DeLay Seeks Child Welfare Power for Bush

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told House colleagues Thursday that abused and neglected children "are dying and it's our fault" because programs designed to protect them are overlapping and ineffective.

Testifying from the dais in a House Government Reform Committee, DeLay said government agencies could be reorganized more quickly if Congress cedes to President Bush the authority to do the work.

Congress for decades has appropriated more and more money and created dozens of programs, bureaus and agencies to address child protection, he said. Many are redundant, funded with different pots of money and may not be working.

DeLay, R-Texas, said the problem of abused and neglected children "is real and it's acute and the response at the state and especially the federal level has been reactive and clumsy."

He said a White House task force on disadvantaged youth identified 339 federal programs that are charged with helping children in some way; 13 federal agencies administer more than 120 programs that provide mentoring.

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