If you didn’t get a chance to peruse this document, please give it a read. It’s an easy-to-understand breakdown of the various budget scenarios that could transpire at the end of this Congressional session or the beginning of the next and how our nation’s children would be affected by each of those scenarios. Feel free to send this link to your constituents or download it for hard-copy distribution.

Not only making the case that children should be held harmless in budget negotiations but actually calling for increased investments in children is ECM’s “Homeland Insecurity,” 4th edition. A colorful booklet with facts, figures, and photos, “Homeland Insecurity” is available in hard-cover and multiple copies free of charge for your conference goers or trainees or clients. Just let us know how they’ll be used, by which organization, when, and where. We need a street address for delivery—no P.O. Boxes, please.

Allow at least 10 business days for us to process your order. We will be closed between Christmas and New Year.

On Wednesday, November 28, from 6-7:30 pm, ECM is honored to be holding a fundraising reception in Alexandria, Virginia, featuring former United States Senator George Mitchell. Click here for more information about this event.

PBS Frontline explores what poverty means to children and the country's future in "Poor Kids."

A very poignant documentary told through the eyes of children.

Watch the full program here...

Now that the election has finally ended, the debate in Washington has shifted to the budget and taxes. There has been a lot of coverage about the so-called “fiscal cliff”. In plain English, this refers to the end of the year when two big things are scheduled to happen by law: 1) the end of the tax breaks passed in 2001 and 2003 plus the end of more recent tax changes that specifically benefit working families such as the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and the payroll tax cut and other important policies and 2) automatic spending cuts to a wide variety of children’s programs and other functions of the government Congress set in motion in the middle of 2011.

The priorities of some in Washington DC are clearly out of whack. For example, many Republicans in Congress support extending the estate-tax cut enacted in 2010 that provides a large tax break to the estates of the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans who die each year — about 7,000 people — while ending a provision of the same 2010 tax legislation that makes improvements in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) that benefit 13 million moderate-income working families. At the same time they support the automatic spending cuts that would deny Head Start services to 75,000 children, job training to 20,000 youth, special education services to 460,000 students, tuition support to 1.3 million college students, and heating and air conditioning subsidies to 734,000 households with children and young adults. In addition to these cuts, House Republicans voted earlier this year to end the Social Services Block Grant, the main source of state funding to prevent and treat child abuse.

By Arloc Sherman

These figures are particularly timely given the looming expiration of two key measures that account for part of these programs’ large antipoverty impact:  federal emergency unemployment insurance and the 2009 Recovery Act’s improvements in refundable tax credits like the EITC.

Letting these measures expire at year’s end could push large numbers of families into poverty.

See original article.

Every Child Matters is among 146 national organizations who signed a letter to the President requesting that he “focus on job creation and avoid any actions that would cost jobs; oppose benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; protect our nation’s safety net; and oppose any extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans.”

November 9, 2012

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

The undersigned, representing 146 national organizations, understand the urgent budget decisions we face as a nation over the next few months.  As you work to craft a resolution to these economic and fiscal challenges, we urge you to embrace the call of the American people to focus on job creation and avoid any actions that would cost jobs; oppose benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; protect our nation’s safety net; and oppose any extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans.   

Fearing that kids’ programs will be the targets of deep cuts when Congress returns in November, ECM s has developed a short paper, “Dark Clouds Ahead? The Pending Threat of Congressional Actions to Children’s Safety Net Programs,” describing the potential effects of these actions on children’s health, education and safety.

If Congress keeps the automatic across-the-board cut of 8.4% scheduled to begin January 1, 2013, 75,000 fewer children would receive Head Start services; 460,000 special education students would receive fewer services too and cause 12,500 special education staff to lose their jobs; and 734,000 households would not receive home heating or air conditioning support, among many other cuts.

In advance of Tuesday's Presidential Election, we encourage all of you to check out our new Election Day Toolbox. Whether you're helping people people get to the polls or making sure you and your friends are registered, the Toolbox can help you. We need to ensure that our voices are heard on Tuesday!

Serving as a backdrop for the final presidential debate at Lynn University on October 22 are the large outdoor banners of Every Child Matters’ Presidents Helping Children exhibit.