Straight from the horse's mouth: "The Times's editorial page is focusing on the damaging impact that American, European and Japanese agricultural subsidies and trade barriers have on farmers in developing nations. The project is being led by editorial writer Andrés Martinez, who is travelling to Asia, Africa, Europe and South America this summer to research the issue.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is concerned that low-income workers are hearing a lot of rhetoric and not seeing a lot of action on their behalf.
The organization says, At the national level in 2003, important opportunities to assist low-income workers, including measures to provide them with relief through the tax code, have not been acted upon. Instead, the President and Congress have given priority to tax cuts of primary benefit to high-income households, with households earning more than $1 million a year receiving new tax cuts averaging $93,000 in 2003. Furthermore, national policy decisions to be made in the next few weeks and months may weaken child care and housing assistance for low-income working families. At the state level, both tax and spending decisions have hit low-income workers hard.
Founded in 1981, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has emerged over the past two decades as one of the leading organizations in the country working on fiscal policy issues and issues affecting low- and moderate-income families and individuals. The Center specializes in research and analysis oriented toward policy decisions that policymakers face at both federal and state levels. The Center examines data and research findings and produces analyses designed to be accessible to public officials, other non-profit organizations, and the media.
Many Children Left Behind Free Tutoring Service Reaches Few in NYC
NYC kids who were eligible for free tutoring last year thanks to a new federal law never saw the promised instruction. Despite being the first systems to get its tutoring program off the ground, confusing letters to parents and poor communication resulted in low enrollment.
According to the New York Times, the offer of tutoring for poor children in failing schools -- part of the 2001 law known as No Child Left Behind -- could benefit nearly a quarter of a million children in 312 of the city's 1,200 schools. But only 30,333 children requested tutoring, which comes to 12.5 percent of the 243,249 eligible and all but 3,640 of those children were tutored by the very school system that had failed them already.
Bulgaria Moves to Avoid Poverty-Induced Family Crises Mother and Baby centers to open in 10 Municipalities
Bulgarian women who want to give up their children for adoption -- often as a result of poverty -- will have a new opportunity to stay with their children. According to Bulgaria's Info Radio, "Mother and Baby" centers will open in 10 municipalities, with the first located in Gabrovo to serve eight women and their newborns in September.
The Long Road to Recovery UN's Klein Predicts 4-Year Recovery for Liberia
According to UN Special Representative for Liberia Jacques Klein, the African nation will take four years to get back on its feet after 14 years of civil war.
Klein, on a tour of neighboring Guinea, went on to accuse former president of Liberia Charles Taylor with infecting Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire with violence and instability. Klein blamed Taylor for the more than eight million weapons circulating illegally around the region.
Key quotes:
"Because of the former president's [Taylor] willy-nilly determination to get to power, 85 percent of all Liberians are today living below the poverty line, with tens of thousands living in exile", Klein said. "Reconstructing Liberia and bringing back security and stability there will take four to five years," the former US air force general told reporters in Conakry on Tuesday after a meeting with Guinean prime minister Lamine Sidime.
Grants of up to $35,000 will be awarded by the Hasbro Children's Foundation to programs that improve the emotional, mental, and physical health of disadvantaged children up to 12 years old.
Local and national programs tackling issues such as child abuse, poverty, homelessness, or other problems may apply.
CDF to Congress: 'Head Start's not broken, so don't break it'
The Children's Defense Fund is urging people to call their Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them "Head Start’s not broken, so don't break it."
The non-profit group claims Head Start should be expanded, not dismantled, which CDF says will happen if President George Bush has his way. "The Bush Administration believes Head Start’s comprehensive federal standards should be dismantled to give states, facing the worst budget deficits since World War II, authority over the program," said the group, citing a February 2003 news release from www.ed.gov.
The Children's Defense Fund Action Council announced that it is airing a new 30-second television ad focused on protecting Head Start's comprehensive preschool services from the Bush administration's plan to dismantle it. The spot, "Falling Behind," begans airing yesterday in markets in Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Rep. George Miller on Bush's Compassionate Conservatism: "You can dress it all up, but at the end of the day he broke his promise"
President George Bush's "compassionate conservative" agenda might have him in hot water by the time elections roll around in 2004, according to The New York Times.
Looks like even his supporters are calling him to carpet on some big fall-throughs in his compassion agenda.
Key quotes:
"After three years, he's failed the test," said one prominent early supporter, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of churches that fights poverty. Mr. Wallis said Mr. Bush had told him as president-elect that "I don't understand how poor people think," and appealed to him for help by calling himself "a white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to." Now, Mr. Wallis said, "his policy has not come even close to matching his words." We raised this in the Oval Office, we raised this in our meetings with the president," (Rep. George Miller of California) said. "He assured us that the funds would be there if the reforms were there. This is calculated conservatism, and they calculate just as much as they can get away with. You can dress it all up, but at the end of the day he broke his promise. It's not much more complicated than that."
Thousands Gather in D.C. to Commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.
Thousands marched on Washington, D.C., this weekend as part of the "Poor People's March for Economic Human Rights." The march, which began on August 2, decended on the nation's capitol this past weekend to honor of the original "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," held on Aug. 28, 1963.
The march also kicks off, organizers said, a 15-month voter registration drive leading to next fall's presidential election.
Key quote:
"My father was more than a dreamer," said (Martin Luther King III), president and chief executive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, standing behind a lectern covered in African kinte cloth, the grand statue of Abraham Lincoln looming behind him. "The glorious dream my father shared with us that day was not just an exercise in eloquent speechmaking. We need the reminder that Martin Luther King Jr. was first and foremost a minister of action."
The rest of the march's schedule:
Aug 25th: Organizing for the right to health care; free health care screenings Aug 26th: Organizing for the right to housing; local action and a memorial service for those lost Aug 27th: Organizing for the right to food and water; free food and drink distribution Aug 28th: Organizing for the right to education; a teach-in on free higher education Aug 29th: Organizing for the right to a living wage; a teach-in on the effects of NAFTA, CAFTA and the FTAA; also performances from musicians uniting to end poverty.
