More on that Obama “plea” (The WP’s  words, not mine) for $50 billion.

It’s to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” don’t you know.

And, it’s

…a great example of the “Washington Monument Syndrome.” This refers to the bureaucratic practice of threatening to close down the most popular and vital programs in response to prospective budget cuts; it gets its name from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which always threatens it will have to close the Washington Monument if its budget is cut.

The message, in this case, is that if taxpayers — who are already poorer than they used to be — don’t give the states billions of dollars on top of the billions already received through the stimulus, our favorite state employees will end up in the streets without jobs. The goal is obviously to cause enough public outrage to give cover for lawmakers to pass another job bill — in spite of the obvious failure of the previous ones. Veronique de Rugy, “Washington Monument Strategy Alive and Well in Washington,” The Corner, 6/14/10

This should be familiar to almost every voter.

It occurs in every school district, where, when cuts loom, the prospect of cutting a popular sports program, or music program, or an after (or before) school program, is used to stir up a constituency, to “save the program”, with a greater burden assumed by the taxpayers “for the sake of the kids.”

Hereabouts, we call it the “Let’s Cut Soccer Syndrome!”

Look for this manipulative ploy more often, as economic realities intrude on the surreal half-world of education funding.

(h/t Instapundit)