Ali Frick runs some numbers and does a little reporting and concludes that Mark Sanford’s anti-stimulus posturing could imperial the job status of as many as 7,500 South Carolina teachers:
John Cooley, deputy superintendent for finance and operations at the South Carolina Department of Education, explained that the stimulus funds would help fill a 15 percent budget cut already inflicted on the school system. Without those funds, Cooley estimated that up 7,500 teachers (15 percent of the state’s 50,000 teachers) could be negatively impacted. But he cautioned, “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we’ve reduced 7,500 teachers” or that all 7,500 will lose their jobs.
These kind of education cutbacks directly deepen the recession, by further contracting individual spending power. The teachers who see job losses or salary cuts suffer, but so do all the businesses they patronize and all those business’ suppliers. Meanwhile, in the long run the state gets a less-educated workforce, which means more inequality and lower average wages.