That's econo-speak, a language in which the entire nation is becoming fluent. "Indicators" are events that tell us something about the state of the economy.

Leading indicators, like the stock market or coal-mine canaries, help forecast events. Lagging indicators, like the employment rate or the health of North Carolina's smallest residents, fill in the forecast and help economists assess how events unfolded.

Action for Children North Carolina and the N.C. Institute of Medicine released the 2010 Child Heath Report Card this week -- the 16th annual check-up of how many of the state's kids have health insurance, are immunized, get sick, pregnant or obese, or die.

Good news first: Overall, child health remained relatively stable through 2009, and even posted big gains in a few areas. More impoverished children have been enrolled in public health insurance, infant mortality is at a record low, new laws about seating and safety restraints have reduced child deaths in car crashes, and child abuse homicides halved, from 31 in 2004 to 16 in 2009.

But, as the report's authors warned, the primary virtue of those gains is that the state's children were in generally stable health, with good access to resources, before the bottom dropped out.

"It generally takes two to three years for an economic downturn to be reflected in indicators of child well-being," the authors wrote. "... Even though some budget reductions occurred in 2008, major cuts to children's services were not made until 2009 and 2010."

As the state's budget shrank, legislators eliminated funding for infant mortality prevention services, cut support for immunization and chopped other programs run by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services that serve children in low-income households.

On Tuesday, we will learn which legislators will be crafting the 2011-2012 budget. With federal relief drying up and a temporary sales tax set to expire, the state's financial analysts project a $2 billion to $4 billion gap between revenue and our current level of expenditure.

We have heard a lot about taxes during this election season. Many of the Republican candidates in both the General Assembly and U.S. Congress races ran on tax cuts -- both the Bush-era cuts set to expire in December and the decision to let the sales tax lapse -- and a promise to cut wasteful programs.

To someone who reviews the Child Health Report Card, it might look like the state's kids are doing just fine. It might be tempting to make further cuts to programs, based on the 2009 numbers, but we urge everyone who's working on the budget to hear the authors' warning that "children's health and well-being are likely already declining."

Children may be a lagging indicator in the economy, but protecting child health and safety programs should be one of our first concerns.