TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

A Budget Choice That's Hard To Read

ADVERTISEMENT

By DANIEL RUTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 16, 2008

In the intergalactic scheme of things, $25.5 million is mere chump change in the federal budget.

Put another way, $25.5 million would roughly cover about 2 1/2 hours of the war in Iraq and/or the cost of a Pentagon nose-hair trimmer.

And yet, President Bush's proposed 2009 budget would eliminate funding for Reading Is Fundamental, affecting some 4.6 million children nationwide, including more than 180,000 Florida students.

So much for Leave No Child Behind, unless of course it involves the cost of a - book.

By contrast, the federal government will spend just under $400 million this year building and upgrading prisons.

Indeed one might argue that RIF represents one of the most cost-effective expenditures of federal money. And thus: Out, foul spot of efficiency!

Since its founding in 1966, RIF, spending 93 cents of every dollar it receives on reading material, has distributed some 16 million books annually to children at more than 20,000 locations across the country.
Tampa attorney Richard Maney, who has been involved with RIF for 28 years, estimates 1.3 million books have been distributed locally to children in 28 schools.
Illiteracy Battle

"It's obviously a huge disappointment for us," Maney said of the proposed budget cuts. "It's such a huge bang for the buck and it's an area where our nation continues to wage the illiteracy battle."
Maney argued RIF is much more than a reading program. "It's a reading motivational program that cuts across all socioeconomic lines."

Log on to first lady Laura Bush's White House Web page and you find this public relations poppycock: "As a former public school teacher and librarian, Mrs. Bush has a special place in her heart for books and libraries. She knows that a love of books - of holding a book, turning its pages, looking at its pictures, and losing oneself in its fascinating stories - goes hand in hand with a love of learning."

Since when was a bum's rush onto the street "a special place"?

While the White House flackery machine was lathering up Laura Bush as the Mother Teresa of the Dewey Decimal System as it turned RIF into RIP, Maney recalled the origins of his lifetime love of reading.

Positive Influence

"It was personal for me," Maney said, noting he came from a family of educators where holiday presents always included books.

Is there a more shopworn hustings example of disingenuous bloviating than the pol's favorite line about how much he loves the children, how children are our future, how children are the cat's pajamas?

Phooey!

You don't eviscerate one of the nation's most successful reading programs then claim to love the little dickens.

What would you call that? A weapon of mass misdirection?

If the Bush administration needs a mercenary reason to restore the RIF funding, maybe it could be this - just think of all those well-read enlistees you'll have available years down the road to serve in Iraq.

Keyword, Book of Ruth to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT