Reading Is Fundamental Funding Eliminated

GalleyCat:

Earlier this week Congress approved (and President Barack Obama signed) a bill that will cut funding for the literary organization, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF). Follow this link to add your support.

Read the whole story: GalleyCat

Comments

[candacevasquez]

08:20 AM on 04/19/2011

Hey huffs why don't you help fund this program. This program funded or not funded doesn't change our economic situation. I want my taxes to go to buy books not bombs.

[cornel]

04:13 PM on 03/10/2011

BHO do they drug you in Washington ?

[Mike169]

11:39 AM on 03/08/2011

Always a good idea to cut funds that encourage reading. In an age where people can't read what's the point of reading when all you get from it is learning?

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

08:08 PM on 03/06/2011

Cutting any funding that helps children is unconscionable. I can't understand the idea that anyone thinks cutting education budgets is not damaging our future. We are are raising a generation of undereducated, socially-enept children who will one day be in charge of the world. I like Obama and understand some of his hard decisions - but cutting funds for children, the elderly or the infirmed is just not acceptable.

[Pennsanic]

10:23 AM on 03/07/2011

I'd rather see him trim about $500 billion in Agricultural subsidies.

[me again]

06:39 PM on 03/06/2011

Watch literacy test scores drop over the next 10 years....great for our future workforce!

[TylerGroves]

06:41 AM on 03/08/2011

Most kids do not take these programs seriously. I didn't. My friends didn't. We may have read an extra book because of a program like this, but I don't see how I ever really benefited from it. Either way, studies recently are finding that a child's learning ability is mostly developed within the first 3 years - Reading is Fundamental would have little or no effect on this. Is a book distribution service really necessary? Probably not. Is it really effective? Effective at distributing books, yes. Effective at having any long-lasting effect on children - probably not. Is it smart to throw money towards RIF when the internet and the library are more than ready to pick up its slack? Whether or not Obama wants to brainwash America (which I've been reading everywhere today), the elimination of RIF is not going to help much. If you think it IS going to have an impact, then you haven't read enough books. Looks like RIF was a failure anyway.

[GraceNotes]

11:41 AM on 03/08/2011

The public library where I have worked for 22 years administers the RIF program in my home county, and I have seen firsthand how this program benefits children. Children who grow up in homes where books are not affordable or important hang onto the free books they receive, and indeed keep the books their older siblings received through this program for years. They bring them to school when asked to bring a book from home, because it is the only book they own.

[shastaman]

04:47 PM on 03/06/2011

The "education " president?
THAT'LL LEARN 'EM

[Nicole Dixson]

12:25 PM on 03/06/2011

As long as libraries are free and Barnes and Noble will allow people to sit around reading books and magazines for free, these cuts do not make a difference. Reading is free, people.

[roxette]

01:54 PM on 03/06/2011

Reading is free when you are able to read . What this country need is less illiterate.

[shastaman]

04:52 PM on 03/06/2011

lies-heaped!

[Mike169]

11:40 AM on 03/08/2011

fewer illiterates? or less illiteracy? Who cares?

[me again]

06:41 PM on 03/06/2011

I take it you watch FOX News frequently. Ever visit the 'hood and see all the public libraries and Barnes and Nobles conveniently located? Those kids will suffer.

[Nicole Dixson]

06:45 PM on 03/06/2011

I don't watch Fox News at all and there is really no need for you to be insulting.

[emncaity]

02:41 AM on 03/05/2011

There's an end to that (truncated) sentence, you know: "Reading is Fundamental funding eliminated by president who agreed to tax cuts for the rich and for corporations." You might as well go on to say "...and whose rhetoric approximates Reagan's."

Said it before, will say it again: If you think Obama is a true progressive anywhere but around the fringes, you couldn't be more wrong. He has not, nor will he ever, go after the heart of what is wrong with us, which is (broadly) corporate rule over the nation with government as its agent, bought and paid for.

[Olderandwiser55]

05:27 PM on 03/05/2011

But Reading Is Fundamental is a corporation....our tax dollars pay salaries (the middleman) when we could do better by giving books directly. Maybe, just maybe we can cut out the corporate middlemen (as in college loans), save a ton of money and have a better program....don't believe just because they give it a lovely name that it's a perfect program. Now if you google a little you will find that RIF is non-profit but the corporations they buy books from are not...

http://www.rif.org/us/about/leadership/board-of-directors.htm

Reading Is Fundamental – Inexpensive Book Distribution Program ... Phone: [phone], For-Profit Organization, Contracts, S Corporation

Reading Is Fundamental is the non-profit partner of the Read It! Play It! Initiative. ... All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company. ...

You get the idea-they launder profits-paid for by taxpayers through a non-profit...all tax free

[GraceNotes]

02:23 PM on 03/08/2011

Yes, you could give a book to every child in your community. You would first have to purchase the books. Amazon.com is a corporation also.

[NER2]

01:02 AM on 03/05/2011

Slow down. As I read the full story, this and other cuts to related programs are part of the TEMPORARY spending bill signed to keep avert a goverment shutdown. The President didn't ask for these cuts, and technically the cuts are in place only for two weeks. As I read elsewhere, most people surveyed support education and literacy programs and, I assume, would support the restoration of this funding. My bet is that the President wants this funding restored as well and will look elsewhere to make needed concessions. Let's wait and see what happens.

[no exit]

02:32 AM on 03/05/2011

It's my bet that the republikons are on a roll and this will echo the "temporary" tax cuts for billionaires and be never-ending.

And Obama knows it.

[Olderandwiser55]

08:17 PM on 03/05/2011

He can fund a program like this in a better way-books directly to the school through teachers rather than through corporations...comments above but you are correct to tell people to slow down. :)

[mikeg0477]

12:38 AM on 03/05/2011

Not cool. Not at all.

[aristippe]

11:50 PM on 03/04/2011

wolf in sheep's clothing

[robjh1]

11:50 PM on 03/04/2011

What is his explanation? Why not end funding to corrupt nations. Duh? Why aren't people protesting. Mark my word come election time no one (including the media) will remember this.

[TheBaffler]

09:58 PM on 03/04/2011

He needed to increase funds to the Transferring Public Money to the Wealthy program.

[emncaity]

02:42 AM on 03/05/2011

That's exactly it. (See similar post from me, above.)

[ztck5356]

09:43 PM on 03/04/2011

Well, what good is knowing how to read anyway? You just get upset over articles like this.

Ignorance is getting to be more blissful.