Who'd do such a thing?

The Tories.

There going to save, get ready for it £13 million a year, and here's how-

"Leading writers today rounded on the government for its "repugnant, foolish and pointlessly destructive" decision to axe all funding for a free book scheme that benefits 3.3 million youngsters a year.

Children's author Philip Pullman attacked the move as an "unforgivable disgrace", while the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion described the cut as "an act of gross cultural vandalism".

These uncompromising views were echoed by Viv Bird, chief executive of the Booktrust charity, who said she was "astounded and appalled" when told all government support for their work was going to be scrapped. "There was no dialogue. It was completely devastating," she said.

The Booktrust charity runs several programmes that together provide free books for children from the age of nine months until their first term of secondary school when they are 11, and is widely admired by teachers, parents and authors.

They began as a pilot project in 1992 but were awarded government funding in 2004 to become universal. But 10 days ago – despite having previously offered to take a 20% funding cut – the charity was told it was to lose 100% of its £13m-a-year government grant."
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...pullman-motion

No the main hurt is to the lives of the children. This programme encourages parents to read to their children from a young age and provides them with books, which is especially important to poorer families. Libraries are one of the places where these books end up, take the funding away and the libraries won't stock them.

As for relying on charity, that takes time and resources and is sporadic and therefore not as reliable. The programme is able to continue offering the best service it can without the fear of dollars drying up. Your assumption that a worthwhile cause will always attract ample funding is severely wrong. I was talking with a friend just yesterday who told me that in Hampshire the charity that received the most money was guide dogs for the blind. A great cause to give to of course but many other charities really struggle to keep up like hospices for children, whilst the guide dogs for the blind has plenty of money to meet it's needs.

The government appears to be backtracking now, so we'll see what happens, but it's now saying it will continue the funding afterall. This will be another blow to the Libs here, who are ,in quotes, meant to be centre left. They were publicly silent on the issue.

This in the Independent yesterday-

"But in a joint statement, the Department for Education (DFE) and Booktrust said that the DFE would now continue to finance the programme which benefits 3.3 million children a year in England.

"The Department for Education and Booktrust are determined to ensure that reading for pleasure is a gift every child can enjoy. That is why the DFE will continue to fund Booktrust book-gifting programmes in the future," the statement said."
~ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...g-2169569.html

That SMART programme does indeed look very good. A full breakdown of their accounts can only be got through them, so instead I found a link that says their government funding is at 4% { http://www.globalgiving.org/projects...children/team/ }

The two are not the same of course though. If you read about the Booktrust more in depth you'll see that their financial requirements are very different. The £13 million a year enabled ( and enables) the Booktrust to offer it's services to a much larger group of people than it had done, spreading across mostly England, but also Wales and Northern Ireland and thereby reaching an area with a population of 55 million as opposed to Oregon's 3.5 million people. Booktrust is also getting most of it's funding (£56 million a year through publishers and donations). The Tories though, and the Libs, made the decision to completely cut their funding without even consulting Booktrust, which is typical behavior for Tories.

One thing to consider too, given you must want the US government to stop funding 4% of Oregon's SMART programme is that it's going to get even worse. A Republican in that State want's places that offer the SMART programme to get more government funding in return. That will likely help spread the programme yet further. Make sure you vote Democrat next time round. (And it was a Democrat who was key in originally starting SMART).