I have lived through a number of wars- Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. In addition, there have been wars against poverty, Congress and the War on Wall Street. But there has never been a war against children – until now.
The Republicans and their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, have shown open hostility toward our nation’s children. Candidate Romney has vowed to consolidate the Federal Education Department (or at least, to make it “a heck of a lot smaller”). He has endorsed Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposal which would eliminate 200,000 children from Head Start, reduce services for 10% of disadvantaged middle-school children and cut Pell grants by more than $1,000 per college education costs. When asked where the additional funding for college would come from, Romney replied, “Borrow money from your parents.”
Then there is the recently passed Health Care Bill which Mr. Romney and his Republican colleagues have called “Obama Care”. Have the Republicans even considered how many children would be hurt if the law would be struck down? Up to 17 million children would be denied care for a pre-existing condition; 28 million children would not be subjected to lifetime caps on their coverage and 2.5 million children would be removed from their parents health insurance policies.
China and India were able to leapfrog most Western industrialized nations by their laser-like focus on improving education. Yet this has escaped the view of the Republicans. They are very aware that children cannot vote and when they become eligible the current Republican governors, state legislators and current presidential candidate will be out of office.