Cook County News Herald

Early education funding creating a nanny state




A recent Associated Press news story told of $500 million in federal early education grants being awarded to nine states, including Minnesota which itself got $45 million.

Included in the article was a new statewide ratings system being put into place to help parents in their search for child-care providers. Are we to the point where state government is involved in an area that parents should be able to handle on their own? How far will we go in this nanny state?

Gov. Dayton called this grant “a great day for Minnesota children.” This is the same person who wanted a statewide vote on unionizing private daycare providers. How far out of touch can a person be to reality?

But it gets worse. I will give you another example of someone out of touch. Commenting on the $45 million federal grant, I heard Sen. Amy Klobuchar on a radio news report tell of how happy she was with it. She actually said that it was good to have federal funding for these “needs” in Minnesota because the state at this time has to watch its spending.

As if the federal government, which has $15 trillion of debt and annual deficits of $l trillion does not have a spending problem!

Simply put, spending on education is meant to be a local and state concern. Nothing is said about education in the federal Constitution. The powers given to the federal government according to the U.S. Constitution are few and defined. The 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution tells individuals and local and state governments to take care of the rest.

Jerry Shuster
Gheen, MN



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