Sequester Cuts Killing Businesses in Kentucky

Next time a teabagging repug like Mitch McConnell or Thomas Massie defends cuts to domestic programs as hurting only the "takers" (sic), remind them of the 87 job-creating Kentucky small businesses they murdered.

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

Spending cuts on child care subsidies for poor families have contributed to the closing of more than 80 child care centers in Kentucky, and as many as 25,000 children could be dropped from the program in the next year, advocates said Wednesday.

"We're in a lose, lose, lose, lose situation" said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, a nonprofit group that advocates for children.

Brooks told the state legislature's Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare that child care centers have closed in every region of the state since cuts to the child care assistance program began in April.

"The best estimates that we have is that some 87 centers closed since the initiation of these cuts," Brooks said.

Some new centers have popped up, but those are generally smaller sites that offer lower-quality care, he said. Parents have had to quit jobs because they can no longer afford child care, he said.

Oh, but those 87 small businesses were probably owned and run by blah wimmins, not rich white men who are the real job creators, so who cares, right Mitch?