The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is getting to work this month and a leading economist has a message for the panel: More spending, not less, is part of the solution to the nation’s federal budget shortfall.

Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman outlines how investing in an improved Head Start and other early education programs returns far more in savings later. These returns are always worth reviewing, and Heckman writes that each dollar spent in this arena “returns 60—300 dollars over the lifetime.”

Heckman’s arguments will be familiar to regular readers of Birth to Thrive Online: Early investments reduce spending on special education, criminal justice, social programs etc. … But, it is the way the University of Chicago economist makes his case that’s worth reading.

Budget deficits are created in large part by deficits in the skills of our workforce. Current policies fail to properly recognize the life cycle dynamics of skill formation. The United States invests relatively little at the starting point - in early childhood development - and as a consequence pays dearly for this neglect at every point thereafter. – Letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, 9/21/11.

My favorite line suggests that policymakers shouldn’t think too hard about solutions in early ed because there already are excellent models to copy, such as the Perry Preschool and Abecedarian programs.

We need not reinvent the wheel on early childhood education, just get it moving.

With Congress and state legislatures around the country looking for another round of spending reductions, it’s important to remind them that cutting early education may only make the deficit bigger.

Rigorous empirical studies show that investing early allows us to shape the future, build equity, and reduce costs; investing later chains us to fixing the missed opportunities of the past - for which we will continue to pay far more.

(Thanks to Child Trends for highlighting this letter.)

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