Report: Federal Spending on Children Dropping

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

You hear it rather often from politicians - children are our future. Yet a new report from the Urban Institute finds that domestic spending on children has actually dropped significantly when expressed as a share of the national economy. And researchers say that number could drop even more in coming years. NPR's Rachel Jones reports.

RACHEL JONES: Between 1960 and 2006, the federal budget for children's programs rose from $53 billion to 233 billion. Sounds like a big increase, but to really understand it, Adam Carasso says you have to dig deeper. People might hear that number and think that's a lot of money.

Mr. ADAM CARASSO (Researcher, Urban Institute): Exactly. And the thing is the real story lies behind the growth.

JONES: Carasso was one of the researchers on the new report. He says it has some important context. Carasso says it's not so much about the number of dollars spent on children but that number's percentage of the country's gross domestic product of GDP. That rose from 1.9 percent to 2.6.

By comparison, social security spending for adults rose from 2 percent of the GDP to 7.6. But first, you have to remember that even when adjusted for inflation, everything in the federal budget grew.

Mr. CARASSO: Whether it's defense spending, whether it's spending on entitlements, whether it's spending on roads and transportation, these things all grew by leaps and bounds in large part because federal revenues and spending tend to grow with the economy.

JONES: Which grew four and a half times since 1960. Many people believe the military got most of the money. But Carasso says some historical perspective helps form a more accurate picture.

Mr. CARASSO: Back in the '40s and '50s, the defense budget ate up most of the total budget because we had World War II and then the Korean War. But since then the defense budget has been declining and it's been creating all this spending slack for this whole range of domestic programs.

JONES: Like welfare, food stamps and Head Start. But programs for seniors -Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - have also taken a much bigger slice of the pie, as the nation's elderly population has soared.

So does this force politicians choose between supporting funding for children who can't vote and the elderly who can? Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, for one, says absolutely not. Older voters want to see children's issues addressed too.

Senator SUSAN COLLINS (Republican, Maine): It's their grandchildren, or they can relate to it as if they were their grandchildren. So I think it's a false choice to say that we can't take care of low-income children who need health insurance without sacrificing benefits for low-income seniors.

JONES: Collins is a vocal supporter of children's program like the State Children's Health Program, or S-CHIP. It's one of the major federally-backed programs for kids. Collins says she's optimistic about some upcoming legislation that would increase funding for the program.

But Urban Institute researchers say that based on federal projections it'll take a lot more governmental action to get children's programs adequately funded.

Rachel Jones, NPR News, Washington.

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