Washington – The White House today released a federal budget proposing increased investments benefiting nearly every aspect of a child’s life. Key elements of the president’s budget for children include:
- Increased funding to make quality child care affordable for more working families, plus expanded reach for the federal child care tax credit and a new “second earner” credit to help dual-income families manage child care costs;
- Stronger investments in early learning, including a more intensive Head Start initiative, increased preschool development grant funding, and continued funding for evidence-based voluntary home visiting;
- Extending funding for the bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Program through 2019;
- A renewed commitment to public schools, with additional funding for teacher preparation, incentives to eliminate school funding disparities, and funding for school-community partnerships designed to help disadvantaged students succeed;
- Funding to reduce the incidence of youth violence and support states’ work with youth offenders;
- Increased funding for family housing vouchers;
- Supporting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps), which allocates nearly half of its funding to children in homes affected by hunger;
- Repealing federal budget sequestration, ending arbitrary budget caps for a wide range of children’s initiatives;
- Increased funding for child abuse and neglect prevention, as well as a new initiative to reduce the incidence of over-prescription of psychotropic medications to children in foster care
Reacting to the president’s budget proposal, the First Focus Campaign for Children released the following statement from its president, Bruce Lesley:
“From child care to high school, quality health care to preventing abuse and neglect, President Obama’s budget represents a real reinvestment in America’s children. Whether or not Congress adopts these specific proposals, the president’s budget is a model for a federal budget that makes kids a priority, not an afterthought.”
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The First Focus Campaign for Children is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization affiliated with First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy organization. The Campaign for Children advocates directly for legislative change in Congress to ensure children and families are the priority in federal policy and budget decisions. For more information, visit campaignforchildren.org.