States Should Act Now to Invest in Children

One of the guidelines I’ve read about blogging is that you shouldn’t start a blog unless you have something that interests you so much that you will be able to write about it at least once a week. Hmmm. I seem to have fallen behind, and I apologize. But I assure you that my absence wasn’t due to lack of interest, but to a paralysis of indecision regarding where to start (ok, that and school vacation – all you parents out there will understand). Actually, the situation is that there are so many ideas to act upon that I’m not sure where to start.

Kind of like states implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as the stimulus package).

I just got off a timely conference call hosted by Danielle Ewen at the Center on Law and Social Policy and Helen Blank at the National Women’s Law Center. Here’s the gist. There is money available to states to do important work in the area of child care and early childhood education, that will create and preserve jobs and help families get through this economic crisis. Funding will come through increases in the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start, and Title I. A state by state breakdown of dollars is available from the National Education Association here. States have a lot of flexibility in how to use the new funds, but they have to act now.

With $2 billion new dollars in federal child care funding, $1.1 billion in Early Head Start, $1 billion in Head Start, and $10 billion in Title I, there is clearly an opportunity to strengthen child care and early childhood education services at the state and local levels, which will create and preserve jobs (think teachers, trainers, quality specialists) and help parents stay in their jobs by making child care more affordable. You can track how states are using federal recovery dollars here.

It’s important for state and local administrators not to fall prey to the paralysis of indecision, but to act quickly to turn that money around and invest it in children, families, and communities. It’s important to get these investments right, and they will be held accountable by the feds for the numbers of jobs created and saved. But we have children on the waitlist for child care subsidies today. And programs closing classrooms and laying off teachers because parents can’t afford to send their children. States should not wait until they have the perfect plan to act. As President Obama said in his address last night, “the cost of inaction will be far greater.”

Economic Recovery Conference Committee Meeting

The conference committee is meeting as we speak to work out differences between house and senate versions of the economic recovery plan. Here are the members (thanks NWLC!).

The House conferees include:
Rep. David Obey (D-WI)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI)

The Senate conferees are:
Senators Harry Reid (D-NV)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Charles Grassley (R-IA)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)

Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) aren't conferees, but are likely to have a role in the discussion.

If you have an opinion on the economic recovery bill, and you live in the district of one or more of these members of Congress, now is the time to get in touch! If you don't know how to reach them, go here. If you don't live in one of these districts, you can still call your members of Congress and ask them to pass your message on to the conferees. This will be a quick process, so act now!

Some great comparisons of the early childhood content of the two proposals can be found at NWLC and NAEYC.

Economic Updates

One of my "frolleagues" just sent me a fun link, and it included this White House-produced summary of how the economic recovery proposal would create jobs and strengthen the economy in each state. Find your state in this document if you need more reasons to ask your Senators to move the bill.

As an update, the Senate is expected to vote on its proposal tomorrow, and the conference committee will probably work things out within the following 48 hours.

If you are concerned about child care funding (see earlier post below), then you'll be happy to know that both the Senate and House version include $2 billion in child care subsidy funding that states can use to move children of working families off waitlists for care, so their parents can find jobs or continue working as their income shrinks. Speaking of which, there was a great local article on the topic yesterday.

Jobs, the Economy, and the Health of a Community

I live and do my work from a popular vacationland – Cape Cod. Although it’s a gloriously beautiful place to live, and the summers truly are fabulous (come on down and stimulate our local economy this summer!), it has a significant year-round population that’s made up of normal working people – not the Kennedy’s, and not the affluent who own summer homes here, but the people who work in the clam shacks, hotels, and retail shops during the summer but struggle to make ends meet in the off- season.

So when eight jobs are cut by one organization in mid-winter, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Here’s the story of eight such people losing their positions at the Outer Cape Health Services. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the geography, if the Cape looks like an arm to you then Outer Cape’s locations span from just above the elbow to its fingertips. According to the Cape Cod Times article, in 2007 the organization provided treatment and preventative care to 11,000 individuals of all ages. The closest hospital to its clinics in Wellfleet and Provincetown is 50 miles away in Hyannis.

Other than my concern for those eight neighbors who lost their jobs, as well as concern for their families and the many people who get their health care from the clinics, why would I write about these job losses on this blog? This is a state and federal policy blog, not one that catalogues the many economic challenges of my chosen home.

Here’s why. When critics of the current economic stimulus bill criticize the proposal for not creating jobs, they’re forgetting about those eight people on the Lower and Outer Cape, and many others like them across the country.

About 40% of Outer Cape Health Center’s revenue is federal, state and local public funding. The stimulus bill proposed by the House proposes an additional $250 million for health center operations in FY09, and $250 million more in FY10. In addition, both the House and Senate proposals include provisions to train people in health care jobs. Here’s a summary of how current stimulus proposals would strengthen community health centers – and the many people who have jobs at them.

Passing the economic recovery plan wouldn’t completely solve Outer Cape’s problems. As the Cape Cod Times article explains, they could also use an additional physician so they could serve more patients and increase the piece of the organization’s revenue (currently at 52%) that comes from patients. But the funds outlined above and the $37 billion + in Medicaid funds included in at least the House proposal (see analysis from the National Conference of State Legislatures highlighted earlier in this blog) would go a long way toward helping community health centers, the people who still have jobs in them, and the people they serve – a population that will only increase during these economic times.

There’s one more reason to move the economic stimulus plan out of Congress now. If you need contact information for your Senators, click here.