Bush Touts Spending He Never Proposed

While President Bush has played a pivotal role in reshaping federal education policy during his 3½ years in office, in some ways his influence on the federal purse strings is less obvious.

Take overall education spending. The Bush administration often talks about the “historic” spending increases for the Department of Education over the past few years. The budget certainly has risen rapidly—by about one-third since fiscal 2001. But the growth rate would have been far more sluggish had Congress heeded the president’s annual spending requests.

Each year, Congress has provided more—sometimes much...