Senate Passes Budget Cuts

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NOW National Action Center

 

 

 

 

Support NOW's Work | December 23, 2005 |

 

 

The Truth About George

 

Vice President Cheney provides Tie-breaking Vote to Ensure Passage of

Senate Bill to Cut Services for Poor

 

Action Needed:

Thank your Senators who voted against S. 1932, the Budget Reconciliation Act

of 2005. All Democrats, one Independent and 5 Republicans (Snowe, ME; Collins,

ME; DeWine, OH; Smith, OR; Chafee, RI) could not in good conscience support the

almost $40 billion in cuts to human needs programs. The bill raises health care

costs for the lowest income families, cuts child care for families moving from

welfare-to-work, imposes new stringent work requirements for welfare recipients,

cuts assistance for abused and neglected children, reduces funds for child

support enforcement and increases the cost of student loans — and that's just

for starters.

 

Because several provisions in the Senate bill were dropped due to Senator

Conrad's (D-ND) insistence that the Senate follow its own rules — known as the

Byrd rule — the House must now vote again on the final package. The House is not

slated to meet for full roll call votes until they come back at the end of

January, although they could call members back for votes before then.

 

Take Action

 

Background:

The House vote on this package in the wee hours of December 19 gave Republican

moderates just a few hours to review the 774-page package and many voted for the

bill out of sheer exhaustion and political pressure. And, 16 members missed the

vote altogether! Now that the contents of the harsh proposal have come to light,

we'll need to make another effort in January (unless they convene earlier) to

persuade them to change their vote to no.

 

According to the National Women's Law Center, some of the cruelest cuts in the

bill are:

 

Child Care/TANF: In renewing the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

(TANF) and Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) programs, the bill

imposes harmful new mandates that states meet a 50 percent work participation

rate in their TANF program in order to avoid federal penalties, while providing

woefully inadequate child care funds to help states meet these new mandates or

maintain existing services. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

estimates that the cost to the states of meeting the work requirements is even

higher than under the original House-passed bill! As a result, states will be

under pressure to cut child care for low-income working families, impose tighter

eligibility requirements for TANF and adopt stricter sanctioning

policies-denying help to families who need it most. The final bill also imposes

limits on the flexibility of states to develop their own policies for helping

needy families using state funds-restrictions that were not in the

original House bill.

 

Medicaid: Low-income families will face increases in co-payments and premiums

to access health care services and medications, leading many to forego needed

care. In addition, states would be allowed to cut back on health care services

for poor women, including family planning.

 

Child Support: Federal funding for child support enforcement will be cut

about $1.5 billion over the next five years. This is less than the $4.9 billion

cut in the original House bill-but it still means that about $2.9 billion in

child support owed to children will go uncollected over five years; about $8.4

billion in child support will be lost over ten years.

 

Resources:

How the overall bill affects low-income people

How the TANF provisions impose harsh new work requirements

Take Action

 

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" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix