From the article…
Last week, the NAACP released a report with a blunt, but sadly accurate, title — Misplaced Priorities. I could not help but think about this title in terms of the House of Representatives’ proposed zeroing out of YouthBuild.YouthBuild has been rigorously evaluated and justifiably acclaimed for its success in turning around the lives of troubled youths, many court-involved, most of color, living in urban centers across the country.
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All for $16,000 per youth — what we might call a bargain. Even before any cuts, almost 20,000 youths are turned away from YouthBuild each year because of lack of funding. If the House gets its way, YouthBuild programs across the country will be decimated. The result: more crime, more poverty, more joblessness, more substance abuse, more fractured families, less state revenue, more despair. Misplaced Priorities hardly captures the astonishing myopia of the House’s proposal. As Woody Guthrie once sang, “Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen.”