Where Are the Children in President Bush’s Budget?
When President George W. Bush released his $3.1 trillion Fiscal Year 2009 Federal Budget on February 4, it was a clear statement that he has far less regard for our nation’s children than for the richest most powerful Americans and far more interest in waging war than in waging peace. Permanent tax cuts for the richest Americans and increased war spending are the anchors of this White House budget.
The federal budget is not just a spending plan, it reflects our nation’s deepest priorities. Even a cursory analysis of President Bush’s spending proposal reveals a failure in many areas to construct a budget that protects the well-being of children in low- to middle-income families. Today 12.8 million children live in poverty, an increase of 1.2 million children since the President took office. If adopted by Congress, the Administration’s budget threatens to increase the number of children in America who are poor, uninsured, and lack access to quality early childhood and education programs.
President Bush’s plan would cut the budget for Medicaid, the frontline program that makes health care accessible to the nation’s poorest children. And while the president did propose a larger but still woefully small five-year increase in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) than he did last year, it is still not enough even to cover all currently enrolled children, much less make program improvements or enroll any of the more than 9.4 million uninsured children in America — whose numbers have increased by over one million in the past two years. President Bush proposes to eliminate the Emergency Medical Services for Children program, which supports the nation’s nearly 60 independent children’s teaching hospitals as well as the Children’s Graduate Medical Education program, which trains 4,700 pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In addition to tens of billions of dollars in cuts to vital programs, the president’s budget also calls for increased restrictions on state efforts to cover uninsured children. Last summer, without congressional approval, the Bush administration changed the SCHIP and Medicaid rules for providing health coverage to children with family incomes that exceed 250 percent of the federal poverty level ($53,000 for a family of four). This was a backdoor effort to circumvent the congressional legislative process and reduce federal support for children’s health coverage.
In his current budget proposal, Mr. Bush seeks to extend these harmful new rules to more children and prohibit states from providing health coverage to uninsured children in families with incomes that exceed 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($42,400 a year for a family of four) unless certain unrealistic conditions are met. Among these conditions is a requirement that states assure specific levels of employer-sponsored health coverage — something that state officials have no authority to regulate. States would also be required to impose a 12-month waiting period before enrolling a child in SCHIP, without any exceptions — even parental loss of employment or death. These changes would affect at least 26 states that already cover children above 200 percent of the poverty level.
The Bush budget assaults vital nutrition programs for children. This is the fourth year in a row President Bush has proposed changes that would eliminate food stamps for more than 300,000 people in low-income families with children, according to the Food Research and Action Center. His budget plan does not include enough funding to meet the expected needs of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). For the third year in a row, the president proposes to eliminate funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program that would halt the distribution in an average month of nutritious food packages to more than 473,000 low-income mothers, children under age six, and seniors.
The president’s budget would cut funding for other basic needs such as the Section 8 housing voucher program, a rent subsidy for low-income families. The funding reductions contained in his plan would result in at least 100,000 fewer such households receiving assistance, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The president’s proposed addition of $149 million for Head Start will not meet projected increased costs, let alone provide funding for the hundreds of thousands of children who are eligible for Head Start but are not in the program. And his raise for Pell Grants will not keep pace with the skyrocketing costs of a college education. It is astonishing that Mr. Bush is asking Congress to eliminate 47 programs in the U.S. Department of Education that would disproportionately affect low-income, minority and at-risk children including, for example, Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants that benefit college students from America’s poorest families.
Taken as a whole, President Bush’s budget plan is a profound rejection of our nation’s most vulnerable children. When he requests $675 billion for overall military spending in fiscal year 2009, an 11 percent increase over this year, but can’t ensure that children from low-income families have basic nutrition, health care and quality education, it’s time for President Bush to rethink his budget priorities.
Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children’s Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
I notice that whenever the topic is women or children - not many people respond. Guess it’s not important enough.
I’ve been reading Ms. Edelman’s articles for years now. Thank you, Ms. Edelman, and shame on our government, and on us.
since when did pro-life mean being proactive about protecting life?
welcome to the US under the republican administration of george w. bush.
waiting in the wings to take his place…
John W. McHagee.
The “children” are the most critical element in Bush’s budgets. They are the one’s who will pay (in money and quality of life) for Bush’s huge corporate welfare and military programs.
Be reminded that health and education are not issues that the government of a third world nation is concerned about.
The importance of life for our “pro-lifers” apparently ends at the moment of birth. After that, the “magic of the market” kicks in and makes that life
worthless…unless, of course, it can be exploited for profit.
My metaphysical speculation tells me that life begins at conception, but does that mean that its value ends at birth unless it produces surplus-value
for someone else to consume? No! If human life has any value at all, it has
value at all times, and we are, consequently, responsible for each other…
at all times.
For conservatives, life is an abstraction to be trotted out when there is a moral ax to grind; for the rest of us, life is a process…and an actual reality which generates needs.
I think we have had about enough of “compassionate conservatism”(that oxymoron). “No child left a dime” sounds like a cheap shot at conservatives,
but it really isn’t. It is a statement of the morality of our compassionate
conservatives…and a cold, hard fact.
In any “civilized society”, it is the “responsibility” of the society to care for, and to provide for the needs of the children. For shrub to claim his duty is to protect uh-mer-i-ca, but in the same breath ignore the children who need food, clothing, shelter, safety, education, health care etc. is an abomination.
The ultimate outcome of this type of betrayal is to further guarantee the failure of our country in the future.
Marian Wright Edelman has long carried the torch for children. Thank God for Marian Wright Edelman!
Unfortunately, this is just the beggining. We are likely to see homeless children in our cities before this is over. The US has to reduce its expenses and there aren’t too many places other than the military to cut. Quality of life is falling and will continue to do so. Racism, bigotry, and lawlessness will rise. Prisons will increase their population even further. It is all very unnice.
Newsflash lizard–We do have homeless children in our cities and have had this situation for over a decade. We continue to betray our children!
Where are the children? With a boot planted firmly on their face, no doubt.
Bush is a nihilist (doesn’t care about kids, alternative energy, his legacy or the environment = no future), sadist (torture), and fear-monger (his entire administration).
That he resonated with so many Americans is the real cause for concern. Our culture is future bankrupt. If we could blame this all on Bush, we’d be set for Utopia within a year.
In Bushworld, children don’t pay taxes therefore there is nothing for them. Can you say a big - “welcome back” - to the 19th century?
BobBeaSea March 10th, 2008 2:48 pm :
“In Bushworld, children don’t pay taxes therefore there is nothing for them. Can you say a big - “welcome back” - to the 19th century?”
Ebenezer Scrooge - “Are there no military recruiting stations?”
After old King Harrod there was no child left in Bethlaham but
after this King George there is No Child Left Behind, anywhere.
Running a slave society means maximizing the birth rate for fresh meat but minimizing education (thinking slaves are dangerous) and health care (no-one wants weak or sickly slaves - better they should die young and make way for healthy and strong slaves). Meanwhile the military must be strengthened to prevent revolt. The alarming thing is that so many still respond with surprise when the administration openly declares it’s agenda.
A society can be judged on how it treats its oldest and youngest members, and on this, and so many other things, America is a failing country.
BuZh is allowing infants and children to be SLAUGHTERED in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine et al. What makes you think he gives a shit about children here or any place else??
Marian Wright Edelman is a national treasure, and this article is a good reflection of her values and caring. I wish she would run for president.
Poor children are unlikely to vote for Republicans if they grow up. So, the priority is to maximize mortality in poor children, and throw as many of the rest behind bars as they can. Not all Republicans think like this, but the higher the level in the Party, the more who think this way.
thank you Common Dreams & Marian Wright Edelman
the poor have always been disposable, we’re increasingly living in a bi-furacted world of haves and have nots. our politicians have been groomed to be the haves (1 star sneeches, so to speak). there was a publicity stunt last year, 4 congresspersons lived for a week on $21 of food stamps. their responses were both whimsical (nauseating) and heartfelt.
it is absurd, but perhaps the congress should have food stamp week once a month - maybe their salaries should be drastically reduced as well. let’s couple that with mandatory civil service for the right to serve in congress - volunteering with a literacy campaign, a head start program, counseling for the neglected (2 to 3 days a month for each rep). until the politicians (the people’s representatives) recognize the reality of the poor and actually empathize with them daily/weekly the problems of poverty will persist…..
http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com/
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/134877
There are no children in this country. Bush and his party have seen to that.
Juliann, you are right. Issues involving women and children do not attract the big bloggers. Same with poverty and prison issues. Maybe that is a blessing?
Marion Wright Edelman is correct: The key to this issue, like almost everything, is re-directing wasteful military spending to human needs. George Bush has made the situation much worse, but it has never been good in my lifetime.
We always have tons of money for some stupid new weapons system or incursion into someone else’s country, but when it comes to children or public schools there is a lot of nickel and diming and petty stinginess. This has been true under Democratic as well as Republican presidents.
Some politicians are true sickos, such as Bush and Cheney.
Some, like McCain, still think GI Joe is cool and believe in perpetual games of war using real people as dolls.
But the average pol is a pathetic toady, like the ones who schemed to be class president in High School. They have no moral compass and go where the rewards are. They are wealthy or wish in their little hearts to be like the wealthy. They use war and fear to distract us. (Remember how Bill Clinton was ready to bomb somewhere, anywhere, when he got caught with his zipper down?)
Children, poor people and average people are boring to them. They have to pay some lip service to get enough votes to stay in office.
So it is up to us, to counteract the power of big money with big votes.
There are Congressional and local seats up for grabs this year. If you care about children, vote out every war supporter on the local level. Force them to come out for a plan to scale back the military, deal with the world through diplomacy.
Local politicians who will not acknowledge the link between our militarism and starving of local needs should be punished by losing their jobs.
I personally have come to the conclusion that most conservatives are very immoral people! They may claim to be Christian but most aren’t. They have lost touch long ago with what it is supposed to mean to be Christian. Religion especially Christianity has become big business in this country. It’s become a money making business that rakes in billions in tax free dollars annually. These parasite’s live off of the fat of the land while the nations children starve. They have become little better than a prostitute selling her wares on a street corner. That’s probably going to make a lot of people mad. But, that’s how I view them anymore. I have literally no respect left in me for religion or Christian’s either one. So why does anyone really imagine that a conservative cares one way or another about the nations children. They don’t care about anyone else in society! They don’t care if the average working person makes a decent wage so he can support his family. There are millions without health care. But, do you think these conservatives care…no! All they do is spout socialism when you mention health care, taking care of the poor or anything else that benefit’s society. They have to be the most selfish/ immoral people on earth. When they don’t care what happens to a child who is in poverty! It’s sickening!
mestizogordo,
Your comment was an excellent Marxian analysis of the whole abortion/children issue!
… and concisely stated!
Children are also never mentioned in any of novels or essays of that philosopher of the “libertarians” Ayn Rand/
(USAn - pronounced “ooosan”)
“A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick,
Commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a satirical pamphlet written and published by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children born into poverty as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. The modern phrase “a modest proposal” derives from the work.
Kids have never counted for much, unless their parents had them to inherit money or carry on the family business, or to do what Mommy and Daddy could not or would not do. Poor kids have never been worth anything.