Written by: Jim Hansen
Thursday, June 07, 2007

I strongly recommend reading Betsy Russell's blog on "The story behind the cuts in early childhood programs" and the full article linked to it. She has done a masterful job uncovering why an effective program was axed by the governor. It is the Parents as Teachers program and is designed to help parents help their kids become ready for school. Its success reduces demand for more expensive intervention later on. It is also the kind of investment almost everyone in the community agrees makes our communities stronger.

This story exposes several flaws in the approach that the political elites take this state. One I'd like to focus on is their narrow insistance that for public investment in a program to be justified it must have immediate measurable (and monetary) results. This one has good outcomes in the short term - even though the political appointees within the governor's office couldn't find or understand the reports they got - but also must be measured by long-term outcomes. Why do so many political leaders refuse to apply long-term measurements to the investment of our public funds as well? My wife and I invested in enrichment programs for our children when they were young (and we continue to do so) knowing that they will prevent costly issues later in their lives. We expect short and long-term results. Physicians and nutritionists also look to results that may not manifest themselves for many years as evidence that early investment in their patients was justified.

What is even more troubling with the approach our political leaders take is that they have a double standard. They apply  virtually no measurements for investing our public resources in a long list of  tax expenditures. Tax expenditures are tax breaks (credits, deductions, exclusions) that are targeted to some taxpayers (usually wealthy or large corporate taxpayers) but not most tax payers. They promise good things will happen (for example the corporations will invest in creating new jobs, will purchase goods produced in Idaho, etc...) but once a tax expenditure is in place, NO MEASUREMENTS ARE REQUIRED.  None of these favored taxpayers are expected to come back and itemize the new jobs (pay and benefits) they supposedly created because of the public investment we made. In fact, most tax expentitures quietly stay on the books indefinitely. Of course, when our elected officials give away tax espenditures, there is less to invest directly in programs like early childhood education.

Now, in the case of Head Start and Parents as Teachers, political elites in Idaho try to have it both ways: they get kudos for investing in these effective programs but all they use are funds already targeted by the federal government. Meanwhile, since they keep giving away unmeasured tax breaks, they say they wish they could invest our state revenues as well but, gosh, there just isn't anything left! I believe Idaho is the only state NOT to put state funds in Head Start.

Most families understand the role of government is to be a responsible investor in things that make our communities stronger. What we have now is a government that ignores its responsiblity and instead siphons off public money for powerful interests (who already have plenty of money) that they won't even measure.

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