Our governments can and must
do better for our children

Sound investments in children are not only smart politics, they’re smart policy

March 5, 2004

By Ellen J. Shemitz
President
Children's Alliance of New Hampshire

Could the federal government act frugally while ensuring that children have access to quality schools, health care, safe homes and neighborhoods, and other basic needs? Of course it could. But that possibility either didn’t occur or didn’t matter to the writer of “For children,” the Union Leader’s Feb. 27 indictment of the Children’s Defense Fund’s (CDF) Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard.

The editorial criticized CDF’s Action Council for using the results of 11 roll-call votes in both the House and Senate to answer the question: “How well do your members of Congress protect children?” CDF’s scorecard ranked New Hampshire’s delegation next to last.

The editorial also criticized the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire for publicizing the scorecard and accused us of insulting “the good, frugal” people of New Hampshire by inferring that our delegation is “anti-child.”

It was an entertaining read, in the black-and-white, us-versus-them, frugal-or-spendthrift school of writing. But its analysis — spending on children is reckless spending — was itself reckless.

The Children’s Alliance is a nonpartisan, research-based child advocacy organization that seeks to promote public understanding of and support for child- and family-friendly public policy. We believe that children do best in stable and nurturing environments. We believe that strong and healthy families not only are the best possible environment for children, they are the backbone of a healthy and thriving state.

Giving children a stable, healthy and smart start is the best investment government can make, and many of the bills the CDF highlighted aimed to give a better start to our most vulnerable children — children who have disabilities, are poor, or whose families are immigrants.

As a state, New Hampshire has been slow to grasp the long-term implications of failing to invest in children, but we’re getting there. As our high-tech companies import skilled workers from other states, as our Medicaid costs soar, as our prisons bulge with violent criminals who were abused children, we’re waking up to the pound-foolishness of not educating children, not making sure they have preventive health care, not keeping them safe.

With the notable exception of state education funding — and that because people haven’t agreed on any one solution, not because they don’t want to solve the problem — we reject most attacks on programs that clearly benefit children, like Healthy Kids health insurance. We have thanked the Union Leader for advocating in editorials for more funding for the child protection system.

Clearly, not all government spending is bad spending.

As for the editorial writer’s observation that Democrats dominated the top of the CDF rankings and Republicans the bottom, all we can say is that children should never be a partisan issue. When Congress votes along party lines on these issues, voters need to know, and need to ask their congressmen: Why?

Sound investments in children are not only smart politics, they’re smart policy.

Looking again at New Hampshire, last year’s Kassidy Bortner Child Protection Act was sponsored and shepherded through the New Hampshire Legislature by Republicans (Sen. Andre Martel and Rep. Marge Hallyburton), passed with huge bipartisan votes, and signed by Republican Gov. Craig Benson. This year, the school funding constitutional amendment was defeated by the work of a bipartisan coalition.

Children have no voice and no political power unless adults speak on their behalf. The Children’s Alliance makes absolutely no apologies for raising our voices to make children a priority. Holding elected officials accountable for their votes is but one of the many ways in which we seek to make children a priority for a better New Hampshire.

We — both parties, in Concord and in Washington — can do better. We must do better.