If I had one question to insert into tonight’s presidential debate, I would ask the candidates what they propose to do about child poverty. According to the recent Census Bureau report, more than one in every five children lives in a poor home-an increase of four percent in [[IS THIS TIMEFRAME IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT MARKS THE RECESSION? (NO, CAN’T TELL FROM THE LINK) the last three years]]. The persistence of poverty in a rich country shames us, but there are other reasons to invest in child welfare beyond compassion.
As Peter Fisher, research director of the Iowa Policy Project put it this week in a report in the Des Moines Register:
Children who grow up in poverty are less likely to finish high school and go to college, more likely to end up in lower-wage jobs and more likely to rely on public assistance programs.
In the same report, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, often a “go-to” source for a conservative perspective on child welfare, points out that poverty robs the state of people “who could be much more productive and contribute more to the economy.”
In short, persistent child poverty permanently depresses the country’s productive capacity and its ability to take advantage of growth opportunities in the future.
There has been little talk about poverty in the presidential campaign thus far. Candidates have avoided discussions of which programs would be cut in upcoming negotiations to reduce discretionary spending. [[BY WHOM? BY HOW MUCH? IT WOULD BE GOOD TO GET SOME SPECIFICS HERE. Special nutrition programs that reduce poverty and improve child health have been targeted for cuts in the past year. So has the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. FOLLOWING 2 GRAFS>>]]
A Center on Budget report shows that Romney’s twin proposals to cap federal spending at 20% of GDP and maintain defense spending at 4% of GDP would devastate programs for the poor. They find that:
If they applied these cuts proportionately, the cuts in programs such as veterans’ disability compensation, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor elderly and disabled individuals, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), school lunches and other child nutrition programs, and unemployment compensation would cause the incomes of large numbers of households to fall below the poverty line. Many who already are poor would become poorer.
[[HOW DOES THIS GRAF RELATE TO THE POINT BEING MADE ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES? IN OTHER WORDS, HOW’S IT TIE INTO THE ARGUMENT? ADDED IN ITALICS>> In the United States, we have effective public policies to minimize child poverty. At least one potential presidential administration would curtail those policies in the reckless pursuit of austerity. The other is silent.Social Security and unemployment benefits keep several million children out of poverty. Although food stamps and the Earned-Income Tax Credit (EITC) are not counted in official poverty statistics, in government-sponsored alternative measures of poverty they are major drivers of poverty relief. As Peter Edelman estimates in his recent book So Rich, So Poor, something like 40 million people would be poor today if it were not for anti-poverty legislation that gave us food stamps, the EITC, and indexed Social Security to inflation.]]
