Democrats want to use the big spending package designed to jump-start the staggering economy to send billions to long-term programs to help poor and disabled school children.

President Barack Obama's recovery plan amounts to the biggest increase ever in federal money for schools. Many Republicans say it is not a short-term boost but an immense expansion that will be impossible to roll back.

"What will happen two years from now when the Democrat spending spree comes to an end?" asked California Rep. Buck McKeon, top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee.

"It'll never go away," said Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "You're talking about a permanent increase at a time when we are in the worst financial shape we've ever been in."

The measure making its way through Congress would achieve a long-sought goal of Obama and other Democrats. For the first time, it would fully fund No Child Left Behind, former President George W. Bush's education program. Democrats complain Bush never provided enough money for the kindergarten-through-12th grade program.

Not a coincidence, critics said.

"These are political goals," said Checker Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank. "In other words, other fish are being fried here."

Republicans can only imagine the pressure they will face, once spending goes up, to keep it that way.

Democrats say that is an argument for another day.

"At the moment, my interest is in rebuilding the economy," said Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee.

State governments are making dramatic cuts to education as revenue from sales and property taxes plummet, said Miller, D-Calif. Class sizes are set to rise and hundreds of thousands of teachers have gotten layoff notices, he said.

"This is two-year money," Miller said. "As their revenue base is restored, as sales taxes start to grow, if the economy recovers and home values start to stabilize, they will have to transition to return to reliance on that.