I won’t be voting for Best Starts for Kids, and here is why:
At our latest Neighborhood Council meeting, Mr. Phil Dindia gave an informative and emotional presentation on the benefits of voting for Proposition 1. There are many parts of this proposition that I agree with. Our government needs to provide safety and equal rights to its citizens to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I also agree that too much of our government budget is spent out of necessity on justice and correctional systems. I agree that prevention would be less costly and would benefit citizens of all ages.
Mr. Dindia spoke from personal experience of working with youth in detention centers who cried out because of their circumstances. He noted that 100 percent of them came from broken homes and abuse. That hit my heart hard. I have spent much of this evening looking into the fine print of Proposition 1. Although it proposes much good, I don’t see more than a very small percent of the funds earmarked for mending broken homes or preventing abuse.
If abuse and broken homes are a major cause for children ending up in the justice/correctional system, it seems to me that the real prevention or the real best start for kids would be to put the vast majority of the raised tax funds toward programs such as marriage, creating home stability, parenting, family relations and personal and family finance.
It seems to me that by treating the real cause, we would have a better outcome. It also seems to me that the worthy issues Proposition 1 focuses on – prescreening for mental health issues and preventing homelessness, supporting pregnant women, etc. – would all fit nicely into subsets of the above mentioned “real cause” issues.
Proposition 1 looks good at the outset, but by treating only the symptoms instead of the cause, I believe we will still have (if not an increase of) broken families and abuse in the years to come.
I would much rather see my money put toward programs that promote family stability. I don’t see that Proposition 1 is aimed in that direction.
– Annette Pratt
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