NPR: Education Programs Proposed for Cuts

[JPZenger]

The following is an audio link from this morning's NPR program. It is about how the GOP is proposing cuts to college student loans, the school lunch program and head start.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5006929

What they did not cover is that these cuts are not actually going to reduce the deficit - they are really being used to help fund additional tax cuts. I have read elsewhere that the net effect on the budget will to be increase the deficit.

[waiting for hope]

1. My goodness....

But don't they have "No Child Left Behind?" If I hear * praise that one more time - let's just say....:puke:

[ixion]

2. ah, but in Bushspeak, it is named appropriately

'Leave No Child Behind' translates to 'Leave ALL children behind.'

Here, have some more Kool-Aid® :beer: :sarcasm:

[waiting for hope]

8. No childify left behindally......

Since the fundies are major backers:

If you are a wealthy white man, then you are naturally inclined to think that the poor are inferior and don't deserve your first consideration. If you are a wealthy white man, then you also take on the proposition that women are inherently inferior.
and perhaps their children as well.......

Why oh why can't more people see the hypocrisy of the RW?:banghead:

[sui generis]

3. I have a proposed cut

how about let's stop spending on Halliburton capping their "professionals" at 200K/year on billing to the government while only paying the ones they hire from India 14K a year.

How about we stop this ridiculous war right now, today, and all spending on it.

We could actually pay people to GO to school rather than prop up their student loans with federal guarantees that don't pay out anyway.

[JPZenger]

4. More Info. From Washington Post Article

Another Washington Post article said the GOP leadership in the House also wants to cut funding for child support enforcement. That is considered one of the most successful anti-poverty programs. Here's some more information from a Washington Post article from Last week:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110203007.html

"The food stamp cuts in the House measure would knock nearly 300,000 people off nutritional assistance programs, including 70,000 legal immigrants, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Those immigrants would lose their benefits because the House measure would require legal immigrants to live in the United States for seven years before becoming eligible to receive food stamps, rather than the current five years.

About 40,000 children would lose eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches, the CBO estimated.

...By eliminating such "categorical eligibility," the House measure would especially hurt those moving off of welfare, who may have incomes that exceed the basic food stamp threshold but who also have higher expenses, such as for child care and out-of-pocket health insurance, that come with work, Larson said."

[JPZenger]

5. Cuts to Foster Care Programs for Neglected Kids

The Post article also reports that the GOP House measure would "roll back a court-ordered expansion of foster care support, denying foster care payments to relatives who take in children removed from their parents' homes by court order. That provision would reduce the coverage of foster care payments to about 4,000 children a month and cut $397 million from the program through 2010, the Congressional Budge Office said. "Why would we want to do anything to discourage a family member from taking in a child who has been abandoned or neglected by his birth family?" asked Rep. Heather A. Wilson..."

[JPZenger]

7. Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial on Cuts

The following are excerpts from an editorial in today's Philadelphia Inquirer (a Knight-Ridder paper) about the GOP Cuts:

"All that tough talk from conservatives about deadbeat dads paying child support? It's just that - talk. This legislation would cut child-support enforcement programs by $5 billion over five years. States would fill in some of that gap. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, as a result of these cuts, $7.9 billion in child support payments would go uncollected over the next five years. While lawmakers were at it, they decided to cut about $400 million in foster-care payments. Student aid is also on the chopping block.

Cutting such programs in the name of "deficit reduction" is a budgetary lie. This plan won't reduce the deficit at all, if Congress follows it up as expected later this month with $70 billion in tax cuts. It's perverse even by this Congress' standards to cut free school lunches to make way for extended tax relief for the wealthy from capital gains and stock dividends...

If Congress were making the hard choices, it would cut the nearly $24 billion in highway pork projects from the recently approved transportation bill. It could cut the $11 billion Moon/Mars mission..."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/13116841.htm
(free registration required)

[sui generis]

6. Isn't it odd that "food" and nutrition figure so highly in the things

that this government thinks they can cut.

Food for children.

Why on earth aren't we putting this in the simplest possible terms?

The GOP wants American children to starve. The GOP is making important cuts - by taking away food for children.

The GOP Hates Poor Children, and if they claim they don't, then let them prove it because this proposal says otherwise.