WashTimes to Strickland: Let Those Children Go

In a Sunday editorial (HT to a frequent e-mailer):

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has some explaining to do. He plans to gut the state’s school-voucher program, ending a two-year statewide experiment building upon 12 years of vouchers in the city of Cleveland.

….. How insulting. The savings: $13 million, in a two-year budget totalling (sic) $52 billion.

The governor should explain why students who happen to live in Akron, Cincinnati, Columbus or Dayton do not deserve the same opportunities as those in Cleveland. They are allowed to continue to participate in the state’s 12-year-old voucher program.

The farce of the “not enough money” line is belied by the size and scope of spending, none of which unduly punishes Mr. Strickland’s allies or deals similar death blows to programs used by groups who vote. Take teachers’ unions. This budget may not be a dream for those union bosses, but it nevertheless contains several hundred million more dollars for public schools — slated to receive a 3 percent annual budget increase. Or seniors. The budget funds burgeoning Medicaid costs. Seniors vote, remember.

The editorial also identifies several million in “squeal money” (so named because favored constituencies reacted in that manner) that was restored or added to Gov. Strickland’s original budget, and implies that one would not have to break much of a sweat to find at least $13 million in such items — enough to leave the voucher programs functioning as they currently are.

Not that yours truly has access to this kind of money, but I’m wondering, since Gov. Strickland telling us that funding is the primary issue — If enough money suddenly appeared from private donations to endow the current number of students enrolled in the voucher programs (guaranteeing that funding would remain available in future years for the same number of students), would he let them survive?