EDITORIAL Some children are being left behind
Sr. Berta Sailer has known the
downside of the culture for more than 30 years. Shes a co-director, with
Sr. Corita Bussanmas, of Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City, Mo., a
comprehensive social services agency that helps 400 kids ages 6 months to 15
years. These are kids from tough low-income circumstances. Some of them are
homeless, single moms care for 99 percent, and a number of them are foster
kids.
Too bad they cant declare themselves some kind of defense
installation. Theyd get more money than they can use.
But these are just kids like the kids in similar circumstances all
over the country. Mostly hidden, no high roller lobbyists in Washington. If the
kids could decipher the federal budget, theyd find out how much we value
them. And they would know were not willing to put out money to back up
all our pretty words of concern about children and making sure none are left
behind.
Sailer knows welfare reform the part that doesnt work,
whether its moms who work and never see their kids or moms who just
cant manage more than two minimum-wage jobs at a time or those who, for
other reasons, have slipped through the welfare net. Sailers got 450 kids
on a waiting list. Once the waiting list reaches 450, they stop adding to
it.
So you can imagine the joy at Operation Breakthrough when
Bussanmas and Sailer, both Sisters of Charity, learned just before Christmas
that they would be receiving $1.15 million from the federal government to help
them to expand and to redesign a clinic area.
But we are becoming scrupulous as a culture in making sure that no
needy person, no one in tough circumstances, receives too much from the common
treasury.
As the sisters wrote in a letter to the local Kansas City
Star, their joy was short-lived, upended by the news that the funds
may not come after all.
The Bush administration now says Congress did
not appropriate enough money for Pell Grants, and the shortfall should come
from funds earmarked for Operation Breakthrough and many other health and
education programs.
The Pell Grant program for next year will distribute a total of
$10.3 billion. The maximum award for needy students averages about $2,700. Pell
Grants are just a portion of the $67 billion provided by the Department of
Education to help millions of students try to get a college education. Most of
that total, however, comes to students in the form of loans or payment for
work-study programs.
What a pity that needy kids at different points in their lives are
forced into a tug of war over federal money. While the Pell Grant amount may
seem a lot, anyone whos sent a child to college knows that a few thousand
a year hardly begins to satisfy the university finance office. As for the rest
of that education aid? Most of it is returned as loan payments, with
interest.
So the folks at places like Operation Breakthrough are left to sit
on the sidelines and watch as the tug of money goes on in Washington.
Meanwhile, it cant be left unsaid, as that drama plays out, that if
President Bush has his way next year, a total of $396 billion will be spent on
defense. Thats more than a billion dollars a day. No defense contractor
will be left behind.
National Catholic Reporter, March 1,
2002
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