400,000 Teachers or 400,000 Empty Promises?

More likely the latter:

When is 400,000 not 400,000?

When the president is on the campaign-trail, of course.

The 400,000 number is included in a Tuesday White House report titled “Teacher Jobs at Risk.” It was released a few hours before President Barack Obama was scheduled to use a campaign trail speech in Texas to demand GOP support for his $447 billion “American Jobs Act” stimulus-bill.

“The president’s plan will more than offset projected layoffs, providing support for nearly 400,000 education jobs — enough for states to avoid harmful layoffs and rehire tens of thousands of teachers who lost their jobs over the past three years,” said the report.

That money will support 39,000 teachers in Texas, 37,000 in California and 14,000 in Ohio, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during a Tuesday press conference arranged to tout the report....

But administration officials quickly backtracked on the 400,000 number once they were quizzed by reporters during the press conference.

The money would only support 400,000 teachers for one year, leaving state and local government to pick up the tab every subsequent year, admitted Katharine Abraham, a member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

This is very similar to Bill Clinton's "100,000 cops" initiative in the 90's which was passed with great fanfare. Unfortunately, the bill only provided funding for two years and after the money ran out most of those 100,000 cops were laid off when their cities couldn't afford to pay for them.  Any benefit that might have been achieved is quickly gone...along with the money.

Obama's idea of stimulus is keeping public employee unions from feeling the full effects of his economic policies with stunts like this.  We've already thrown away a trillion on the first stimulus and we don't need to waste another $500 billion on this.