California:
Child Care for the Poor Is the First Victim of the Politicians’ Games

Aug 11, 2003

In the middle of July, under the pretext of having no budget passed by the legislature, the state of California withheld immediate payments of 380 million dollars to child-care centers serving the poor.

When the state pushed women with small children off welfare it promised to provide adequate child-care so the women could work. These subsidized child-care centers were the result. There never were enough of them. And the quality at many of them was lousy. But suddenly, they were closing their doors, putting day care for 429,000 children and the jobs of 23,000 child-care workers in jeopardy. Parents found themselves between a rock and a hard place. They were forced to choose between keeping their jobs or abandoning their children during the day.

This "budget standoff" was nothing more than a game played by politicians. Now that it is supposedly resolved, with Democrats and Republicans agreeing on a budget, the child-care centers are supposed to get their funding back. But the weeks without child care already have cost many parents and child-care workers their jobs.

Politicians are good at making propaganda at the expense of children. They lecture single mothers not to depend on welfare, to get jobs and be "responsible" members of society. And the same politicians never miss an opportunity to say that they are all for "family values." All it took was a phony "budget crisis" to expose their hypocrisy!