Commentary: Cutting funding for La. Child Care Assistance Program bad move for legislators

For Louisiana legislators to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of children and single mothers is not only spineless, it's a short-sighted tactic taxpayers will end up paying more for in the long run.

The Louisiana Child Care Assistance Program helps low-income families pay for

This funding has offered a critical and humanitarian helping hand to working single mothers who are trying to remain independent as well as people in other similarly challenging domestic situations. To cut the funding now cuts the legs out from under people with the fewest resources to be able to withstand it.

Craig T. Ramey, a professor of health studies at Georgetown University and an adviser to President George W. Bush, said Louisiana should note the economic gains posted in North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, all of which invest heavily in preschool education and care programs.

"I personally think we run the risk of compromising some of the major gains that have been made through welfare reform by not ensuring that children of working mothers receive quality day care," Ramey said.

Legislators were concerned about the costs of the program's growing popularity. They should have been concerned about how their actions would affect poor single mothers such as Malani Kaiser of Harvey, whose state-subsidized day care costs increased from $1.96 per month to $254.44 with just one weekend's notice.

"When I first got that letter, I cried, I cried, I cried," Kaiser said.

It's a crying shame legislators don't understand this is a situation where the state must decide whether to pay for day care now, for studies show it will surely pay much more later. Single mothers who can't afford day care cannot hold jobs. They fall back onto welfare. Fewer tax revenues are generated. Hopelessness prevails for those whose future is tied to waiting for a government check to arrive in the mail rather than building a life through gainful employment. Crime flourishes in an atmosphere of hopelessness.

The childcare assistance package offered a needed helping hand. It was a wise and compassionate use of taxpayer dollars. The Louisiana Child Care Assistance Program deserves to be funded to the fullest extent possible.