Re: The war on our children

> We must stop accepting that low-wage, low-benefit, part-time jobs
> are the best our children can do. We need to ensure a livable wage for
> all.
>
> Funding a war in Iraq and providing tax breaks for the wealthiest
> Americans does more damage than Republicans in Congress care to admit.
> As they clamor on about patriotism, their funding priorities are
> costing America its future.

The wealthiest Americans pay the largest amount of taxes in the first
place by far, so *any* tax breaks are going to appear larger in
comparison to lower income levels. It's simple math. Tax breaks allow
people - of all income levels - to spend more money. Many businesses -
especially small businesses - are able to hire more people and pay
better wages as a result of lower taxes, and as a result of more money
being spent by consumers.

> The Republican Congress is placing hurdles in front of our
> children that are nearly impossible to clear. At every turn, from age
> zero to 18, roadblocks have been erected that block them from reaching
> their potential.

Utter bull***... the only roadblocks are the ones people place in
front of themselves. I grew up very poor and worked my ass off to get
through college, and now I'm successful. I know a lot of people who
had it even worse than me who made it too. It's amazing to me that
people come to this country with NOTHING and make it, while people who
were born here do nothing but piss and moan about "roadblocks" which
generally means that they're not getting a handout that they think they
deserve.

It's people like Pete that have *created* this problem in our country.
They've convinced people that it's the job of the government to handle
every aspect of their lives. They've convinced people that personal
responsibility isn't really necessary, because Big Brother can watch
over you and fix whatever happens. This country was founded on the
notion of self-reliance... people like Pete are killing that, and in
many ways have already killed it. The whole "it takes a village" line
of horse***.

> Since 2002, Republican budgets have cut nearly 7,000 slots for
> children in low-income families to receive Head Start services. These
> cuts were made despite studies demonstrating that Head Start children
> are more likely to graduate from high school and are less likely to
> repeat a grade. Head Start students are also less likely to commit a
> crime than low-income children who do not attend Head Start. But such
> empirical findings mean little to a party that prefers its policies
> based on faith.

Studies also show that the parents of students who participate in
programs like Head Start are more involved in their childrens lives in
the first place, and that - and this is the important part - there is
no evidence whatsoever that shows that *more* students are graduating
from school, avoiding repeat grades, or avoiding crime as a result of
these programs. In other words, it may be true that the kids who
participate in Head Start style programs are more likely to succeed in
these ways, but it's not clearly a result of Head Start and is in fact
more likely a result of their parents interest and involvement in their
study habits.

It is YOUR JOB as a parent to get your kids to study, to attend school,
and to keep them out of trouble. It's not the governments job - nor
should it ever be. The real problem is parents who don't take an
active interest in their own children. Blaming it on the government is
just an excuse for parental failure.

> After slashing Head Start budgets, it seems only logical for
> Republicans to next target poor mothers with children under 6 years
> old. A recent Republican budget proposal would require these mothers
> to double their weekly work hours from 20 to 40 in order to remain
> eligible for job training and vocational education. Yet that plan
> fails to provide $10.5 billion for childcare funding that the
> non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would be needed for
> mothers to afford to work the longer hours and maintain their
> benefits. The blatant hypocrisy would be comical if it weren't true.

Because childcare funding is already covered in other plans on both the
federal and state level... interesting how that's always left out.
There is no shortage of funding for low income childcare in this
country.

> As our children - unprepared for the challenges they'll face -
> reach public schools, they will get less help than ever before. After
> taking credit for "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), President Bush and
> his Republican allies wasted no time in underfunding the Act, thereby
> ensuring schools could not meet new, stricter achievement standards.

The quality of our school systems on almost every level has been on a
downward slope for far longer than Bush has been in office. Setting
standards is a step in the right direction. The implementation has
been poor, but it's better than not having standards at all - which is
what we had previously.

> As of June 2005, the House Republicans have shortchanged public
> schools by $40 billion since the passage of the much-lauded NCLB law.

Federal dollars account for less than ten percent of funding for
schools, and are earmarked for specific programs. The effect of NCLB
is severely overstated by opponents and supporters alike.

> At the same time, yearly progress tests created by NCLB to determine
> if individual students are improving in math and reading show almost a
> quarter of schools failing to show improvement on state student tests.

And when you break the numbers down and look at which schools are
failing, they are generally areas in which schools have had
consistantly poor results over many years - again, longer than Bush has
been in office. This is in fact on of the reasons behind NCLB - to
highlight those schools that aren't getting it done. Our esteemed
author would like you to believe that these schools are failing because
if NCLB, when in reality they were already failing. All the NCLB
program did was reveal the fact that they were failing.

> If those weren't enough obstacles to place in front of our
> children, the Republicans want to force the average student borrower
> to pay an additional $5,800 for college. The single most effective
> springboard to a well-paying job is a college degree. So, this year
> the Republicans are proposing $14.3 billion in cuts to federal student
> aid programs.

Keeping in mind that the "average" student borrower includes folks from
upper-middle income brackets who frankly do not need as much of the
assistance available. Interesting that Pete notes only the average...
I wonder why?

> At every turn, our future is threatened - not by mythical weapons
> of mass destruction or by the lack of prayer in the classroom - but by
> policies that continually rob our children of the skills they need to
> compete.

Then how does one explain the millions of students - many from the same
failing schools - who *do* gain these valuable skills? For every child
that fails, there are many more who succeed - from the same schools,
same income levels. My gut tells me it has something with studying,
working hard, and having parents that make sure they do so.

> The results of such policies speak for themselves. Since
> President Bush took office, 1.7 million more Americans live in poverty
> and the average median income has declined $2,710.

Mostly because there are more Americans and the definition of "poverty"
is quite flexible depending on how you'd like your numbers.

> Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage, $5.15 an hour, has not been increased
> since 1997, and has its lowest purchasing power since 1990.

Raising the federal minimum wage would simply increase prices -
effectively eliminating any increase in purchasing power that the raise
would create.

> Recently, the impact of cutting our children out of America's
> future became abundantly clear when a new Wal-Mart opened in my home
> community of Oakland, California. Some 11,000 people applied for 400
> jobs that pay less than $20,000 a year and offer few benefits. It was
> a microcosm of the fate of working families everywhere, forced to get
> by with far too little.

Wal-Mart has been offering jobs that pay jack-*** for a long, long
time now. And it's not like they were the first. If you want
something better you work hard, get some education, and find something
better. There are a lot of us who've done just that - partly because
we didn't waste our time whining about how someone wasn't just handing
it to us.

But let's stick with the Wal-Mart example for a moment. As much as
it's demonized, Wal-Mart as a company has actually done a lot for
low-income America. Americans save billions of dollars each year
because of lower priced stores like Wal-Mart. They're more able to
afford not only necessities like clothing and food, but even extras
like music, movies, electronics, and so forth. This in turn is good
for the companies that make and sell these products.

> Working together, America can do better. We can improve the
> economic outlook for our children by investing in their education. We
> can add funding for student loans and grants. We can provide
> vocational education and job training.

We can and we do.

> We must stop accepting that low-wage, low-benefit part-time jobs
> are the best our children can do. And for all workers, we need to
> ensure a livable wage and provide for paid family and medical leave.

Lowering taxes and supporting business is the best way to do exactly
that.

> Not surprisingly, two bills to do just that have been introduced
> by Democrats and were quickly buried by Republicans. In May, Rep.
> George Miller (D-CA) introduced The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005,
> which would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over two
> years. In June, I introduced the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act,
> which would build on the highly successful Family and Medical Leave
> Act by providing up to 12 weeks of paid benefits to workers who take
> time off for reasons allowed under the new Act. Both bills would
> easily improve the lives of working families, but the priorities of
> this Republican-controlled Congress are focused in other areas.

Both would also increase the working costs of businesses, especially
small businesses, and would in turn lower profitability and reduce the
number of workers they can *afford* to employ. Paying someone for
twelve weeks away from work may not seem like much to a wealthy
politician - but to a small business owner it can be devestating.
Passing arbitrary laws that make it manditory could force small
businesses to cut staffing levels. It would no doubt raise prices in
many industries that depend on low-wage workforce.

> If the United States can find $250 billion for a failed war in
> Iraq and give American millionaires an average tax break of $41,574
> apiece in 2006, then the most affluent country in the world can find
> the funds to improve its schools and workplaces. Our future depends on
> it.

The above paragraph, all by itself, serves as example of why Pete Stark
and the *opinions* he lists above ought to be taken with a grain of
salt. Apparantly, what Pete doesn't realize is that compared to the
amount of tax money the average "millionaire" pays each year, $41,500
is almost negligible. Meanwhile, the meager couple hundred bucks that
the average middle-income family gets can make a huge difference.

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