THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And their intellectual capacity will never recover as they grow older. The latest reports indicate that the Republican/Teabagger efforts to do this are beginning to work.

Last year about 1 million of the nation's poorest children got a leg up on school through Head Start, the federal program that helps prepare children up to age five for school. This fall, about 57,000 children will be denied a place in Head Start and Early Head Start as fallout from sequestration.

New estimates about the automatic budget cuts were released Monday by the federal government. The cuts have slashed more than $400 million from the federal program's $8 billion budget.

Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, said sequestration represented the largest hit to Head Start funding in terms of dollars since the program began in 1965.

"The cut has been very painful throughout the country," Vinci said. Nationwide, about 1,600 grantees, which include nonprofits and local government agencies, receive federal Head Start funding.

The Obama administration had previously estimated that slots for up to 70,000 children would be eliminated as a result of the sequester. According to the latest figures, slots for 51,000 preschoolers were eliminated along with child care slots for 6,000 babies. Children will lose 1.3 million days of service at Head Start centers and more than 18,000 employees will be laid off or see their pay reduced.

Head Start provides preschool services to 3- to 5-year-olds from low-income households and offers their families education, health, nutrition and social services. Early Head Start supports the families of infants and pregnant women.

The $8 billion Head Start budget is equivalent to how much Americans spent on Halloween last year.

Happy Halloween.