Friday, February 29, 2008

Clinton announces plan to reduce child poverty


HANGING ROCK, Ohio -- White House hopeful Hillary Clinton may be down but she’s definitely not out -- particularly when it comes to money for television commercials.

That’s the message her campaign officials sent today as they announced the New York senator raised $35 million in February, more than double her previous highest monthly total.

“We have the resources to play in the big states coming up,” National Campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a conference call with reporters.

“She’s not going anywhere but Denver,” added top advisor Harold Ickes, referring to this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

The announcement came as Clinton chose a small gymnasium in this tiny town across the Ohio River from Kentucky to spotlight her plan to reduce child poverty.

An estimated 12.9 million American children live in poverty, five million of them in extreme poverty, she said today.

If elected president, she said she would start a $1 billion Child Opportunity Fund to help local children’s programs; expand free school breakfast and summer lunch programs for students; ban junk-food in schools; fund nurse visits for at-risk new mothers; fund universal pre-K and Head Start programs; raise the minimum wage; and improve collection of child support payments.

“I have spent a lifetime working to help children,” Clinton said, saying Ohio women have thanked her for legislation she worked on that “has led to doubling the number of adoptions in Ohio,” she said.

Clinton has been touring rural and small-town southeastern Ohio trying to shore up her most reliable fan base in this election -– blue-collar and low-income white voters.

She is speaking to them about unfair trade practices by China and other countries which she links to the loss of jobs in this region.

Ohio has the ninth highest rate of home foreclosures in the nation, and she promises if elected president to seek a five-month freeze on foreclosures and a five-year freeze on mortgage interest rate hikes.

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