NAEYC Alert

October 7, 2005

CONTACT YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AT HOME NEXT WEEK

*Messages
*Who to call and when
*Background

MESSAGES

Reject the reconciliation bill. A responsible federal budget does not make choices that hurt children’s access to child care, Head Start, good schools, higher education, nutrition and health care. These needs will not disappear; the states and communities, which have stretched budgets, will need to pick up the pieces or children will lose services.

Don’t make cuts-across-the-board that will hurt the very programs that help families work, children learn, and communities be safe and healthy. Set the right priorities for our children and families.

Federal Katrina and Rita relief efforts should not be “paid for” by cutting the very programs that hurricane-impacted families and other working low income families across the nation need.

Abandon the tax spending package that will increase the deficit without providing investments in the programs that lift the education, heath care, and economic levels of our nation’s children.

WHO TO CALL AND WHEN:

Call your Senators and Representatives. Next week, Congress is on recess and members of Congress will be back in their states and districts. Contact their state and district offices next week. To find out the contact information, go to www.naeyc.org/policy. Click on Action Center. In the box next to Elected Officials, put your zip code. Click on the names of your Congressional members and it will provide their state contact information.

On October 17 and 18, the human services community will have national call-in days to the Capitol Hill offices of all Senators and Representatives. A toll free number is available only for those two days: 1-800-426-8073

BACKGROUND:

Both as part of reconciliation and to offset funding increases for Katrina and Rita relief, members of Congress are considering an even larger set of cuts to programs, particularly those programs that service children and families.

• Yesterday, U.S. House of Representatives leadership announced it will be seeking $50 billion in mandatory funding cuts (which include Food Stamps, Medicaid, student loans for higher education, and potentially TANF and child care), instead of the $35 billion in the reconciliation instructions set out last spring.
• House Budget Chairman Nussle proposed making a 2 percent cut across all domestic discretionary funded programs, including defense. Typically defense and homeland security are not included, and high ranking appropriators have said they would not apply the cuts to those areas. If the same total amount of cuts are desired, and the across-the-board would not apply to defense and homeland security, then the cut across the remainder of domestic discretionary programs would rise to 4 percent. Many of the programs that serve working low income families and their children have not received increases to meet cost of living (such as Head Start), or have received no increase at all (child care assistance) over the past few years. A cut across the board would mean funding below fiscal year 2002 child care discretionary funding.
• Congress is talking about making cuts to the very programs that are needed by families in the wake of Katrina and Rita to pay for the federal relief. Many of these are the same programs, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps, which have been a key component in helping families impacted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A letter from over 750 national and state organizations has been sent to Congress to make the right choices and priorities. To see the letter and organizations that have signed on, go to http://www.chn.org/pdf/reconciliationsignon.pdf