Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
18 December 12
merica's children seem to be shortchanged on almost every issue we face as a society.
Not only are we failing to protect our children from deranged people wielding semi-automatic guns.
We're not protecting them from poverty. The rate of
child poverty keeps rising - even faster than the rate of adult poverty.
We now have the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world.
And we're not protecting their health. Rates of child
diabetes and asthma continue to climb. America has the third-worst rate
of infant mortality among 30 industrialized nations and the
second-highest rate of teenage pregnancy, after Mexico.
If we go over the "fiscal cliff" without a budget
deal, several programs focused on the well-being of children will be
axed - education, child nutrition, school lunches, children's health,
Head Start. Even if we avoid the cliff, any "grand bargain" to tame to
deficit is likely to jeopardize them.
The Urban Institute projects
the share of federal spending on children (outlays and tax
expenditures) will drop from 15 percent last year to 12 percent in 2022.
At the same time, states and localities have been
slashing preschool and after-school programs, child care, family
services, recreation, and mental-health services.
Why?
Conservatives want to blame parents for not doing their job. But this ignores politics.
The NRA, for example, is one of the most powerful
lobbies in America - so powerful, in fact, that our leaders rarely have
the courage even to utter the words gun control.
A few come forth after a massacre such as occurred in
Connecticut to suggest that maybe we could make it slightly more
difficult for the mentally ill to obtain assault weapons. But the gun
lobby and gun manufacturers routinely count on America's (and media's)
short attention span to prevent even modest reform.
The AARP is also among the most powerful lobbies, especially when it comes to preserving programs that benefit seniors.
We shouldn't have to choose between our seniors and
children - I'd rather focus on jobs and growth rather deficit reduction,
and sooner cut corporate welfare and defense spending than anything
else. But the brute fact is America's seniors have political clout that
matters when spending is being cut, while children don't.
At the same time, big corporations and the wealthy
know how to get and keep tax cuts that are starving federal and state
budgets of revenues needed to finance what our children need.
Corporations systematically play off one state or city against another
for tax concessions and subsidies to stay or move elsewhere, further
shrinking revenues available for education, recreation, mental health,
and family services.
Meanwhile, advertisers and marketers of junk foods and
violent video games have the political heft to ward off regulations
designed to protect children from their depredations. The result is an
epidemic of childhood diabetes, as well as video mayhem that may harm
young minds.
Most parents can't protect their children from all
this. They have all they can do to pay the bills. The median wage keeps
falling (adjusted for inflation), benefits are evaporating, job security
has disappeared, and even work hours are less predictable.
It seems as if every major interest has political
clout - except children. They can't vote.
They don't make major campaign
donations. They can't hire fleets of lobbyists.
Yet they're America's future.
Their parents and grandparents care, of course, as do
many other private citizens. But we're no match for the entrenched
interests that dominate American politics.
Whether it's fighting for reasonable gun regulation,
child health and safety overall, or good schools and family services -
we can't have a fair fight as long as special-interest money continues
to poison our politics.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of
Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the
ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has
written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The
Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
1 comment:
All those children are lazy no good moochers who feed at the govt. trough, that's why. They are dependent on food stamps and other govt. handouts.
They won't work and contribute nothing to society except stirring up the left wing and other "Do Gooders"
Let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like all great conservatives have done
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