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.

The Fed to State Economic Connection

The news is fast and furious this morning – yesterday the House passed its version of the federal economic stimulus package, and the Governor simultaneously released his proposed Fiscal Year 2010 budget and significant cuts to the budget for the current budget year.

How are these two things related? Pretty significantly, as it turns out. A little more than a quarter of the $819 billion estimated cost of the House’s economic plan takes the form of aid to states, according to the Boston Globe for expenses like highways, drinking water, weatherization, child care, school construction, help with Medicaid, and the largest category – fiscal stabilization. The National Council of State Legislatures has broken down the numbers for most states (but not Massachusetts) here.

Critics of the House bill are citing high costs, a rejection of additional tax cuts proposed by Republican members, and a shortage of investments in infrastructure and transportation. The bill definitely seems to have traded off some of the market-stimulating investments (especially infrastructure and tax cuts to businesses) for direct benefits to individuals and families – extended unemployment benefits, child care assistance, and one time $500 per person tax rebates – to ease the immediate effects of the economic crisis.

How these numbers come out in the end remains to be seen, but I’m thinking state legislators everywhere are feeling at least a little relief as they approach state budgets for next fiscal year. The Senate has released its version of economic stimulus plan from its Appropriations Committee, and is expected to debate it on the Senate floor next week. You can bet that state legislatures will be staying tuned to the federal debate in hopes of some help in handling their own budget woes.

In other, not completely unrelated news, President Obama signed his first bill into law today with fair pay icon Lilly Ledbetter at his side. The two people who I bet she wishes could be at the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act with her? Her husband who passed away last year, and the insightful and brave co-worker who passed her that note in 1998, telling her that she was being paid less than the 16 men who did the same job, some with less experience. Here’s a particularly lovely quote from President Obama from his speech at the signing:

And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us, because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.

An Update on Economic Recovery from NWLC

From the National Women's Law Center:

The House just released its proposal for the economic recovery package, and it provides funding for many important child care, early education, and related programs, including:

-$2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant to provide child care services for an additional 300,000 children in low-income families while their parents go to work.

-$2.1 billion for Head Start to provide comprehensive development services to help 110,000 additional children succeed in school.

-$600 million for IDEA Infants and Families for formula grants to help states serve children with disabilities age 2 and younger.

-$726 million for Afterschool Meals to increase the number of states that provide free dinners to children and to encourage participation by new institutions by increasing snack reimbursement rates

-$2.5 billion for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for block grants to help States deal with the surge in families needing help during the recession and to prevent them from cutting work programs and services for abused and neglected children.

A more detailed description of the proposal can be found here: http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary01-15-09.pdf.

3 Steps Toward Change for Children

Change! In the next few days and weeks we'll be hearing that word a lot. It has almost become an Obama brand, but let's not forget that we - each of us - can make change too. Here are three things you can do in the next week that can change the lives of children and their families for the better:

1) Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day next Monday by participating in the National Day of Service. To find a service project near you, go to: http://www.mlkday.gov/ If you can, take your kids or a couple of neighborhood children with you. Nothing creates change over the long term like teaching children how to make it!

2) Call your members of Congress and ask them to support child care and Head Start in the Economic Recovery Bill, and to share their support with key leadership. In the short term, child care support will allow parents who are losing income to stay in their jobs or look for new ones, and will maintain jobs (especially for low- to middle-income women) in the early childhood education field. Most importantly, it can give kids stability and the many benefits of high quality early childhood education while their parents work or look for jobs. Key organizations have asked the incoming administration and Congressional leaders to include a $3 billion increase in child care funding, and a $3 billion Head Start increase in the upcoming Economic Recovery Bill. If you don't know how to reach your Representatives and Senators, go to: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml For more information about federal support for child care, and why it's critical to economic recovery, go to: http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/ChildCareEconomicStimulusNov2008.pdf

3) As you get ready to attend or watch the historic Inauguration of President Obama, begin learning about the many child and family policy issues the new Administration and Congress will be tackling over the next two years. Congress is preparing to reauthorize funding and policy related to critical issues like education and nutrition (including school lunches), while simultaneously managing the country out of an historically bad economy. You can weigh in, and ensure that Congress and the President put children and families first.

You can make change for children and families - today, next week, and in the coming months and years. Stay tuned to this blog and to http://www.childandfamilypolicy.net/ to find out how!