Marian Wright Edelman Responds to the President's 2016 Budget

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Feb 02, 2015, 03:41 ET

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today President Obama released his 2016 budget proposal and the Children's Defense Fund found good news for our most vulnerable children and families. The expanded investments proposed in programs that would benefit children and families most include:

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Unprecedented investments in early childhood development and learning that include increased funding for quality home visiting programs, Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, high-quality full-day preschool for 4-year-olds from poor and low-income families, and $80 billion over 10 years for child care subsidies for poor and low-income families. Expanding child care subsidies to more working families was one of the nine policy improvements CDF proposed in a report released last week. Together those suggested changes could shrink child poverty by 60 percent. For details, read Ending Child Poverty Now.
Increased investments in the poorest children with the greatest needs to help them succeed in school by adding $1 billion to the Title I Program for Disadvantaged Students.
Four more years of funding for the successful, bi-partisan Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that would ensure 8 million children in working families continue to have access to high-quality, affordable and effective child health coverage.
$1.4 billion in new guaranteed funding for preventive services to help keep children safely in families and out of foster care; promote family-based care for children with behavioral and mental health needs; and help American Indian children removed from families remain in their communities.
Making permanent the improvements in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit scheduled to expire at the end of 2017. This would prevent one million children from being pushed into poverty, and 6.7 million from being pushed deeper into poverty.

"This budget proposal recognizes that the future of the nation really does depend on our children and that by investing more in our children today, the country will be stronger tomorrow. There is no greater economic or military threat to our national security than our failure to prepare all our children to compete in an increasingly globalized world," said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund. "This is not a Republican issue, or a Democratic issue, this is an American issue that literally is about preparing our future workforce so America can remain a strong leader in the years ahead."

The Children's Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind^® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

For more information contact:
Patti Hassler, Vice President of Communications and Outreach
202-662-3554 (office)
[email protected]

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SOURCE Children's Defense Fund