February 06, 2008
Charities Vow to Fight Proposed Cuts in Federal Budget
By Brennen Jensen and Suzanne Perry
Washington
Charities and advocacy groups have expressed alarm at President Bush’s proposals to curtail spending on social services, the arts, and health care as part of the $3.1-trillion budget for fiscal year 2009 he proposed this week.
Mr. Bush says the cuts are necessary to help balance the budget by 2012, provide more money for military programs to fight terrorism, and preserve tax breaks that will stimulate the economy.
Some nonprofit leaders took a different view. “President Bush is attempting to balance the federal budget on the backs of regular Americans — slashing investments in children’s health care, education, nutrition supports, cancer research, housing, environmental protection, and home-energy assistance and many other areas — all the while continuing tax-cut giveaways for the well off,” OMB Watch, a government watchdog, said in a statement.
Despite the concern, many of Mr. Bush’s proposals are unlikely to be embraced by the Democratic-led Congress. Several leading Democrats have already charged the president with proposing spending cuts that he knows will be rejected.
The budget includes “a series of cuts that have been previously rejected by Congress on a bipartisan basis,” Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. His examples included community development block grants, which provide money to cities and states for antipoverty projects, and money to help poor families pay their home-energy costs.
The president’s 2009 budget included the following proposals:
Arts and Humanities. President Bush proposed cutting the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts from $144.7-million to $128.4-million, which drew fire from Americans for the Arts, an arts advocacy group in Washington. “After three years of minimal, but incremental, funding growth, we are sorry to see an attempt at this progress erased,” Robert L. Lynch, the group’s president, said in a statement.
However, the arts group is optimistic that Congress will augment the administration’s proposal, as it did last year. Nina Ozlu, the organization’s chief counsel, notes that the House Appropriations Interior and Environment Subcommittee, which proposes funds for the NEA, last year pushed for a budget of $160-million for the agency. The subcommittee has asked Americans for the Arts to help line up witnesses for a hearing on arts money in April.
The administration proposed a slight decrease in the budget for the National Endowment for the Humanities — from $144.7-million this year to $144.4-million in 2009.
Health. In an effort to rein in the deficit, the administration would cut spending on Medicare by $178.2-billion over five years by slowing the annual growth rate from 7.2 percent to 5 percent much of it by decreasing payments to health-care providers. The proposal would also cut Medicaid spending by $17.2-billion over five years. The proposed cuts in those two areas have alarmed groups like the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, a coalition in Washington of nonprofit groups that work with older people. “Our nation must prepare now for the growing number of baby boomers who will need economic, health, and long-term care protection as they age,” James P. Firman, the group’s chair, said in a statement.
The administration proposed to increase spending on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health care to children from low-income families who don’t qualify for Medicaid, by $19.3-billion over five years. That is significantly more than the $5-billion it proposed last year, but far less than the amount Congress prefers. President Bush has twice vetoed a bill that would increase federal spending on SCHIP by $35-billion over five years, to $60-billion.
Housing. The president sought a nearly 3-percent increase in the budget for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including an additional $50-million to fight homelessness. The President also asked for an additional $15-million to support nonprofit housing counseling services designed to assist households facing foreclosure. He is requesting $65-million for these efforts.
Mr. Bush has requested a 30-percent reduction in the Community Development Block Grants program, which municipalities and nonprofit groups use to support a variety of housing and economic-development projects. The budget also cuts funds for elderly housing programs.
International Aid. The administration proposed increasing the operating costs of the Agency for International Development to $767.1-million — up from from $650.7-million this year.
That move was welcomed by InterAction, a Washington coalition of international relief groups, which said it had been pushing “to give USAID adequate resources to complete its critical mission overseas.” InterAction also praised a proposal to provide $4.8-billion for a fund to fight HIV/AIDS globally (up slightly from 2008) and what it called “adequate funding” ($2.2-billion, up from $1.6-billion) for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. agency that helps poor countries develop their economies.
However, it criticized proposed cuts in other programs, including migration and refugee assistance (from $1-billion to $764-million), the Child Survival and Health Fund (from $1.8-billion to $1.6-billion), and international disaster assistance (from $429.7-million to $298-million).
National Service. Mr. Bush proposes cutting the budget for volunteer programs operated by the Corporation for National and Community Service from $782.7-million to $751.5-million. The National Senior Service Corps — which taps volunteers age 55 and older — would take the biggest hit. Its budget would fall from $213.8-million to $174-million, with most coming out of the Foster Grandparents program, which provides stipends to older people to help disadvantaged and disabled youths. That budget would fall from $109-million to $68.2-million.
Public Broadcasting. The administration would take away $200-million of the $400-million that Congress set aside for 2009 for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to public television and radio stations. (Traditionally, federal funds for public broadcasting are committed several years in advance.) It also proposes cutting $220-million from the $420-million already appropriated for 2010, and making no advance appropriation for 2011.
The administration said the agency should receive money the same way that other federal programs do and “rely to a greater extent on non-Federal funding sources.”
The proposal offers no new money to help public television and radio stations convert to digital formats or upgrade the Public Radio Satellite System. The CPB said in a statement the “draconian” cuts would slash its budget by 56 percent from 2008. It said it planned to submit a request to Congress for a $483-million advance appropriation for 2011, as well as money in the 2009 budget for digital conversion and other projects.
Social Services. Mr. Bush proposed a 22-percent reduction in funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which makes grants to states (which are then often passed through to nonprofit groups) to help poor families pay their utility bills. Money for the program would drop from $2.57-billion to $2-billion.
The president’s budget also eliminates the Department of Energy’s $243-million Weatherization Assistance Program, which supports charities and local governments in making homes of poor people more energy efficient.
“In the face of rising energy costs, it is absurd that the president would propose to reduce help for the poorest energy consumers and to do less to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions of low-income households,” said David Bradley, president of the National Community Action Foundation, a Washington charity that works to strengthen antipoverty groups.
For the third year in a row, Mr. Bush proposed eliminating the Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which helps food banks provide monthly deliveries of basic groceries to low-income families with young children and the elderly. Last year Congress provided $139-million for the program.
Mr. Bush again also calls for eliminating the Department of Health and Human Service’s Community Service Block Grant program, which received $653-million in 2008. The grants support over 1,000 antipoverty groups across the country
The budget would also reduce by $500-million the department’s Social Service Block Grant program, which received $1.7-billion in 2008 to support groups providing a variety of services to low-income families and individuals, including daycare, employment counseling, home meal delivery, and transitional housing.
The Compassion Capital Fund, which helps charities and religious groups provide social services, would grow by $22-million, to total of $75-million. The Community Based Abstinence Education program would receive a $28-million increase. Nonprofit groups use these funds to develop sex-education programs that discourage young people from engaging in premarital sex.
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Mr. Bush, What hope do I have for the future? I am 47 years old and disabled. I live in a rural southern town with no transportation, and most of the state building are not accessible. What do you want me to do? Please think hard and clear about what the cuts will do to most americans. I am living on a fixed income and relay on these services that you want to cut, please remember those who need and depend on these services and programs.
— Virginia Harris Feb 6, 02:25 PM #