Thomas Mott Osborne: “I am here this evening to speak about the Federal Youth Coordination Act. This act was written in response to a report…”

“I am here this evening to speak about the Federal Youth Coordination Act. This act was written in response to a report issued by the White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth in 2003. This task force report indicated that 25 percent of U.S. teens are at risk of not having productive lives, not growing up to be people who can hold a job, who are free of substance abuse, and are able to contribute to the society. The estimate is that roughly 10 million young people fall into this category. This is a very difficult time to be a young person. As almost anyone in our culture knows, we have drug and alcohol abuse, we are the most violent Nation in the world for young people in terms of homicide and suicide, and roughly one-half of the young people growing up in our country today are going to be growing up without both biological parents, so they have undergone a significant amount of dysfunction at some point in their lives. In response, the Congress, being generous and compassionate, has devised 339 Federal programs which serve youth and their families. There are 339 of these programs. These programs are disbursed over 12 different agencies. The greatest number are in the Department of Education, Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice. Some are in the Department of Labor, some are in the Department of Agriculture, and so on; and so they are spread all over. The cost of all of these programs was $223.5 billion in 2003.…”