Flores attacks Hutchison for ‘false facts’ using falsehoods

On Monday, Lt. Gov. candidate and Assemblywoman Lucy Flores put out a press release attacking Lt. Gov. candidate and Sen. Mark Hutchison. Entitled “Hutchison Campaign Running on False ‘Facts.’” The release stated:

Furthermore, claims that he [Hutchison] joined forces with Governor Sandoval to expand the education budget by $500 million are downright false. $1 billion had already been stripped from the education budget; the $500 million “added” barely covers rollup costs associated with expanding numbers of enrolled pupils. Sen. Hutchison’s position as a fighter for education is nothing but misleading. (Emphasis added.)

As I’ve shown before, even a casual look at Nevada’s education budget documents show that state education spending has increased in each of the last four years. While Flores claims $1 billion was “stripped” from the education budget, state education spending through the DSA has increased to its highest levels ever.

As I wrote yesterday,

A review of Nevada’s education budget, however, shows that Nevada’s state education spending through the Distributive School Account will increase from $5,374 per-pupil in Fiscal Year 2013 to $5,676 per-pupil in FY 2015. In addition, state spending on special education and class-size reduction will grow from $263.9 million in FY 2013 to $295 million in FY 2015.

Less than $28 million of Nevada’s increased education spending in FY 2014 and 2015 comes from projected increases in student enrollment at FY 2013 spending levels.

So where did Flores come up with this claim? I don’t know, and I wonder if her campaign does either.

I have called the Flores campaign seeking documentation of this “$1 billion” claim four times. I was even promised an email with documentation. The campaign has provided nothing. I will provide an update if documentation is ever provided.

It is impossible to overstate how important it is to get the facts right here.

Liberal’s solution to education — spending more — hasn’t worked and won’t work, but it won’t be defeated in the court of public opinion if liberals can get away with claiming that record-high spending equals a $1 billion spending cut.