WATCH: Kentucky Parents Discover Sequestration Will Close Their Head Start Program

In Henderson County, Kentucky, sequestration has consequences. With Congress showing no signs of breaking its impasse on the massive cuts mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, the school district found itself looking to cut $1 million in funding. One of the first casualties: a local Head Start program, which will now close in early May 3, about a month earlier than originally scheduled. That means parents are now stuck figuring out where to put their kids for the rest of the year—and how to pay for it.

As one parent told Owensboro’s NBC affiliate, WFIE, “All through school we hear the slogan ‘No Child Left Behind.’ And now, apparently, all the three-year-olds are.”

Take a look:

14 News, WFIE, Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro

On Wednesday, President Obama unveiled his new budget proposal which, among other things, looks to expand federal funding for pre-school by raising taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. That’s too little, too late for the parents with three-year-olds in Henderson County, though.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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