President Obama’s Budget Makes Historic Investments in Young Children

[bigtree]

from the CFAP:


____ Two months ago in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama pledged to dramatically expand access to high-quality preschool. Today in his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, the president made good on this pledge by calling for a bold new $75 billion investment in preschool over 10 years. This investment would significantly shrink the preschool-access gap by helping states establish and expand high-quality programs.

The president’s budget also includes important investments to support the nation’s youngest children and working parents, including $1.4 billion in FY 2014 to expand high-quality child care for infants and toddlers and $15 billion over 10 years to expand states’ home-visiting programs for at-risk families.

Some might be skeptical of the federal government’s role in expanding preschool. But today’s budget makes clear that the president’s preschool plan is a true state-federal partnership. The president’s plan will help states grow their own preschool programs—an effort that is already well underway in many states. Thirty-nine states have already established state-funded preschool programs, and Mississippi is now poised to join their ranks.

At the state level preschool is not a partisan issue. Red states such as Oklahoma and Georgia are among the leaders in enrolling 4-year-olds in preschool, and Republican leaders in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Michigan are also working to invest more in preschool.

Under the president’s plan, states will be eligible to receive new federal dollars in return for investing their own dollars. And while the federal government will ensure that state programs meet high quality standards, states will continue to run their own programs. This state-federal partnership would cover all 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families at or below 200 percent of the poverty line. In addition, the new federal resources would free up state dollars to reach 3-year-olds and children from higher-income families and to provide full-day kindergarten . . .



read: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/budget/news/2013/04/10/60149/president-obamas-budget-makes-historic-investments-in-young-children/

[MadHound]

1. Meanwhile Obama and Duncan continue to shred those kids' future,

What with an increased budget for RTTT and Common Core standards. So we're going to wind up with bright, energetic pre-K kids hitting elementary school and getting the life and joy in education squeezed out of them with testing, testing and more testing. Sounds like a very contradictory overall education policy to me.

[DrDan]

2. +1

[woo me with science]

3. +1000000 nt

[Nay]

6. Exactly what I was going to say, MadHound. It's so schizophrenic that it's maddening.

Another point: many very successful school systems in Europe don't have that fetish about starting kids in school earlier and earlier and they get better results. It makes me wonder whether the idea of sticking kids into school earlier and earlier is a financial one (more money for the privatized school system) rather than an educational one.

[Armstead]

7. It's to allow mothers to stay home to help keep the household income afloat in a low-wage economy

[Katashi_itto]

20. At 12th Grade they will be able to participate in the new "Solent Green" Program.

[HiPointDem]

23. the kindergarten initiative is also connected to education deform. head start is now competing

for funding with private and religious providers.

there will be kindergarten chains just like there are in sweden (privatized long ago) and just like there are and will be charter school chains.

[bowens43]

4. while ensuring that the elderly and poor will die an early death.......

Fuck Obama's budget

he's a political hack who has been played like a cheap fiddle.

[bigtree]

5. this is actually a good and solid proposal

. . . If approved, it would be the largest influx of federal funding for preschool since Head Start – which now provides nearly $8 billion for early education programs for children living in poverty – was initiated in 1965 . . .


. . . still, it has just a bit more chance of passing the republican gauntlet as do his doa SS cuts. I get the outrage over the proposed reductions, but I don't get all of the thrashing about - as if they had a chance in hell of becoming law.

[woo me with science]

8. Bullshit.

The real purpose is to corral even preschoolers into what HiPointDem has aptly labeled "the education deform gravy train."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2618855

It's all about the $$$$$$$.

[forestpath]

13. +1000

[LWolf]

9. .

[bigtree]

10. I think the phony claims that chained cpi has a chance in hell of being passed into law

. . . are a bit distracting.

This proposal is much more plausible. Universal preschool is an idea that won't/shouldn't fade away with the political wind. All dead-on-arrival budget proposals are not equal.

This one has potential. Cpi? Hardly.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. If early education would teach people logic who now resort to puppy pictures when they

have no actual answer to objections raised about a budget, it would be worth doing. But not on the backs of the sick and the old, which is Obama's personal proposal. It is what he proposed, chained CPI and cuts for the least among us. Had he not proposed it, we would not be discussing the chances of it passing, and you would be spared the indignity of snarking in the midst of a very serious discussion about children and the elderly.
That puppy pic, it really makes your point of view seem well thought out, fully supported and highly respectful of both other people and the importance of the issue being discussed! One of the better 'pro cut' arguments, really 'look at the puppy and my snark, see I win, puppy and sarcasm equals win!!!!'

[bigtree]

19. really, the puppy pic in response to the other cartoon?

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2013, 11:30 AM - Edit history (1)

I daresay, I had some license to respond in kind; and kind it was, Bluenorthwest. Did you really read all of that into the poster's cartoon?

Now if you want to make the argument, as the poster apparently does, that there are NO other budget considerations outside of the doaSS nonsense, I'll have to differ there. This preschool proposal, made in the President's SOTU address, is not a distraction.

[LWolf]

21. Chained CPI won't be passed now.

It will be passed at some point, though, because a Democratic President put it on the table and made it a legitimate playing card.

And the stress this is causing my mom, and others on SS, is unforgivable.

Taking the Security out of SS.

[bigtree]

22. It has as much of a chance as it ever did

. . . next to none.

I personally think much of the 'stress' generated by the inclusion of this in the WH budget proposal has a lot to do with the context put out by the opposition. There hasn't been a bill advanced or debated which includes chained cpi; there is no bill pending that includes chained cpi; there won't be a budget bill in this Congress that includes it.

If you have something other than a run-of-the-mill budget advisory proposal from the WH to show that this is something pending or possible, then, by all means, 'mom' should know. But absent of that, she shouldn't be challenged to maintain any more (or any less) vigilance against cuts to entitlement programs, just because President Obama chose to highlight a boneheaded proposal in this budget document that he offered months ago.

I can understand the outpouring of criticism from an advocate's pov, but I'm not in favor of representing this proposal as the opening door to SS beneficiary cuts in the future. There is much more of an activist resistance, in and out of Congress, which is well prepared top block efforts like the one proposed, than all of the excitement would suggest.

But hey, if you think it's in yours and her interest to represent this as some done deal that's destined to hit your mom, that's your responsibility, and yours alone.

[LWolf]

24. It's not what I think.

It's what she thinks. She voted for Obama twice, and just heard him throw her under the bus. It's scary, when you are pinching pennies on a fixed income, to have that income threatened. Stress isn't good for anyone's health, and seniors are more vulnerable. It is, in my opinion, wrong in every way to play fucking so-called political chess with seniors' livelihoods and lives.

But Obama will never have to face the kinds of living situations in HIS retirement he's willing to propose for others.

[bigdarryl]

11. FUCK Obama's budget mother fucker wants to cut Social Security

He has given the rethugs animation for 2014 against the democrats. That's all that counts at this time

[bigtree]

12. republicans tried to turn the tables on the SS argument in the last election

. . . and failed, in every poll, including the ultimate one.

I think that any (D)emocratic candidate who wants to can push off in any direction they please on SS in their campaign. No one needs to say boo in support of this President's budget proposal.

Thing is, it's a slam dunk for most voters who are asked to choose between republican owners and architects of privatization schemes and outright plans to dismantle the entire floor of our social safety net, and Democrats who have spent their lives working to elevate, preserve, and enhance the programs and benefits that many of the middle and working class rely on to survive (including Obama, in this term, so far).

The proposal, itself isn't one that Democrats in the Senate are going to raise up - and it's almost a sure bet that republicans won't accept the price of compromising. It's hard to get all cursed and riled up about such a weak and wrong-headed, but primarily political budget proposal from the Executive. He may well be f****d, or f****d up, or whatever, but Democrats have brushed past bigger WH foolishness than this.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. The Chained CPI is Obama's proposal, he is the reason it is on the table now.

The theory that it is ok to use old people and children as political human shields if you are fairly certain the monsters on the other side will not really pull the trigger is to me, craven, disgusting, and indicative of a morally vacant politic. Even if the GOP does not pull the trigger, we've all seen Obama hiding behind some guy in a wheelchair lobbing fire at the other side. We expect them to be like that, but it is really surprising to see such idiocy out of the President, such full tilt exploitation of the least among us.
'Honey, when I told them we'd give them our first born, I knew they'd hold out for more, so it was not really a risk at all to offer the child to them!' Uh huh. Whatever.

[bigtree]

18. I think I understood, Bluenorthwest

. . . that it's Obama, himself, in full control of his political messaging and direction in this second term.

I think he needs help.

I agree about the boneheadedness of offering up what is clearly a destructive proposal, as if 'bipartisanship' with the thieves and thugs was a goal somehow worth losing faith and trust with the most cherished and worthy among us. I'll go with 'morally vacant politic.' I expect much better.

[SidDithers]

17. "given the rethugs animation"...

Less froth, more proof-reading, next time.

Sid

[loyalsister]

14. I really like this

Confused and perplexed overall, but this is great!

[Demo_Chris]

25. Count Dracula was a snazzy dresser, but he was still an evil bastard...

It's nice that Obama put a few provisions in this proposal that are less than despicable, and this might even be one, but this should not distract us. His budget showed us who and what he is, a man devoid of integrity, principles, compassion, or conscience.

[bigtree]

26. you didn't need all of the phony, factless analysis

. . . to post a goofy picture of the president, did you?

That's a prime example of the level of seriousness behind adjective abuse like yours.