a victory for the taxpayer?
The headlines are focused on the 2% cost-of-living adjustment for teachers. While everyone wants quality educators to be compensated, we have to ask: where is this money coming from? It isn’t appearing out of thin air. It is being extracted from the pockets of Alabamians who are already struggling with the hidden tax of inflation—inflation caused by the very federal printing presses that “bolstered” our state budgets with COVID funds in the first place.
We are told this budget is a stabilization because the federal “sugar high” of pandemic relief is wearing off. But instead of returning to a sustainable, baseline level of spending, the state is simply institutionalizing those inflated numbers. We are building a massive, permanent skyscraper on a foundation of temporary federal debt.
True education reform doesn’t come from a bigger price tag; it comes from freedom. As long as we continue to funnel billions into a centralized, top-down bureaucracy, we aren’t “investing in the future”—we are investing in the status quo.
If we want to help teachers and students, we should stop trying to manage every cent from a committee room in Montgomery. We should be talking about returning this money to the parents and letting the market, not a $10.4 billion government monopoly, decide the best path for our children.
Until we learn that you can’t spend your way to prosperity, “conservative growth” will remain nothing more than an oxymoron.
