$77 billion a year to cut child poverty in half? A bargain, report says.

The Christian Science Monitor

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo

When the Children’s Defense Fund went about putting together its latest report on child poverty in America, it did something new: It put a price tag on its proposals. To reduce child poverty by 60 percent in just a few years would cost $77 billion a year, it found.

That number probably makes the proposal a nonstarter on Capitol Hill. At a time when huge federal deficits are placing an emphasis on cutting rather than expanding, social policies have to meet a high bar to justify themselves economically. Those that don’t include some element of incentives for the poor to work rarely get through Congress’s front door. And people in poverty have less political influence because they vote and make political donations at much lower rates than wealthier peers...

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