House Cuts to Kids: Threatens Both Their and Our Nation’s Future
On the House floor in last week’s debate over the debt ceiling bill (H.R. 2811), the House of Representatives passed a policy (217–215) that would cut 22% or more from education, child health, early childhood, child care, nutrition, homelessness, and child abuse prevention programs.
In the debate, House Budget House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, from my home State of Texas, rose to say:
…you will not hear, I bet, anything about the most vulnerable group of people in this country and that is the next generation of Americans who will inherit $31 trillion in debt — the highest levels of indebtedness in our nation’s history.
Chairman Arrington proceeds to ask a “big question” — one that I raise nearly every day. He said:
Where are they in this debate? That’s the big question.
Who is speaking up for them? That’s a big question.
Chairman Arrington is right. Children are, far too often, completely left out of the debates by policymakers in Washington and in state capitols and city councils across this nation. Their voices are not heard, and their needs and best interests are often an afterthought.
But here is where Chairman Arrington is wrong. While the debt is certainly an issue that matters, this bill would place the burden of the proposed cuts in H.R. 2811 disproportionately on the backs of children. This would prove to be disastrous for kids.
In fact, the vast majority of Americans recognize and understand that:
- Children need investments in their education, growth, and development — not 22% or more in cuts.
- Children need investments to improve their physical and mental health — not 22% or more in cuts.
- Children need investments in their safety and protection — not 22% or more in cuts.
Our nation’s children stand at a crossroads.
Even before the COVID pandemic and the economic recession, children in the U.S. were not faring well. According to a 2020 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranked 36th out of 38 wealthy nations on dozens of child well-being measures. As an example, our nation’s child poverty rate was among the worst among those countries.
Furthermore, as a Brookings Institute study by Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schazenbach found:
…the United States is near the bottom of countries belonging to the OECD in ‘family benefits public spending’ as a share of GDP….
In fact, between 2016 and 2020, First Focus on Children documented in our Children’s Budget analysis that the share of federal funding dedicated to children dropped from 9.89% to 7.55% — a 24% decline during the Trump Administration.
Over that period, we saw increases in the uninsured rate for children, rising child suicide rates, high infant and child mortality, rising child abuse rates, increases in child homelessness, and rising child hunger rates.
As Chairman of the House Budget Committee and chairman of the House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Arrington knows that money matters. We hope that he and his colleagues in Congress would recognize and understand that our lack of investment in our nation’s children has been detrimental to their growth and development and will significantly undermine their future success.
Even if Congress does not get it, the American people do. In a May 2022 poll by Lake Research Partners, voters in this country overwhelming believe (90–8%) that “investing in children helps improve their lives, development, and outcomes.” Moreover, by a margin of 89–7%, they also agree that “investing in children has a large return in a healthy society and a healthy economy.”
However, H.R. 2811 seeks to cut trillions of dollars out of the federal budget, and in doing so, simultaneously exempts more powerful groups and programs than children. That list seems to grow daily but does not include children. In fact, the bill targets non-defense discretionary programs for cuts by 22% or more in the first year. Children’s programs are disproportionately in that category and include education, early childhood, child care, child health, child nutrition, child homelessness, child poverty, and child abuse prevention.
Our letter to the House highlights how these cuts would harm children.
Rep. Bobby Scott, Ranking Member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, made similar important points regarding the negative consequences of H.R. 2811 on children in his House floor statement.
So, as Chairman Arrington asks, who speaks up for children? Groups like ours do, but so do the parents and the majority of Americans who believe we should be investing in our children and our future. We are here to urge policymakers to recognize that it is nonsensical — in the name of the “next generation” — to make 22% or more in cuts to our nation’s children.
While the House keeps adding to the list of populations and things, including tax breaks for the wealthiest among us and for ethanol, to be exempt from budget cuts, our children have been left on the chopping block and would be disproportionately harmed by H.R. 2811.
In sharp contrast, on each and every single children’s issue, the American people strongly believe we are spending TOO LITTLE rather than TOO MUCH on children’s issues.
Harming children does not help them. It is also a disaster for our nation’s future. We know that investing in children works and that it has an incredible long-term return-on-investment. Time and time again, research has confirmed that investments in children have enormous payoffs.
For example, Harvard economists Nathaniel Hendren and Ben Sprung-Keyser found that investments in early childhood, education, and child health programs provide significant benefits. Their study points out:
- Direct investments in the health and education of low-income children have historically yielded the highest returns.
- Opportunities for high-return investments have persisted throughout childhood.
- Many direct investments in low-income children’s health and education have paid for themselves.
The policies that have historically invested in kids tend to be the ones that have the biggest bang for the buck. Because, oftentimes when you put in a dollar when a kid is young, it can have impact that then pays us back when those kids grow up.
And as Vox’s Dylan Matthews reports:
…if taxpayers decide, in the short run, to invest heavily in children’s health and education, they’ll actively save money decades in the future, money that could be used for other priorities or even for tax cuts. It’s in voters’ self-interest to try to make kids better off.
Unfortunately, Congress has repeatedly failed to do so. And as Robin Grille has said, “A society’s destiny rests on how it treats its children.”
Meanwhile, our children are not alright.
The mortality rate for children was already high and is rising. If Congress is truly concerned about the lives of children, now is not the time to be imposing severe cuts on programs to address issues such as children’s mental health, substance abuse, infant and maternal mortality, and gun safety.
Unfortunately, H.R. 2811 would impose substantial cuts to programs and services that both improve and save the lives of children.
It is time for our nation to get back to basics and regain our focus. While deficit reduction is important for the next generation, it cannot and should not be accomplished on the backs of children. Our children did not create this problem, but we have an obligation to ensure they have a bright future.
Again, voters overwhelmingly believe we are already spending TOO LITTLE on programs of importance to children. It is in all of our best interests to raise the healthiest, most educated, best prepared children in the world. If we want to recapture the American Dream and do right by the next generation, Congress can start by not cutting kids.
Unfortunately, the budget process already was rigged against children. In a report entitled Budgeting for the Next Generation: Does the Budget Process Prioritize Children?, the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) finds that the budget process systemically disadvantages and shortchanges our nation’s children.
CRFB’s analysis concludes:
- While much of spending on adults is mandatory, spending on children is disproportionately discretionary and thus must be reviewed and renewed with other appropriations.
- Spending on children is disproportionately temporary, and it requires far more regular reauthorization and appropriation than programs for adults.
- Spending on adults is rarely limited while spending on children is often capped, constraining what can be spent for most major children’s programs.
- Most programs for children lack built-in growth, leading spending on children to erode relative to spending on adults and relative to the economy.
- Programs for children lack dedicated revenue and thus lack the political advantage and protection of programs for seniors that enjoy this benefit.
- Growing spending on adults is burdening younger generations by driving up debt and thus reducing future income and increasing costs.
CRFB adds, “These features of the current budget process are increasingly leading spending on children to be crowded out, as the burden we place on children rises.”
H.R. 2811 compounds this problem.
Therefore, we urge Congress to consider a very different vision. As C. Eugene Steuerle, former deputy assistant secretary of the US Department of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and a renowned expert on budget and tax policy wrote in his book, Dead Men Ruling: How to Restore Fiscal Freedom and Rescue Our Future:
By shifting the budget toward investment in education, early childhood development, and other priorities set by evidence of high potential impact, we would promote growth for both the nation and its people over the long term. Think of the twenty-first century as doing for the young what the twentieth did for the elderly, only with a focus this time on opportunity and potential….
Children do not vote, don’t contribute to PACs, and don’t have lobbyists advocating on their behalf. It is up to the adults to listen to their needs, concerns, hopes, and aspirations and to help provide the opportunity for their greatest success.
We urge both the House and Senate to scrap H.R. 2811 that was written and rewritten behind closed doors and formulate a better plan to address the concerns of the American voters for children.
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If you would like to help ensure that children and their needs, concerns, and best interests are no longer ignored by policymakers and to protect our nation’s public schools from continued assault, please consider joining us as an “Ambassador for Children” or make a donation to help us continue our work on behalf of children.
