Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Bobby and Kids

The Gov is at it again. According to our local rag, The Star Democrat:
The future of Maryland's 12 regional child resource centers,..., is up in the air as state funding could be cut by $2 Million. ...
The 12 resource centers serve as the hub for child care services in different regions of Maryland...
Statewide funding was $3.8 Million a year in the past two years. Gov. Robert Ehrlich proposed $1.8 Million for fiscal year 2006...
...Ehrlich has proposed the resouces centers be switched from the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Resources to the Department of Education. Macsherry said services that go to young children are not social services or welfare services, but educational services.
In the current economic climate, most households have both Mom and Dad working; sometimes at two jobs. This is just to keep even. Agreed, we could live without a lot of "stuff" that we accumulate. But, if we did that, then the economy would really tank.

One of the things families need, then, is good day care. They frequently can't get it. Really good day care is over $100 a week. If you're working minimum wage, and the federal minimum wage for covered, nonexempt employees is $5.15 per hour, that means, hummm, subtract six and carry... alright, 19.4 hours to pay for day care for ONE child. If you have two children, 38.8 hours. That leaves 1.2 hours of salary, or $6.18 for food, transportation, housing, clothing, entertainment, and, ta ta, taxes!

While not day care itself, these resource centers make sure that the quality of those out there conforms to some kind of basic standard. In other words, they perform an important task.

One other thing, who out there thinks that day care is education? You can see where Ehrlich is going here. By doing that, he throws it back to the counties and the School Board. That saves more money for Bobby so he can pay off his fat cat supporters.

You wonder why we're going to hell in a hand basket.

2 comments:

Dr. C said...

EG; thanks again for your comments. Sounds like you are more into the school system than I am, though my office manager's husband is comptroller of a county's school board and I hear a lot of scuttlebut. I think Ehrlich is insincere in the same way tha Bush is insincere. He talks about "children" and "mental Health" and the turns around and cuts the budget for these things.
I suspect that the pre and post school day care are predominantly in the lower class areas since that's where both mom and pop work 2 jobs.

Unknown said...

This is a wonderful opinion. The things mentioned are unanimous and needs to be appreciated by everyone.


Child Care Services