Obama's New Budget Doesn't Add Up

I don't understand the math for the Department of Education in Obama's new budget.

First, we have a new $8 billion program to get community colleges to actually train people for jobs that are going unfilled.

Second, we have a reduction of college loan interest rates from 6.8% to 3.4%. According to House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member George Mille (D-CA) and Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), this will give more than $2,800 per year to about 7 million undergraduates.

Seven million times $2.800 is about $17.6 billion.

Finally, there's the $2,500 "partly refundable" tax credit for college education. There are about 21 million students currently enrolled in college programs that would qualify for this credit. This tax credit is aimed at "low income families", which the government defines as families earning less than $160,000. Wow. That's almost 4 times the median household income, and includes some families in the top 5% of household income. That's what happens when you let millionaires write the laws: they decide that someone earning $80 an hour is "low income".

Anyway, let's be conservative and assume that only 80% of those 21 million qualify for the credit. That's another $42 billion.

Forty-two billion plus $17.6 billion plus $8 billion is $67.6 billion.

But the article says that the Dept. Of Education budget is only going up by 2.4% (to $69.8 billion).

So there are $67.6 billion in new programs squeezed into a $1.6 billion budget increase?

Which means these proposed expenditures are hiding somewhere else in the budget...