opinion
T
he fight over the increase in
the debt ceiling should have
taught
us
a
few
lessons. These include that there
is a wing of the Republican
Party—the Tea Party faction—that
is quite prepared to fly their planes
into the towers of government in
order to make their point. They
have no interest in compromise
and are doing all that they can to
defend the wealthy elite that dom-
inates this country, despite their
rhetoric about looking out for the
common person.
There is something else that we
have to face. President Obama
accepted the basic
Republican framework
for looking at the eco-
nomic crisis in which
we find ourselves. Thus,
instead of focusing on
jobs, Obama began,
some months ago, to
talk more and more
about national debt and
budget deficits. At a
point when the govern-
ment should be putting
more resources into the
production of jobs as a
way of priming the eco-
nomic pump, President
Obama called for shared sacrifice
in the need to cut the debt. This
was compounded by his willing-
ness to concede most of the
T RANS A FRICA
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
demands of the Republicans as the
price for gaining the rise in the
debt ceiling. The irony, of course,
is that the Republican shenani-
gans, and the instability that this
displayed, contributed to the S&P
without a clear debt ceiling
increase from Congress that he
would use the Constitution’s 14th
Amendment to increase it unilater-
ally, he blinked, and sadly, the
Republicans knew well in advance
that he would.
Leaving aside your personal
feelings about President Obama
one thing becomes perfectly
clear. There is no way that we can
rely on him to defend the social
safety net that was won in the 20th
century, nor is there any way that
we can assume that he ‘gets’ the
centrality of the need for jobs in
order to get us out of the econom-
Instead of the President standing firm in
defense of our hard-won social benefits and
insisting that without a clear debt ceiling
increase from Congress that he would use the
Constitution’s 14th Amendment to increase it
unilaterally, he blinked, and sadly, the
Republicans knew well in advance that he
would
downgrade and the subsequent,
renewed financial crisis. So,
instead of the President standing
firm in defense of our hard-won
social benefits and insisting that
ic crisis. Whether this is due to his
ties with Wall Street, his belief
system, or his poor negotiating
skills is actually irrelevant. What
we have to recognize is that if we
want any action out of the
President, the everyday person
will need to be the ones that
brings this about.
How? We will have to make
more noise than the Tea Party ele-
ment. We will need to have
protests, not just in Washington,
D.C., but throughout the
USA. The unemployed need to
assemble in state capitals and
insist that they will not be allowed
to starve. Workers facing layoffs
and demands for concessions
must receive support from the rest
of us so that they are not standing
alone. And, yes, in 2012, we
must run and support candi-
dates that have a demonstrat-
ed record of being on the side
of working people and the
poor. We do not need those
who will talk out of both
sides of their mouths and
offer us heart-warming
speeches. We need politicians
who are with us in the trench-
es, fighting the good
fight. The decisions about our
economy will be made both in
Washington and in corporate
board rooms. If working peo-
ple do not make their voices
heard and flex their muscles—in
the streets and in the election
booths—just guess who will come
out on top?
PHOTO BY PeTe SOuZa
if He Will Not Fight, Then We Had Better Pull
President Obama in Cannon
Falls, Minn.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior
Scholar with the institute for
Policy Studies, the immediate past
president of transafrica Forum,
and the co-author of “Solidarity
Divided.” he can be reached at
papaq54@hotmail.com.
getting Children ready For School
F
rom new backpacks to sharp
pencils, parents across the
country are doing their best
to cross the items off their chil-
dren’s back-to-school checklists.
They want to be sure that when the
first day of school comes, their
children will have everything they
need to be ready to start and ready
to learn. But as a country we’re
failing to do the same thing and in
the current budget debate, some of
our leaders are threatening to do
just the opposite. Instead of budg-
eting our limited resources wisely
so we’ll be able to stock up on the
things we know our children need,
some shrill, ideologically driven
leaders are hijacking the political
process and trying to grab money
out of our children’s small piggy-
banks and spend it on more gift
cards for big corporations and bil-
lionaires. No new tax pledges
have been signed by 277 members
of Congress throwing the entire
weight of debt reduction on chil-
dren, our poorest Americans, the
homeless, jobless, helpless, and a
middle class treading water and
trying to stay afloat.
We know that between birth and
age five, children learn social,
emotional, behavioral, and cogni-
tive skills that set the foundation
for academic success. Factors
including poverty and the “lottery
of geography” create barriers to
c HiLd W aTcH
Marian Wright
Edelman
young children’s healthy develop-
ment. Cognitive gaps emerge
between children from families
with low and higher incomes as
early as nine months, and more
often than not, these children are
unable to catch up by the time they
still out of reach for many fami-
lies. Although child care is a
necessity for many families with
working parents, the annual cost
of center-based child care for a
four-year-old is more than the
annual in-state tuition at a public
four-year college in 33 states and
the District of Columbia. In 18
states, a family must have an
income below 175 percent of the
poverty level (below $32,043 for a
family of four) to receive a public
child care subsidy. Only 13.8 per-
cent of three-year-olds and 38.9
percent of four-year-olds were in
state-funded pre-kindergarten pro-
grams, Head Start, or early inter-
in dire straits. Many public school
students, kindergarten through
12th grade, are struggling; chil-
dren of color and poor children
struggle most. More than 60 per-
cent of all fourth, eighth, and 12th
grade public school students and
nearly 80 percent or more of Black
and Hispanic public school stu-
dents in the same grades are read-
ing or doing math below grade
level. The U.S. ranks 24th among
30 developed countries on overall
educational achievement for 15-
year-olds, and in a study of educa-
tion systems in 60 countries, we
ranked 31st in math achievement
and 23rd in science achievement
Cognitive gaps emerge between children from families
with low and higher incomes as early as nine months, and
more often than not, these children are unable to catch
up by the time they enter kindergarten
enter kindergarten. The resulting
achievement gap increases over
time and often propels children
into the cradle to prison pipeline –
especially if they are poor children
of color.
Quality child care and early
childhood educational experiences
are crucial to giving children a
sound start in life – but they are
vention/special education in 2008-
2009 and only 10 states require all
schools districts to offer full day
kindergarten to get children ready
for school.
Without positive early child-
hood experiences, it is easy for
children to fall behind in school
and American education, which
used to be the envy of the world, is
for 15-year-olds. Too often chil-
dren fall behind in school and drop
out, increasing their risk of enter-
ing the cradle to prison
pipeline. Staying in school and
receiving a quality education are
the best deterrents to juvenile
delinquency and the surest route
towards responsible, productive
adulthood. Yet almost half of our
states spend on average more than
three times as much per prisoner
as per public school pupil. I can’t
think of a dumber investment pol-
icy, one that hurts countless chil-
dren and families every day.
It’s clear we’re not getting our
children what they need to be
ready for and to succeed in school
and to learn all that we need them
to know in order to keep our work-
force, military, and country strong
in the future. It’s time for every
voter to tell those shrill partisan
and ideologically driven extrem-
ists that America’s children are not
to be sacrificial lambs on the altar
of their destructive agendas. If we
saw parents spending money to
buy themselves a private jet but
sending their child to school
unprepared, hungry, and empty-
handed, we would be shocked and
furious at how misguided their pri-
orities were. Why should any of
our nation’s leaders be allowed to
make the same choice?
Marian wright edelman is a
lifelong advocate for disadvan-
taged americans and is the
President of the Children’s
Defense Fund (CDF). under her
leadership, CDF has become the
nation’s strongest voice for chil-
dren and families.
august 17, 2011 The Seattle Skanner Page 5