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by Todd Huffman
"We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other Presidents, and other generations."
-President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003
Every fourth November, Americans are asked to vote on whether we are better off because of the President we elected four years ago. If not, we are then asked whether we will be better off four years hence if we elect his challenger. If there were no minimum voting age, and every American child could vote, how might children judge whether they are better off than four Novembers ago?
In late August, the Census Bureau released a collection of concerning statistics. The Bureau noted that as of the end of 2003, the ranks of the poor in America had grown by over 4 million since the last election. The number of Americans living in poverty has grown to almost 36 million. Many of these are children. One in ten American families now live in poverty.
The Census Bureau further reported a decline in the number of middle class Americans over the past four years. The number of low-income households has risen during the same period, and the median income has declined by just over three percent. Of course, economic upswings and downturns can occur irrespective of who occupies the White House. However, since presidents routinely take credit for the upswings, it follows that they must take at least some of the blame for the downturns.
The report also noted that the number of persons without health insurance has risen, to 45 million, or almost one in six Americans. Since the last election, five million more Americans are without health insurance. Over eleven percent of American children are uninsured, totaling over eight million kids.
The past four years have seen what amounts to cuts to the successful Head Start program, as its budget increases fell well below the rise in the national cost of living. Federal funding for after-school programs has been severly cut, as has funding for child-care assistance programs for low-wage workers, who are often single mothers. The President has even under funded his own No Child Left Behind Act, leaving public schools scrambling to perform more testing with fewer dollars.
Four years ago, President Bush took office with a budget surplus and a declining federal deficit. Today, the budget deficit has soared to over $400 billion, and the federal deficit to over $7 trillion. Government expenditures as a percentage of GNP have climbed under this supposedly fiscally conservative president, in large part due to huge increases in military spending. And then there are the President's $1.7 trillion tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which lopsidedly benefited wealthy Americans. These tax cuts are estimated to account for 17 times as much of the swing from surplus to deficit as the increases in domestic discretionary spending.
The Bush tax cuts have squeezed most state budgets. Over thirty states have cut health coverage for children. State governments have become less able to adequately fund and invest in the things children need for a better future: quality schools and pre-school programs, quality child care programs, infrastructure improvements, basic research, and environmental protection.
In May, the President's Office of Management and Budget instructed federal departments to trim non-discretionary spending even further in 2006, the first complete fiscal year after the November elections. Reductions were proposed of almost $1 billion for Head Start and child education, and over $500 million for college financial aid programs. So much has been invested in tax cuts for the wealthy that there is little or nothing left over to invest in children.
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center recently stated that the Bush administration's "recent and proposed fiscal policies - the tax cuts, proposals to make them permanent, and the Medicare prescription drug bill - will hurt economic prospects for most of today's children and all future generations." The TPC goes on to state that "the programs will leave economic growth largely unchanged, but will redistribute resources from future to current generations, and, within each generation, from low- and middle-income families toward an affluent minority."
Investing in our children, their education, their environment, their nutrition, their physical and mental health, is investing in the future of our country. Reliable research has shown beyond doubt that investing in programs to aid the health and well being of children generates an even greater return in terms of lower social service and
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