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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6730
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 09:45 am: | 
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Clinton Offers Child Poverty Plan
Photo: Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch
Hillary Clinton speaks Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008, during a campaign stop at the Ohio University Southern Child Development Center in Hanging Rock, Ohio.
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/elections/x218531465
Posted: 7:18 AM Feb 28, 2008
Last Updated: 7:18 AM Feb 28, 2008
AHANGING ROCK, Ohio (AP) -- Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton is offering a plan to improve childhood nutrition and setting a goal to reduce by half the 12 million youngsters living in poverty over the next dozen years.
A package of proposals, to be unveiled Thursday, includes a "comprehensive" early education initiative that starts with nurse's visits for pregnant women, lets children begin the Head Start program earlier and calls for universal pre-kindergarten programs.
The New York senator also says she would deal with childhood hunger by putting in place a food safety net, and give children "greater access to healthy, fresh food."
She was to spell out her proposals in a speech at the child care development center on Ohio University's southern campus.
Clinton aides said the new programs would carry and annual pricetag of $5 billion to $6 billion. A significant portion of her plan comes by expanding existing programs. She would cover the cost by toughening enforcement to collect taxes currently owed but not paid.
Clinton said she would direct her agriculture secretary to develop a plan to end childhood hunger. The nutrition effort would come largely through signing up more people for the food stamp program and expanding its benefits.
School breakfast programs would be universal in low-income neighborhoods under her proposal. She also would double the size of a summer nutrition program aimed at feeding low-income children when they aren't in school.
Clinton also says she would launch an effort to get junk food out of schools. She would require schools that get federal funding through the school lunch or breakfast programs to offer only food that meets or surpasses USDA standards.
Background documents outlining her proposal were provided to The Associated Press and include some proposals that Clinton has offered in the past such as calling for an increase in the minimum wage to aid the working poor, as well as expanding the earned income tax credit, a move that helps the same group.
In addition, Clinton was calling for stronger programs aimed at cutting teen pregnancy as well as toughening child support enforcement programs to "support responsible fatherhood."
Clinton argues that roughly 12.9 million children live in poverty, with about 5 million living in extreme poverty. That means their families have incomes of less than half the federal poverty level.
The effort would bolster minority children, Clinton says, with roughly one-third of black children living in poverty and 28 percent of Hispanic youngsters living in poor households. That compares with the roughly 10 percent of white children in poverty, she says. Despite that, 35 percent of all children living in poverty are white, making them the largest group of youngsters in poverty.
"While we celebrate America as a place where an individual's circumstances at birth should not determine his or her life chances, the fact is that economic mobility is now in decline in America," Clinton's background documents say. "Children born in poverty are likely to live in poverty their whole lives."
The effort to provide nursing care for pregnant women builds on a program she shaped as first lady of Arkansas, a program she said has been a dramatic success.
http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/16069327.html |
Ferociouskitty
Regular Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 92
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 10:41 am: |
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Hooray!!!! |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6368
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 01:14 pm: |
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You're going to enjoy this like you enjoyed her health plan--WHOOPS! The Republicans shoved that one up her tailpipe, didn't they? |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 102
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 01:18 pm: |
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Well, by at least bringing poverty back to the table (RIP, John Edwards) we stand a greater chance of having something achieved than if the discussion wasn't happening.
We have John Edwards to thank for this. At the debate right after he bowed out, both Obama and HRC paid a little lip service to poverty concerns.
Whoever wins, fighting poverty is an issue that should transcend campaign and partisan politics. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6376
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 01:37 pm: |
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Whoever wins, fighting poverty is an issue that should transcend campaign and partisan politics
(Now hear this--poor people don't vote and poor people don't contribute money to political campaigns.
Now what do you think ANY politician is going to do for them and who is going to do anything about it if they don't?) |
Nels
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 1072
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 10:40 pm: |
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It's a Child Plan alright...More like muzzle the little bastards and shove 'em into a closet. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2722
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2008 - 09:50 am: |
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In general I get frustrated at anti-poverty programs targeted only at children. I know part of this kind of thing is a political strategy: Folks who may be against more broad-based programs do not want to appear to be against kids.
But children are not floating freely out there in the world, in need of individual services. Only kids who are child stars or who have inherited great wealth have an "income"--otherwise it is their parents who are in poverty and the kids, by extension. Any program that does not address adult poverty is designed, by definition, to keep the kids poor--just poor without going completely under. So maybe these are anti-starvation or anti-bad nutrition programs but they are not anti-poverty.
Even programs focused just on nutrition could do more to help everyone in the family, IMO. One of the best ideas I heard of recently did just that. Some schools collected back packs and packed them full of filling food items (crackers, peanut butter, pasta, sauce). The kids went home on the weekends with enough food to feed themselves and their families for the days they were not in school. (After all, what good is free breakfast and lunch if the kids only get to eat them during the week.)
One thing I liked about Edwards is that he seemed to have a more comprehensive discussion about poverty. There have been others who have addressed this. There was the "Food Stamp Challenge" recently where lawmakers tried to live on the $21 a week that an average food stamp recipient receives. (WaPo story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501957. html#)
I am not trying to pick on this particular plan from Sen Clinton. I am glad she is talking about poverty. And I note that many items in this plan are similar to ones proposed by Sen. Obama. Not to say that either is copying off of the other. But both are only going so far as is politically expedient at this time. |
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