“The awful story of Shanesha Taylor is what’s wrong with the state of our union: The Arizona mother of two got called to a job interview she desperately needed. With no place to leave her two young kids – no neighbors because she’s homeless, no co-workers because she’s jobless, no paid childcare because she has no money, no free childcare because of our government – she left them in her car, with the windows cracked, at naptime. When she came back 45 minutes later, police arrested her on two child abuse felonies and put her kids in state custody. Leaving small kids alone in a car is a terrible idea. Here’s another terrible idea: Arizona cutting almost half its childcare budget, along with health care, job training and housing, while spending over $1 billion on prisons.”

-Abby Zimet, Common Dreams