Maureen Lane

D.C. Disconnect

The House Budget Committee just passed a lulu of a budget plan. It is simply out of step with reality. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, we need more funding, for example, for family health coverage, not less. Instead, this year's budget plan reduces funding for domestic programs by $9 billion in 2007 and $169 billion over five years. The programs to be cut include Social Services block grants, child support assistance, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the low-income elderly and disabled.

Even with these cuts the deficit will increase by $256 billion or more. Why will the deficit increase? You guessed it: $228 billion in tax cuts over the next five years. "Overall, the House budget plan would be more harmful than either President Bush's budget or the budget plan recently approved by the Senate," said Trudi Renwick, Senior Economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute. "Over the next five years, the House budget calls for even larger funding cuts in domestic discretionary programs than the other two plans. The result is that the cuts in federally-funded services would be even more severe and widespread if the House plan were to be adopted."

Welfare Rights Initiative (WRI) had a day of action yesterday focusing on the House Budget Committee plan. WRI organizers connected over 50 Hunter students to their congresspersons. Students wrote letters and were able to call their Representatives in Washington, most of them for the first time, right at the WRI table.

The New York Congressional Delegation needs to take heed. We need all our Representatives to vote no on the budget committee's budget plan. New Yorkers need to sustain their families and communities, as well as secure opportunity for a better New York. It is hard to do all that while they are 'nickel and diming' us in D.C. All of us can make a call to Congress today and tell them so.

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Posted at 11:22 AM, Apr 05, 2006 in
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