Letter: Children at risk

I have worked in elementary schools as a classroom teacher and a storyteller/visiting author for 50 years. I have mostly worked in McHenry County and the Chicago area, but also throughout the United States and sometimes in Europe. It has been a privilege and inspiration to meet and to contribute to the learning of so many wonderful children.

However, I have also seen brutal poverty.

America’s system of basing school resources on property tax assures children who have the most difficult challenges at home will also attend schools with the fewest dollars for facilities, books and professional salaries. This stymies America’s claimed “boot straps” myth.

All of this is bad enough but now 100% of U.S. Republican senators and two Democrats who share the Republican loyalty to low taxes for billionaires, millionaires and big business have killed President Biden’s $300 tax credit to children, a measure that had virtually cut child poverty by 30% to 40% over the months before it was voted down.

Now that money for groceries, clothes, medicine, etc. has been taken away to keep taxes on the morbidly rich as low as possible, child poverty is again on the rise. Some reports state an increase of 40%.

So, perhaps it is time to ask: Why do politicians, and in particular, Republicans, ignore the welfare of children, and therefore, the future of America?

The Republicans in the Senate are the most high profile and egregious offenders — protecting the tax brackets of the billionaires and corporations.

An “R” next to a name on a ballot should indicate the candidate answers for national Republican policies that affect every citizen of McHenry County.

Talk to your representatives, county board members, county officials, friends and family before the November election.

America must do better for our children.

Jim May

Harvard