No matter what your politics, you’ve got to admit that the times are a-changin’! I thought since it’s official I’d post up a few links on President-elect Obama’s positions/plans on topics of TI interest:
Children and Family: see the campaign page and a post on Early Ed Watch.
In a nutshell, the Obama administration intends to invest in zero-to-five early childhood programs using what they call “Early Learning Challenge Grants.” The goal is to build capacity and quality, improve state accountability standards, and encourage public-private cooperation. Additionally, Obama hopes to quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding (especially to build quality), increase funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and support a proven intervention called nurse-family partnerships (called Children First in Oklahoma). The President-elect also supports policies that strengthen “work/family balance” by expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, provide funding to states that establish paid leave laws, expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, and promote flexible work arrangements.
Economic Security
- Workforce and jobs: Obama proposes to fund career pathways that lead to steady jobs with opportunities for advancement, expand the EITC (especially for non-custodial parents), and improve access to job transportation.
- Poverty: The President-elect admires Geoff Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone and hopes to replicate it by creating twenty “Promise Neighborhoods.” Like HCZ and even Tulsa Initiative, the program will support neighborhoods that offer intensive interventions in areas of concentrated poverty that focus on improving the prospects for low-income kids from birth to college. That includes early childhood education, after-school programs, youth violence prevention, and parenting education.
- Asset building: See this document (PDF) from the New America Foundation. Obama wants to encourage employers to make opting into retirement plans the default, which is shown to dramatically improve take-up. He also proposes to make the Saver’s Credit refundable and to use federal funds to offer a 50% match for the first $1,000 in contributions per family. Finally, Obama says he will clamp down on abusive credit practices by improving accountability in the subprime mortgage industry, improve bankruptcy protections for mortgage-holders, create a quality rating system for credit cards, and institute a bill of rights for credit cardholders.
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