A "Smart" Veto

I just read a little headline that made my day. On Monday, November 19, Mr. Bush vetoed a proposed bill that would have provided $271 million dollars for education technology and added $1.2 billion to career and technical education. I realize we can't have every budget proposal approved, but don't career-specific schools seem pretty important? How many people go into these schools after they graduate high school instead of going to college? While I myself aim for college, it's no surprise to me that many people would rather skip all the "fluff" (aka generals) that they'd have to take and just focus on their career path. I believe in getting a broad education that covers many different areas, but it's not for everybody.

Back to the bill, on this same day, a $471 billion defense budget was approved. Yes, defense is also incredibly important, but as I don't feel it's going the right way either I think they could have spared just a little bit of that to put toward education. To me, $272 million just doesn't seem like anything at all compared to $471 billion. When is education going to become as important to people as it should be?

Maye defense wouldn't be the best thing to take this money out of, who's to say. However, how many ridiculous services does the government provide that it could do away with? If the government was less involved with day-to-day life providing this aide and that aide to everybody and maybe devote it all to more important things, we could afford better education.