Talk Elections

15 million Atlasian children are in poverty. Their parents do not have the money to send them to a good preschool or the time to really teach them. That is why I propose this act.

Education and Care for Children in Poverty Act
Section A[/i]
From the second a child is born into a family that is below the poverty line, that child's parents will have the option of sending the child to a day-care center, operated from 6 AM until 7 PM, until the child is ready to attend the normal public school. The day-care center will be cost free, and it will attempt to instill positive traits in children at a young age, so that they will be better adults. The federal government will allocate funds for this, but will leave all decisions up to local governments.
Section B[/i]
For children who live with families below the poverty line, totally free before and after-school care will be provided until the child graduates middle school. The rest is the same as Section A.

Section C[/i]
The estimated cost of this is 18.9 billion dollars this year, and 17.65 billion dollars every other year. That cost is split between hiring people to run the programs, providing equipment for the programs, and, if needed, constructing new facilities.

If anyone has a better name for this, feel free to suggest it.

This act is about helping kids to learn, correct?

What kid wants to spend 13 hours at a school/daycare center?  How do you expect the staff to teach kids better than their parents?  This will just turn into government funded 13 hour school where, if this is anything like my elementary/middle school, the teacher teaches some and then watches us play.  There will be no special teaching in the large majority of these schools.  Wouldn't an expansion of the YMCA or Boys and girls clubs of America be better, instead of building more day care centers and increasing spend?

How was this $750 million figure come to?

So now you want the government to become the full-fledged nanny of the populace.  Really, you want the government to become the parent of all the children in poverty.  And you're going to fund this program by stealing money from all those who do not live in poverty and you're going to use a subjective definition of poverty in deciding who this program benefits.  If you're poor you get to suck off the government tit.  If you're rich, you have to pay for the tit for everyone else to suck on.

Take this bill back to the toilet you pulled it out of.

Do you know how much money the government spends  each year trying to reduce poverty?

That sounds a lot like a Montissori system, which is quite successful (and I should know! ;))

What I meant was that most teachers don't really teach you much. 
Very few teachers ( especially the ones who will be working at these government run day cares) teach you, instead they pretend to teach you, and then they become your babysitter and send you to recess.

This simply won't work because there is already a shortage of teachers.  How do you come up with all the peole to staff these day cares?  Pay them more?  More money in the program, which means using more of my money "to for the tit" to quote StevenNick.

I'm very alarmed at the slew of leftist bills on the table.
Just this term we've had the Family Planning Bill, the Marriage Equity Act, the Fed Activity Bill, and IrishDems regressive, tax the middle class bill.

Their parents are off working three jobs, they don't have time to sit down with their kid and teach them the ABC's. Remember, this is only for people below the poverty line, it is not for everyone.

Are you saying children should be put at a disadvantage, (which they are) simply because their parent/s do not have the time or money to provide them with a sound educational foundation in life.

There is a cycle, the poor don't get a good education for many reasons, bad schools, bad habits instilled early, not enough empasis on studying, etc. Then, those people stay poor when they grow up and the cylce starts all over again.

I agree with this.

I would like to apoligize to the entire Senate and Atlasia. When I first wrote the draft of this bill, my math was severly off. I will now provide a more realistic cost structure.

Out of the 15 million children in poverty, 3 million are of the age for the all-day care, and of that, about 2.5 million can be expected to use it. The cost per child would be approximatly $900 when taking into account equipment and other items. That is $2.25 billion. The cost for teachers would be $5 billion, assuming you have a 15:1 child to supervisor ratio with teachers making $30,000 per year. The facilities would cost $1.25 billion, going with 200 children at each facility and new facilities costing approximatly $1 million.

For the second part, there would be approximatly 8 million students affected, and the cost would be $550 per student, considering they only use the program for about six hours per day. The cost of that is $4.4 billion. Going with a 20:1 teacher to student ratio, and the teacher's being paid $15,000 for the job, the cost of that would be $6 billion.

The total cost for the upcoming year would be $18.9 billion. The cost for all years after that would be $17.65 billion.

Again, the 750 million was a very bad estimate, and the accurate number is posted above. I apoligize for the mathamatical and logical errors.

Oh, my, gosh.
18.9 Billion This YEAR and 17.65 billion every other year.

I really think this money can be better spent on a stronger military and increased funding for missle defense and the F-22 fighter that SecDef Ford has asked for.

Well, I guess that pretty much sums up our contrasting priorites. You do know that we spend way more on our military than any other country, yet are we thatmuch safer than any other country.
This http://ww11.e-tractions.com/truemajority/run/oreo?rd=436 film sums up a lot of what I'm trying to say here.

Well, I have to say that while I am supportive of the impetus behind the bill, and think it would be good policy in normal times, I must complain about its timing.  There is a war on, after all.  That had ought to be priority #1.

I'd hate to see the budget be strained further by this bill, since it is a luxury item of sorts.  However, I think those problems would be assyaged by a slight, say 2%, increase in the capital gains and dividend tax rates.

Yeah I'd rather the west coast not be vulnerable to Chinese/NK missles and I want our air force to have the MOST modern fighter out there.  You want to create more day care centers.

There's nothing wrong with daycare.  Its just a question of prioritizing.  And might I add that it isn't an either or.  Restarting the R&D for missile defense, expanding the F-22 program, and accelerating the JSF program costs a total of $5.5 billion a year, not a sum that precludes other spending entirely.

Now you are taking me completely out of context. The day care centers lead to the children doing better in school, and thus in life. Having a nation filled with intelligent people and low on poverty is just as big a key to having a successful nation has having the latest bomber.

Why do you think having a great military will solve our problems? We should spend money on our education system so we can create more diplomats. We need diplomats more than we need generals. 

Might I remind dubya2004 that a smarter nation has the intellectual capital to design and build the NEXT bomber.  Education is a critical part of national defense, IMO.

Sure it does.

But, the Senators plan throws billions of dollars at a problem that can't always be fixed by money.  Pres Bush's NCLB threw money at a problem, but we now realize that alot of the money is stuck at the state level not being used.  The education system is full of waste.  In NYC there is that homosexual highschool.  How much did that cost in a city that needs all the education money it can get.

Right now we have a 25-30 year old fighter fleet that needs replacing.
The F-22 is the answer to replacing the F-15 fleet and restoring our air dominince.

After funding is allocated for the F-22/NMD there will be what ~12 Billion
left for Akno's education plan.  Cut out the second part about the daycare just after school and you have enough money.

NCLB is not working because it is vastly underfunded. It raises standards, but does not provide enough in terms of meeting those standards.

Exactly, schools can't get much done without money.
Compare Madison Central High School in Madison, MS, to Lanier High School in Jackson.  Madison Central has a lot more $$$, and therefore much more success.

My school just got 750 K to build a new WEIGHT training facility.
Talk about a stupid alocation of money.

Another thing.  I'm pretty sure my school is on the watch list.  But it's not because we don't have enough money.  All of our computers are 5 or less years old, all our textbooks are usable, and we have excellant teachers.  Sometimes it's just the kids not wanting to learn. Every school has them.  Kids that don't do anything and don't take the tests seriously.  We replaced Gym Jr year with an extra math class, but the next yr the scores didn't improve.

Dubya, my bill will not give funding to build weight training facilities, not to worry.

About the kids who don't want to learn, maybe if we instilled good learning habits in them at an early age, things would be different.

I am in total support of this bill and its passage shall become part of my presidential platform.

How are you going to instill good learning habits.  Most don't like school and never have.  What are you going to make them go to more school and give them less freedom? I know the last thing I wanted to do when I was 10 or 11 was stay at school or at a daycare place.  I wanted to get out and play ball or watch tv.

The bulk of this bill is for when they are 1 or 2, not 10 or 11. Also, the bill does not say children MUST attend the after school care, it is simply an option for parents who can't spend time with their kid then, but want them supervised.

You are alocating ~5.5 billion (1/3 of the money) for school age day care services and you're assuming every kid will attend (which they won't).

Overestimating is better than underestimating.

They kids would probably be able to play baseball or watch appropriate TV at the daycares.  {Am I correct, Akno?}

Obviously they wouldn't be sitting inside doing work all the time. They could watch TV, stuff like Bill Nye, along with entertainment videos. More likely basketball than baseball, due to inner city space issues, but same idea.

BILL NYE!  WOOT!

Can I attend the daycare? ;) :)

Sorry ILV, but I highly doubt you are poverty. Plus, you are a year too old.

King, it has been 7 days, you should open voting.

Good intentions but more cradle to the grave government encroachment.  Should we screen the day care kids to see if they are good gymnasts too? 

Voting NOW OPEN:

All infavor vote Aye.
All opposed Nay.

---

Aye

Aye

Abstain.

Aye

NAY

Aye

aye

Abstain.

5-1 Aye.

I think this passes. King, you should present it to the President for signing.

*presents it*

That better? :p

I believe that will suffice.

VETO VETO VETO VETO VETO

Think about the poor children.

VE.....(thinks).......TO VETO VETO

What exactly is wrong with helping people?

It takes money away from bombs silly.

Why didn't I think of that?

Bombs>children.  I'll remember that :)

Let me correct that:
Military Hardware>Over the top Education spending>Any other unneccesary social spending

If this is vetoed it's: STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE

Until our students are the smartest in the world, it will be very hard for us to overspend on education.

The  Weak Case for Public Schooling. (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Public%20Schools/Public_Schools1.html)

It has the word 'Libertarian' in its url, so I'm not even going to bother reading it :P

People say our students aren't the best in the world.  The problem with comparison is that we compare wrong.  Most countries only let a small percentage (10-15%) attend what we would consider a high school.  The rest go to a technical type school.  We compare our entire school system to the top 10% in Germany or Japan and come up with our students not being smart enough.

Even so, we still need to become smarter than we now are. Too many students are not well educated enough to get a good job, and that begins a bad cycle.

Damn it, Bono, I can't wait until you're sworn in.

I veto this legislation.

The President has seven days to veto legislation. The last possible day for veto was October 29th, about a week before you entered office. The bill was carried into law with no executive action. It is the law of the land and is listed in the Statutes thread, though awaits enforcement upon resolution of constitutional crisis.

I remember that from the Constitution, I apologise.