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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Tens of Thousands of NY Children in Budget Crossfire

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011   

NEW YORK - Little time remains until Congress must come up with a budget, and right now children's programs all across New York could be on the chopping block. U.S. House Republicans are pushing for $51 billion in cuts, with as much as one billion coming from just one program - Head Start.

Debrah Garcia, CEO/executive director of Long Island Head Start, says that cut translates into about 12,000 very young at-risk New York children, who would no longer have access to early learning and school readiness programs.

"When you look at your future as an investment and that investment is in your children, and you're cutting the very threads that are going to help prepare them, you know you are setting them up for failure and in essence you're setting your future up for failure."

Shea Levin, director of Every Child Matters Long Island, says the proposed cuts would close down more than half the school-based health clinics in New York and hurt other proven programs.

"These school-based health programs and quality child care programs are essential to our children's well being. I don't understand why all these cuts are happening to our children. They didn't cause the deficit and they sure didn't crash our economy. "

Stephen Clermont, research and policy director for Every Child Matters, says it's no accident children in New York and the nation are bearing the brunt of the cuts, because right now Congress is only willing to consider trimming one small area of the national budget - the 12 percent slice known as non-defense discretionary spending.

"And that is the main area of the budget that funds kids' programs, hundreds and hundreds of kids programs, and that's the only thing Congress is currently cutting. So, any cuts to that one part of the budget are disproportionately going to impact children."

House Republicans are standing by their version of the budget (HR1), saying the cuts are an essential step to bring down the deficit.

The nonpartisan Children's Leadership Council says the proposed billion dollar cut to Head Start would also result in the loss of more than 3,000 New York jobs.

Budget analysis is available at www.childrensleadershipcouncil.org





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