Oppose the House Budget Committee's FY 2012 Proposal: Letter to Congress

Apr 13, 2011

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LETTER FROM NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OPPOSING THE FY 2012 BUDGET RESOLUTION AS APPROVED BY THE HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE

April 13, 2011

Dear (Representative):

The undersigned national organizations urge you to vote against the Budget Resolution approved by the House Budget Committee for FY 2012. We represent people of faith, providers of human services, and labor, civil rights, and expert policy organizations concerned about the needs of low- and moderate-income people and communities. We include—and advocate for—young and old alike, people with disabilities, the jobless, and the working poor. We know that our nation can build a sustained recovery only if all of our people have the chance to contribute to and benefit from economic growth. The Budget Resolution before you would slash income and opportunity for millions of low-income and middle class Americans while shifting trillions of dollars to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. It would dangerously weaken the capacity of the federal government to protect and expand economic security, and would result in fewer jobs and persistent deficits. It should be rejected. The budget is skewed: At least two-thirds of the cuts proposed would be made in low-income programs, about $2.9 trillion over 10 years, according to estimates by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The result is a budget that proposes extreme restrictions in programs that provide essential services for low-income and vulnerable people, making these programs unable to respond to growing need during economic downturns. Among the ways the proposal would deny or restrict services:

• Medicaid: Medicaid, which now serves more than 58 million low-income people, including the elderly, people with disabilities, children, and pregnant women, would be changed to a block grant and cut by more than 20 percent. By design, funding would grow more slowly than actual health care costs, shifting the responsibility to states to manage the growing shortfalls. Giving states inadequate funding will result in more cuts that will reduce or deny health care to millions, from infants to the elderly in nursing homes. Further, the massive cuts in Medicaid are estimated by the Economic Policy Institute to result in the loss of 2.9 million full-time-equivalent jobs over 5 years.

• De-Funding the Affordable Care Act: The budget proposal eliminates funding for Medicaid expansions and insurance subsidies called for in the health care reform law, keeping health coverage unaffordable for millions and foregoing savings from health care systems changes.

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps): SNAP, which serves more than 44 million people in need, is also turned into a block grant with limited funding. SNAP was a very successful program before the recession and has been crucial during the recession in meeting vastly increased need among people who lost jobs or income, with its caseload rising 20 percent from 2009 to 2010. A block grant would end its strength as a powerful counter-cyclical force.

• Housing Assistance: Although federal rental assistance has not expanded the number of available units, it has kept pace with private-market rental costs to limit a household’s share of rent to a fixed percentage of its income. The Budget Resolution would require low-income renters to pay more and would subject them to arbitrary time limits and work requirements as well that may not reflect actual conditions of local housing markets.

• Education: The budget would cut funding for education programs in FY12 by $ 17.7 billion, nearly 19 percent, and by a total of $250 billion over ten years. Discretionary Pell grant funds for low-income college students would be cut at least 60% and mandatory funding would be eliminated. This unprecedented cut would drastically reduce the maximum award for over nine million low- and middle-income students, likely denying college access to many of them. Draconian cuts to early childhood, elementary and secondary, career, technical and adult and higher education programs would completely reverse progress on improving student achievement, devastate our nation’s education system, and harm America’s economic future.

• Further Dramatic Reductions in Human Needs Services: Just as the House majority legislative proposal to finish out the current fiscal year (H.R. 1) targeted cuts very disproportionately at important services including Head Start, child care, health care, housing, home energy assistance, emergency food, anti-poverty community services, jobs programs for youth and adults, services for women and children trying to escape domestic violence, and many others, it is likely that the $1.6 trillion in cuts over 10 years to appropriations other than defense, veterans and homeland security will fall heavily on low-income and working families. This is not just unfair; it threatens the health, development, education and job readiness of millions of children and youth and therefore compromises our future economic competitiveness.

• Ending Medicare as a Guaranteed Insurance Plan and Shifting Costs to the Elderly: For people now in their early fifties and younger, the Budget Resolution would end Medicare as we know it. Starting in 2022, seniors would purchase private insurance with federal support that would grow more inadequate over time, since funding would increase less than medical cost inflation. Under this plan, the share of the health insurance cost paid by a 65-year-old person would increase dramatically, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If the current Medicare program remained in place, a 65year-old would be paying 25 percent of the cost of his or her insurance in 2030; under this proposal, the costs would skyrocket to 68 percent.

• Failure to Seek Savings in the Military: The Budget Resolution assumes $215 billion more in military spending over 10 years than the CBO baseline, while non-military appropriations would be cut by $1.6 trillion. This is in contrast to the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan, which identified approximately $100 billion in annual military cuts that could be achieved without risk to national security.

• Additional Tax Cuts for the Wealthiest and Corporations: The Budget Resolution not only rejects the idea that additional revenues should play any role in deficit reduction – it proposes unprecedented additional tax cuts for those who already have the most. In addition to the $125,000 a year that millionaires would receive from making the 2001-2003 tax cuts permanent, the proposal would drastically reduce the top income tax rates for individuals and corporations (from 35 percent to 25 percent) and permanently extend the further reductions to the estate tax for multi-million dollar estates that were inserted in last year’s year-end tax deal. The Budget Resolution refers to making up the lost revenue from reductions in unspecified tax expenditures. Slashing the highest tax rates while reducing services and benefits for those with the lowest incomes and likely increasing taxes on the middle class and the poor will exacerbate already widening inequality. This Budget Resolution starkly illustrates the limits of attempting to achieve long-term deficit reduction without increasing revenues or seeking military savings. We continue to believe that the federal budget should uphold values of opportunity and economic security for all. This extreme proposal rejects these values. Please vote no.

Sincerely, 9to5, National Association of Working Women
AFL-CIO
AFSCME
Afterschool Alliance
AIDS United
Alliance for a Just Society
Alliance to End Hunger
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
American Dance Therapy Association
American Friends Service Committee
American Humane Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian American Justice Center, a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
Association of Nutrition Services Agencies (ANSA)
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Bazelon Center for Mental Health
Bread for the World
Caddo Nation Child Development Program
Campaign for America’s Future
Campaign for Community Change
Center for Economic Progress
Child Welfare League of America
Children’s Defense Fund
Children’s Leadership Council
Children's HealthWatch
Cities for Progress, Institute for Policy Studies
Citizens for Tax Justice
CLASP
Clearinghouse on Women's Issues
Coalition on Human Needs
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach
Community Access National Network (CANN)
Community Action Partnership
Community Food Security Coalition
Community Legal Services, Inc.
Community Organizations in Action
Congressional Hunger Center
Council for Opportunity in Education
Courage Campaign
CREDO
Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Disciples Justice Action Network
Easter Seals
Economic Policy Institute
Evangelicals for Social Action
Families USA
First Focus Campaign for Children
Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Generations United
Half in Ten
Harm Reduction Coalition
Health Care for America Now
Interfaith Worker Justice
Jesuit Conference
Jesuit Social Research Institute
Jewish Women International
Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Learning Disabilities Association of America
Legal Momentum
Lutheran Services in America
Main Street Alliance
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
Mennonite Central Committee U.S., Washington Office
Mental Health America
Methodist Federation for Social Action
MomsRising
Ms. Foundation for Women
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National AIDS Housing Coalition
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum
National Asian Pacific Center on Aging
National Association for Children's Behavioral Health
National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP)
National Association for the Education of Young Children
National Association of Commissions for Women (NACW)
National Association of Counsel for Children
National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors
National Association of State Head Injury Administrators
National Black Child Development Institute
National Center for Law and Economic Justice
National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence
National Child Labor Committee
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
National Commodity Supplemental Food Program Association
National Community Tax Coalition
National Consumer Advisory Board (NCAB)
National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP)
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of La Raza
National Council on Aging
National Disability Institute
National Disability Rights Network
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund
National Health Care for the Homeless Council
National Immigration Law Center
National Indian Head Start Directors Association
National Jobs for All Coalition
National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
National Low Income Housing Coalition
National Minority AIDS Council
National Network for Youth
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Priorities Project
National Respite Coalition
National Summer Learning Association
National WIC Association
National Women’s Law Center
National Women's Conference Committee
National Women's Health Network
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
New England Consortium Regional Poverty Reduction Initiative
OMB Watch
OWL - The Voice of Midlife and Older Women
Peace Action
Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice
People for the American Way
PHI – Quality Care through Quality Jobs
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Prevent Child Abuse America
ProLiteracy
Public Citizens for Children and Youth
Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition
Responsible Wealth
RESULTS
RISE, America!
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
School Nutrition Association
School Social Work Association of America
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
Single Stop USA
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Institute Justice Team
Social Security Works
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF)
Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice
TASH
The Arc of the U.S.
The Corps Network
The Episcopal Church
The Every Child Matters Education Fund
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
The National Center on Family Homelessness
The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society
U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
Union for Reform Judaism
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
United for a Fair Economy
US Peace Council
USAction
Voices for America's Children
Voices for Progress
Volunteers of America
WhyHunger
Wider Opportunities for Women
Witnesses to Hunger
Women of Color Policy Network, NYU Wagner
Women of Reform Judaism
Xaverian Brothers
YWCA USA
ZERO TO THREE