An excellent OpEd asks why the USA values making the rich richer more than its own children while supporting its position with impeccable statistics that show the USA behind in caring for its own children.
Not just behind, but the United States of America one of the worst countries for children who through no fault of their own are born to poor parents. You don’t have to take my word for it though, again, the survey is at this link
In our own state, we create 800 legal orphans a year, and had to be forced to comply with even the minimalist federal standards for children aging out of welfare. For those who have successfully raised their own children, again, I wonder how many would open their empty nests to young adults who need last stage guidance, as they launch into their own lives?
I have posted about this before here
One more consideration: The baby boomers are retiring. Unless we educate their replacements and keep young adults able to work, this state and this country will be less and less economically competitive.
Just recently, drop out rates averaging 50% were discovered for some ethnic groups with all the social costs that result.
My challenge to Massachusetts and the USA is to invest in children to remain competitive, and not become a third world backwater. This is not “liberal” or “progressive” or “conservative”. In my view it is common sense. Educating enough of our young adults, and having them able to live independent and productive lives is critical – it IS a matter of survival to the children themselves as well and I believe, critical to the well-being of this state and this country.
…in universal health coverage
…in education excellence
…in poverty prevention
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p>among industrialized nations. I believe we are, or at least can be, the greatest nation on earth, but I must admit it’s sometimes difficult to say that with a straight face.
Whatever the “me first” ideology of the right, or the Banksters or the robber barons, or the radical current Republicans – children are not to blame, cannot take care of themselves, and investment in education and early child care has been shown to be superior bang for the buck over and over and over.
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p>To me, the politics of meanness, exclusion, and “smaller government is better” plays out as a form of evil, as a form of pure selfishness with no interest in the future of our country.
I heard on the radio tonight a story of a ten-year-old girl who encountered a homeless man and started asking her mother questions about how or why someone could have no place to go. Where do they eat, sleep, acquire clothing, she asked. It inspired her to start collecting winter hats for distribution to her community’s homeless. To hear the mother tell this story were daughter was quite upset and could not understand how anyone could be in such a situation. If a ten-year-old can look at this and see something fundamentally wrong with this picture, why can’t adults?
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p>It seems like every problem in the US has the same solution… spend more money. It doesn’t seem to matter what the problem is, it doesn’t seem to have boundries defining “what” area the problem is in, but a unifying request which will “fix” the problem is spend more money.
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p>How much money needs to spent on education to fix it? $20,000/per year per student? $25,000/per year per student? $30,000/per year per student? How much money to care for our sick… $20,000/per year per patient? $25,000/per year per patient? How much per elderly person…
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p>Where will all the money come from? 50% of our population pay no taxes already. The upper end of our income earners hide their money legally from taxes, make much of their money from capital gains. Does the cost of saving the world and caring for everyone else (including illegal immigrants) fall on the middle class and the “not too rich” rich?
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p>And yet, that group who pays for all of this is exactly the target of “more taxes”. Beggers in Spain… again!
Our European friends know it doesn’t grow on trees, so we should figure it out. Plus I’d like a cite on your insistence that 50% don’t pay income taxes. I’m paying a little in income taxes making less than 30K so I find that very difficult to believe.
Portugal, France, Ireland, England etc. (just about all of socialistic Europe) have been finding out lately that money, indeed, doesn’t grow on trees–we had this figured out a long time ago.
Since WWII over all they have done a much better job of taking care of people, helped at least at first ironically by our Marshall Plan that helped them pay for things we would not spend on ourselves. The New Deal helped us climb out of the Great Depression which the war ultimately reversed because that too is spending. Sorry, but I’m not going to look at recent events in a vacuum and declare the whole thing a failure.
in particular is suffering because they decided to bail out their failing private banks with the public’s money, hanging other public programs out to dry. The banks didn’t have to give up anything in return.
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p>2. Bring support for public higher education (junior college and college) up to AVERAGE instead of dying at 43rd because the private colleges suck all the oxygen and therefore, the elites do not care about public higher education in this state – not very much caring visible to me anyway.
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p>3. Make Safe Surrender an annual event; thereby reducing many social and governmental costs.
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p>4. Appoint the two commissions established in Chapter 54 of the Acts of 2005 thereby reducing the costs of indigent defense, the costs of the Department of Correction, and the number of unemployable young people by ensuring only the truly indigent are appointed counsel and non-violent offenses that should not lead to incarceration are funneled to working diversion programs.
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p>Want more?