Republican austerity campaign hurts kids/ schools

by Duane Campbell

The Republican campaign for austerity  makes educators and students, as well as millions of others,  the victims in a  strategy to make the middle class and the poor pay for the excesses of the banking /economic crisis.

California schools have just begun to recover from 4 years of extreme budget austerity and recklessness at the state level.  It would take at least 3 years to return to normal.   Now, the federal sequester will impose new cuts on school districts which receive federal funds- such as Title I, and Migrant Education.   The vast majority of schools and districts will not be directly affected until the 2013–14 school year because of the “forward funded” nature of federal education spending. However, when children have less food to eat, don't receive their vaccinations and lack medical care, schools suffer. 

From the Coalition on Human Needs

“The Sequester’s Beginnings.  Congress included sequestration – or across-the-board cuts in all but a number of exempted programs – in its deficit reduction legislation, the Budget Control Act of 2011. 

It wasn't the bankers- It was the Teachers' Union.- Christie

     The looting of the U.S. and the economic crisis were not caused by Wall Street and the corporations,  it was the Teachers’ Union.

Chris Christie.

At the Republican convention.

"Now having squandered trillions on mismanaged wars, tax cuts designed especially for the rich, a gigantic real estate bubble, and massive bailouts for its banks, the United States is confronting a major fiscal problems.  At the same time, America’s fundamental economic competitiveness has declined severely, as its physical infrastructure, broad band services, educational system, workface skills, health care and energy policies have failed to keep pace with the needs of the advanced economy. ….

The principal reason for this is that politically powerful interest groups have been able to block reform: the financial services, energy, defense, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, and processed food industries, the legal, accounting, and medical professions; and to a lesser extent, several unions- these and other groups , including, of course, lobbyists and politicians, have ferociously resisted efforts to improve  America’s future at their expense.

            Meanwhile, both political parties are ignoring, lying about, and/or exploiting the country’s very real economic, social, and educational problems."

Charles H. Ferguson,   Predator Nation; Corporate Criminals, political corruption, and the Hijacking of America.  2012.