Click here to read background information on the ad.

Vote Kids also ran radio ads in Iowa:

And New Hampshire:

Vote Kids urges the candidates for President to provide a detailed agenda of what they will do to promote the healthy development of children. We are concerned with the cuts being considered by the Congress. Just this past week, the House Appropriations Committee approved cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) that would force the program to turn away 200,000 to 350,000 eligible low-income women and young children next year. We believe these cuts will harm America’s children like Daniel and will impede their development and ability to compete in the future.

Click here to learn more about the facts contained in this ad.

If the moral measure of a just society is found in how we treat the most vulnerable, the budget proposal passed by the House of Representatives, which the Senate will vote on this week, fails the basic tests of justice, compassion and a commitment to the common good.

This budget eviscerates vital nutrition programs for mothers and infants (WIC), and makes cuts to Medicaid that will hurt sick children, struggling families and seniors in nursing homes. Proposed changes to Medicare will break the promise that all American seniors get the healthcare they need by forcing them to buy private insurance without assuring that it is affordable. It asks those who need our help the most to fend for themselves in a volatile marketplace where profit, not human dignity, sets the agenda. Unlike the Good Samaritan, who stopped to care for a wounded stranger on the side of the road, the House budget turns its back on the most vulnerable at a time of grave economic uncertainty even as it endorses policies that gives tax breaks for the privileged few. This is morally indefensible.

This budget failed in the Senate with 57 senators voting against it and just 40 for it. None of the proposals passed so the Senate will have to start from scratch. We urge them to not pass draconian cuts to programs that promote the health, education, and safety of children.

Michael Petit has an obsession with New Hampshire and Iowa.

His children’s advocacy group, Vote Kids, plans to spend $1 million in both states on television advertising, grass-roots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts at places like local preschools.

But it’s all part of Petit’s bigger plan to catch the attention of White House hopefuls tromping through the states.

“Our interest is not those two states in 2012. Our interest is the national discussion that will follow once the candidates emerge,” Petit explained. “For us, what we don’t want to happen is the candidates themselves solely define the issues that they want to present.”

As the would-be GOP presidential contenders descend on early primary and caucus states, lobbying interests such as Petit’s are mobilizing with the goal of getting their issues at the forefront of the national agenda. Those locales not only offer access to candidates themselves but also provide a valuable audience that includes a tuned-in electorate and swarms of reporters.

A group hoping to make the welfare of America’s children a national political priority is up with television advertisements in Iowa and New Hampshire that directly ask residents of the first contest states to hold 2012 presidential hopefuls accountable.

Vote Kids, a nonprofit created in 2002, wants Iowans to tell those running for or considering running for president in 2012 to invest in and not cut programs that benefit children and families.

Click here to read more

The Hill:

The weeklong television ad seeks to highlight the House budget’s cuts to children’s programs, including $1.4 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that would result from repealing the healthcare reform expansion and turning the program into a block grant. The ad mentions cuts to school nutrition, pre-school programs and college loans for students.

Political Affairs:

If you controlled the government’s purse strings, would you cut school nutrition programs or eliminate tax breaks for America’s millionaires and billionaires?

This is a question asked in a new TV ad campaign sponsored by Vote Kids, a children’s advocacy group. The ads are airing in Iowa and New Hampshire this week as Republican presidential candidates prepare to open their bids for their party’s nomination.

Share on Facebook ]]> http://votekids.org/?feed=rss2&p=2666 0 http://votekids.org/?p=2648 http://votekids.org/?p=2648#comments Mon, 09 May 2011 06:00:30 +0000 admin http://votekids.org/?p=2648 On Monday, May 9th, Vote Kids began running the following ad in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Vote Kids television ad will be airing throughout Iowa and New Hampshire beginning Monday, May 9 through Friday, May 13.

Vote Kids want to bring attention to how children will be harmed as a result of federal budget proposals which already have passed the House of Representatives. The so-called Ryan budget slashes programs vital to children and families, including Head Start, child care, public safety, child nutrition, education, Pell Grants, Community and Development Block Grants, and jobs programs. These are shortsighted actions that would weaken America’s global economic competitiveness, which is why we want kids’ issues to be a prominent part of the debate in the forthcoming presidential campaign.

The Ryan Budget would convert Medicaid into block grants and result in $1.4 trillion in cuts, while doing nothing to reduce health care costs. These cuts would affect the 30 million children nationwide served by Medicaid. It also would cut the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program by $127 billion, or 20 percent, over the next ten years. Millions of families would be affected, leading to increased hunger and poverty.

While cutting health care and nutrition programs for working families and children, the Ryan Budget gives those Americans earning more than $1 million an additional $125,000 yearly tax break.

When the Republican presidential candidates and President Obama come through these states campaigning, we want voters to ask them where they stand on investing in the health, education, and safety of children. No candidate should be allowed to avoid spelling out a detailed platform of what they are FOR when it comes to children.

• Governor Brown in California proposes cutting the CalWorks (TANF) Program by $1.5 billion. He would reduce the lifetime limit on the number of months that a needy family can receive cash benefits from 60 to 48 months. He also proposes a reduction in the size of Cal-Works grants; for instance, his proposal would reduce the maximum monthly Cal-Works grant for a family of three from $694 to $604, a 13 percent cut.

  Brown also proposes cutting $750 million from child care programs, in part by reducing subsidies by 35 percent and requiring recipients to have incomes less than 60 percent of the state’s median income (down from 75 percent of the median income today). The Governor’s proposal would reduce the number of subsidized childcare slots by about 9,900, or 3 percent.

• Delaware’s Governor Markell eliminates a General Assistance program that provides cash assistance to people in deep poverty and who are often homeless.
• Governor Deal in Georgia proposes funding subsidized child care at a level that would reduce the monthly number of children served by as many as 10,000 and create a waiting list of up to 4,000 children.
• Governor Jindal of Louisiana would reduce by 30 percent state support for child and family services. Jindal does not specify the services he proposes to cut, but a 30 percent cut to these services will hurt some of the state’s most vulnerable families. For example, cutting by 30 percent the number of low-income children whose parents receive child care subsidies would eliminate support for the families of more than 10,000 children.
• Maine’s Governor LePage would eliminate access to state-funded temporary cash assistance and healthcare for legal immigrants in the country less than five years, cutting about 2,500 people from these supports.
• Governor Snyder of Michigan proposes reducing the lifetime limit on cash assistance for poor families to 48 months from 60 months and to eliminate before- and after-school programs.
• Nebraska’s Governor Heineman proposes eliminating a state-funded program that provides food assistance to up to 500 low-income legal residents each year who are ineligible for federal food aid because they are not citizens and have not been in the country more than five years.
• Governor Kasich of Ohio would cut aid to local governments and libraries by more than $1 billion over the coming two-year budget cycle. He also would reduce the income limit for working parents to be eligible for help paying for child care, to 125 percent of the poverty line from 150 percent. That means that a working mother with one child and income over about $18,400 would not be eligible. Kasich would also cut by 7 percent payment rates for businesses that provide child care to low-income families and deeply cut funding for public defenders and a number of other state services.
• Wisconsin ’s Governor Walker proposes to cut funding for the state’s child care program by charging working families more for child care, reducing the income limit for accessing financial assistance for child care, and cutting the amount that some child care providers are reimbursed. He would also eliminate a state-funded program providing food assistance to legal immigrants in the country less than five years and reduce the temporary cash assistance that low-income mothers with children can receive when they are between jobs.

• Governor Brewer of Arizona original budget proposal eliminated Medicaid coverage for 280,000 people, more than 4 percent of the state’s population. The cut would have resulted in the loss of $1.1 billion in federal matching funds next fiscal year. With newly received permission from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to reduce Medicaid enrollment, Governor Brewer has proposed grandfathering coverage for currently enrolled adults without dependent children (approximately 100,000 people), but eliminating the program for future enrollees. The governor’s new proposal mandates that childless adults and parents re-qualify for coverage every six months (rather than annually) and continues to call for a 5 percent cut in Medicaid provider rates that would take effect in April 2011.
• California’s Governor Brown proposes scaling back the state’s Healthy Families (CHIP) program by eliminating vision benefits, increasing premiums for families with incomes between 150 and 250 percent of poverty, and increasing co-payments, among other cuts.
• Georgia’s Governor Deal proposes cuts to several areas of Medicaid and children’s health. Many children’s services would be subject to co-pays for the first time.
• Idaho Governor Otter, according to news reports, seeks $25 million in unspecified cuts to Medicaid.
• Kansas Governor Brownback would eliminate funding for mental health services for 850 families of children with severe emotional disturbances.
• New Jersey’s Governor Christie would apply to the federal government for a “global waiver” to allow the state to restructure its Medicaid program. The Governor says the restructuring would save New Jersey $300 million in the coming fiscal year. To achieve savings of that magnitude, the waiver likely would significantly reduce services and access to medical care for low-income people.
• Oklahoma’s Governor Fallin proposes cuts to state health care programs that likely will lead to the elimination or sharp reduction of child abuse prevention services that protect about 2,000 children, as well as payment cuts for Medicaid providers and reductions in the medical services covered by Medicaid.
• Texas’ initial budget proposal would cut Medicaid provider rates by 10 percent, making it more difficult for Texas doctors to accept Medicaid patients because of the state’s low reimbursement levels relative to other states, further restricting low-income Texans’ access to health care.
• Washington Governor Gregoire’s budget proposes deep cuts to health and disability services, including eliminating a health program for 27,000 undocumented children.
• Wisconsin’s Governor Walker proposes to eliminate Medicaid coverage for about 70,000 people, beginning in July of 2012 (and to seek federal approval for even deeper cuts).