           |
03/01/2005
- Federal Budget Alert, Immediate Action Requested
From: Kullie Mellor, Welfare Specialist, kulliejack@juno.com
Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children has issued this urgent request.
Things in Congress are moving very fast right now, and this proposal would
have an enormous negative impact on important domestic spending programs
affecting children and families for the next 5 years.
ALERT FORWARDED FROM PENNSYLVANIA PARTNERSHIPS FOR CHILDREN.
PLEASE CALL SENATOR SPECTER AT 202-224-4254
BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS, TUESDAY MARCH 1
ASK HIM TO OPPOSE A BINDING FIVE YEAR CAP ON DISCRETIONARY SPENDING
Congress is preparing to develop a budget resolution the week of March
7,
and Senators need to make their budget requests to the Budget Committee
this week. Included in the President's budget is an enforceable five year
cap on discretionary spending-that is, any spending that must be appropriated
annually. Those caps would result in a reduction of $3.041 billion to
our
state over the period from 2006 through 2010. By 2010 it would mean 4,000
fewer children would receive Head Start; 14,600 fewer families will receive
rental assistance vouchers; 20,200 fewer children would receive WIC; and
9,900 fewer children would receive subsidized child care. Elementary and
secondary school education in our state would lose $399 million.
It is essential that Senator Specter hear from us by March 1 that such
a
mandatory cut is unacceptable. Please call Sen. Specter at 202-224-4254
and ask him to tell Senator Gregg and Senator Frist that he opposes a
mandatory five year cap on discretionary spending.
Tell him:
- These cuts are too deep.
They will devastate services for children and
families in our state.
- These cuts will shift the
burden of providing these services to our state
and localities. Such a shift will severely harm our state budget, and
weaken our state economy.
- These cuts will happen if
the President's proposals are accepted. The
budget proposal includes a rigid enforcement mechanism that would require
either the President's consent, or a two thirds vote of Congress to
over ride the caps.
- We object to having these
cuts be for five years. We cannot predict what
demands we will need to meet five years out, or what resources might
be available to us. It makes no sense to tie the Appropriations Committee's
hands that far into the future.
- These programs did not cause
the deficit. In fact, far from growing
rapidly or even keeping up with inflation, many discretionary programs
have actually had their funding reduced over the last three years,
- It is unacceptable to subject
domestic discretionary spending to such
severe cuts, when the overall budget would actually increase the deficit
compared to current policy. The President's budget would allow significant
growth to other components of the budget, would reduce our resources
further by including new tax cuts, and would actually make the deficit
larger than if we simply continued current policy and increased funding
to these programs sufficiently to compensate for inflation.
|
Action
Tools for PA
Action
alert sign-up
Contact
Your PA Elected Officials
Bill
& Legislation Information
How
to read a bill
Action
Resources
Action
tools for US
Ways
to get Involved
Congressional
Legislative Information
Note: When possible publications are in both PDF (must use Adobe
Reader® to view) and HTML (use web page to view) format. PDF documents,
when printed, are identical in format to what is mailed to you.
|
