Another debate over spending erupted in Washington this week as Congress passed yet another stimulus bill, this one for $26 billion. The additional spending will send $16 billion to states for Medicaid programs and $10 billion for public schools to avoid teacher layoffs.

Following the votes in Congress and praise for this latest spending plan by President Barack Obama, a few questions arise.

One troubling aspect of the additional spending is the fact that $12 billion of the $26 billion was cut from the federal Food Stamp program.

Is it not possible for Congress to find $12 billion from some special interest tax break or some ineffective federal spending in a $3.5 trillion budget? Why cut from Food Stamps? How can Congress propose cutting money from Food Stamps at a time when more and more people depend on the program?

Several questions come up when thinking about Congress sending billions more taxpayer dollars to public schools. A large portion of the original $787 billion stimulus package also went to teachers, but it was sold as an infrastructure investment in "shovel ready jobs."

If protecting teaching jobs is the priority, which Obama and congressional Democrats insist, will the money come with strings attached? One reasonable provision would require that any teacher raises awarded in contract negotiations in the past three years would be reversed to allow the $10 billion to preserve the maximum number of teacher jobs.

How about mandating that teachers benefiting from the stimulus money contribute a minimum percentage of their salaries to help pay for their health insurance premiums — say, at a level comparable to private sector workers?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York announced recently that he would roll back teacher raises in the city to save teacher jobs. It's a reasonable, practical approach.

To save even more teacher jobs, Congress could have said that accepting the stimulus money would require teachers unions to agree to a 5 percent pay cut, something many private sector workers have had to endure in this weak economy.

It is not fair for this money to be spent without strings attached, requiring teachers to live with the real-world hardships that so many private sector workers have had to accept.

For teachers, or anyone else for that matter, to be able to enjoy a pay raise based on federal stimulus money while most taxpayers are struggling under pay freezes or pay cuts is unfair and wrong.

This is not about teachers — it's about one group being insulated from reality while others suffer.

Most Americans see the unfairness in this. Why doesn't Washington, D.C., see it?

One explanation could be the symbiotic relationship between Democrats and the public employee unions that spend hundreds of millions of dollars and work to elect Democrats. The consequences of that feedback loop are clear and troubling.

There also is the fear that the additional federal stimulus money will prevent many schools from having to make the cost-cutting moves necessary to live within their means — or what local taxpayers can afford.

New York's Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch warned that "the federal stimulus has led states to increase overall spending in these core areas, which, in effect, has only raised the height of the cliff from which state spending will fall if stimulus funds evaporate."

And there can be no doubt that federal stimulus spending will, someday, end. Then what will school districts do?

Taxpayers in most districts are at their limit. They cannot absorb any more hits to their stagnant or shrinking household budgets.

For Congress to pass along still more taxpayer billions without reasonable strings attached, or wage and benefit concessions from teachers unions, is irresponsible.