Community Development Funding Cuts Under The New Bush Budget
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/communitydevelopment/20050309/20/1345****
Pick your poison
http://demause.net/oa/archives/2005/02/pick_your_poiso.html ****
". . .Beneath the incomprehensive numbers—a $2.57 trillion budget, a $427 billion deficit, a $419 billion military budget—the federal budget is a moment of truth. It reveals what we value, what kind of nation we are and what we seek to build. In this regard, the Bush budget is a stunning disservice to the nation. It offends common decency even as it cuts investment in our future. It reveals an administration that is fundamentally out of step with the needs of the American people.
In a global economy, it is vital that our children get the best education in the world. But the Bush budget breaks his promise to fund reforms of our schools, coming up $9 billion short. He would throw kids out of Head Start, child care, literacy programs, after-school programs and leave college priced out of reach to more and more working families. One in three schools is forced to use trailers as classrooms, but the president would cut money for school construction and maintenance. He would slash federal support for vocational education. His budget forfeits the effort to provide America’s children with even the basics of a good education.
America’s health care system is broken. Forty-five million people lack health insurance; millions more are one illness away from bankruptcy. Yet the president’s budget would cut Medicaid, the safety net of health care programs, hurting the most vulnerable in our country—seniors in nursing homes, poor children, those most in need of catastrophic care. His health savings accounts will aid the wealthy and healthy, but make it more expensive for most Americans to afford the insurance they need, while giving businesses the excuse to eliminate coverage.
Poverty is rising, with one in five children now living in poverty. Hunger and malnutrition is up; affordable housing is scarce. Yet the president’s budget will cut food stamps for some 300,000 recipients, eliminate child care for thousands of poor working mothers and slash support for affordable housing.
-MORE-
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/squandering_americas_future.php****
ADMINISTRATION'S BUDGET WOULD CUT HEAVILY INTO MANY AREAS OF DOMESTIC DISCRETIONARY SPENDING AFTER 2005
. . .By 2006, funding for most domestic discretionary programs outside homeland security would be cut below the 2004 funding levels for those programs adjusted for inflation (i.e., below the Office of Management and Budget baseline). Moreover, the cuts would grow over time. By 2009, the Administration’s budget would set funding for these programs $49 billion below the OMB baseline, a 12 percent cut in funding. By contrast, defense and homeland security programs would be funded above the OMB baseline in all years from 2005 to 2009.<1>
. . .Analysis of the OMB document shows:
The proposed cuts would affect nearly every part of government — including environmental programs, education and job training, veterans programs, health, and transportation. Under the federal budget, all government programs are placed into one of 19 categories, known as “budget functions.” Examples of budget functions include national defense, energy, education, veterans’ benefits and services, agriculture, transportation, and health.<4> Overall discretionary funding would be cut after 2005 in every category except three: defense, international affairs, and general science, space and technology.<5>
The cuts grow deeper each year in almost every budget function. Cuts in energy programs would grow from 17 percent in 2006 to 27 percent in 2009; cuts in environmental and natural resources programs would grow from 13 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in 2009; and cuts in employment and job training would grow from 3 percent in 2006 (the Administration proposes to increase funding modestly in 2005 as compared with baseline levels) to 7 percent in 2009. (These figures represent cuts compared with baseline levels — that is, they represent the percentage by which funding for each of these program categories would be set below the 2004 level, adjusted for inflation.) These cuts would result in reductions in government services.
Many programs touted as Administration priorities that would receive increased funding in 2005 would face reduced funding after 2005. For example, the President’s budget highlights the increased funding it would provide for special education (i.e., for resources provided to states for education and other services for children with disabilities).<6> Special education funding would indeed be increased in 2005. But funding in 2006 for the special education account would be $310 million below the 2005 level. By 2009, special education funding would fall $530 million below the funding provided in 2004, adjusted for inflation.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-27-04bud2.htm****
ASSESSING PRESIDENT BUSH’S NEW BUDGET PROPOSAL
By Robert Greenstein, James Horney, and Isaac Shapiro
2004
The Priorities of the Budget
The budget makes very substantial cuts in domestic spending at the same time that it calls for large additional tax cuts. If the Department of Defense, homeland security, and international affairs are funded at the levels the President proposes, then by 2010, funding for the remaining annually appropriated programs — so called “domestic discretionary” programs — would have to be cut about $66 billion, or 16 percent, below the 2005 levels, adjusted for inflation. These cuts hit programs — in areas such as education, veterans’ health care, and environmental protection — of importance to large numbers of Americans.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-7-05bud2.htm*****
2005
WHAT THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET SHOWS ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION’S PRIORITIES By James Horney, Robert Greenstein and Richard Kogan
. . .The President’s budget calls for significant cuts in a number of programs that provide key supports and services to low- and middle-income Americans at the same time that it proposes more tax cuts that would go overwhelmingly to the most well-off Americans. The budget also proposes cuts in funding for many other important activities of the federal government.
The budget proposes the cuts in programs for low-income Americans despite the fact that the number of Americans living in poverty went up for the third straight year in 2003, the share of total income that goes to the bottom two-fifths of households has fallen to one of its lowest levels since the end of World War II, and the number of people lacking health insurance rose in 2003 to the highest level on record. Sizeable reductions in programs for low-income families would exacerbate these trends.
. . .For instance, the budget proposes to cut Medicaid by $45 billion over the next 10 years. . .
. . .The budget also proposes cuts in mandatory spending for programs such as food stamps. Food stamp benefits would be cut by $1.1 billion over 10 years by terminating approximately 300,000 people from the program. The budget freezes child care funding for five years; the budget acknowledges this will cause the termination of assistance for 300,000 low-income children by 2009.
The budget also calls for substantial cuts in domestic programs funded through annual appropriations (so-called discretionary programs). Overall, the budget proposes a 4.9 percent, or $18 billion, real (after inflation) cut in funding in 2006 for domestic discretionary programs — that is, programs not related to the Department of Defense, international affairs, or homeland security.<2>
http://www.cbpp.org/2-7-05bud3.htm*****
Just for fun.... go to this site and read the first couple of para's
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-173.htmlSurprised??
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