President Bush’s 2009 budget calls for the elimination of the Reading Is Fundamental Program, which has provided 325 million books to underprivileged children since its inception in 1966. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. After all, both his wife and mother are literacy advocates, and have been involved with RIF in the past.
Barbara Bush served on RIF’s board of directors from 1980 to 1988 and then on its national advisory board from 1989 to 1992 (chairing the advisory board for three of the four years.) Laura Bush served on RIF’s national advisory council from 1996 to 2001.
-SOURCE PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
RIF’s website has a form you can fill out if you’d like to send an email to your elected representative, asking them to protect RIF’s funding.
R.J. Keller 
Well, I suppose the Wonder Boy himself is ample proof that you don’t have to be able to read to get by, all you need is enough rich and powerful friends and relatives to buy you the election!
Or perhaps he’s worried that if kids learn to read properly they’ll get too smart to sign up as cannon fodder for oil wars?
No, seriously, whatever happened to ‘Leave No Child Behind’?