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National Women's Law Center E-Update:
February 10, 2004
Discover what's current in law and policy for women.
In this issue...
1. President's Budget is Bad News for America and for Women
2. Take Action: Help Focus Media Attention on Unfair Tax Cuts and Budget Gaps for Women and Their Families
President's Budget is Bad News for America and for Women
President Bush released his fiscal year 2005 budget last week, and the cuts in domestic programs are even deeper than initially reported. Consistent with the policy of the last three budgets offered by this Administration, the President is proposing massive new tax cuts that would that would primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans while freezing or cutting critical investments in non-homeland security discretionary domestic programs.
Next year, funding for non-defense, non-homeland security domestic programs would increase by less than 0.1 percent--less than is needed to keep pace with inflation--according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). By 2009, funding for domestic discretionary programs would be $69 billion short of what is needed to keep pace with inflation and population growth.
Low-income women and children will bear a heavy burden from this new round of fiscal imprudence and distorted priorities. Many programs that provide essential services to women and their families would be frozen, including the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) that helps low-income families get the child care they need to get and keep a job, Pell grants to help students pay for college, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program that assists the poorest families with children, and federal assistance to states to provide social services--from abuse prevention to services for the elderly.
One hundred and twenty-eight programs would be deeply cut or eliminated, on top of years of mounting neglect. These proposed cuts in services reflect misplaced priorities: the cost of income tax cuts for just the top 10 percent of households would pay for all of the reductions the Administration is proposing in domestic discretionary spending in 2009, according to CBPP.
While the Administration claims its budget will cut the deficit in half and strengthen the economy, most independent analysts agree that is unlikely to do either. The New York Times referred to it as "The Pinnocchio Budget." [NY Times, Editorial, 2/3/04] The budget obsures the real costs of the tax proposals by ignoring mounting costs in later years, and omits future spending on stated priorities such as the war on terrorism. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, these missing costs in the President's budget will result in a deficit of approximately $400 billion in 2009, far higher than the estimate included in the President's budget, and a far cry from the President's state goal of cutting the deficit in half in five years. And more of the same tax and budget policies will not help the economy or improve the prospects of women and their families. The tax cuts have failed to create new jobs : 232,000 jobs were lost in 2003, and 2.3 million jobs have been lost since President Bush took office.
The benefits of the new tax cuts proposed in this budget overwhelmingly would go to the wealthiest Americans. Millionaires would receive an average annual tax cut of more than $107,000 from the proposal to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent--more than the annual income of 87 percent of tax filers.
Meanwhile, the President's budget eliminates or chips away at the programs many women depend on for their economic security, health, well-being, and safety. The following represent only some of the proposals that most directly impact women and their families:
- Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds are frozen for a third year. The Administration's budget fails to provide enough additional funding for the CCDBG in FY 2005 to keep pace with inflation, and the budget reduces spending for child care in FY 2006. The Administration's own budget figures indicate that 300,000 fewer low-income children will be able to receive child care assistance by FY 2009 as funding decreases and costs of providing care rise. In addition, states' surplus welfare (TANF) funds, which they have been relying on to help support their child care programs, are dwindling rapidly. Because the Administration's five-year budget continues the pattern of the past few years in freezing or decreasing child care funding, without even increases to cover inflation, and because states are exhausting the TANF (welfare) surplus funds that they rely on to help support child care, half a million fewer children will be able to receive child care assistance in FY 2009 compared to FY 2002, according to calculations from the Center for Law and Social Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
- Head Start receives a minimal increase that barely covers the cost of inflation. There are no new resources to provide comprehensive preschool programs for our poorest children and families--even though the program reaches just three out of five eligible preschoolers and 3 percent of eligible infants and toddlers in Early Head Start. The President's budget also ignores the need for increased funding for quality improvments, such as salary increases to attract and retain teachers with higher credentials and actually cuts training and technical assistance funds.
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers would be funded at just under $1 billion, a slight decrease from FY 2004. However, the program is authorized to receive $2 billion. This shortfall means that 1.32 million children and youth will not be able to participate in afterschool programs.
- Support for federal career and vocational education programs would be cut by 24 percent. This cut would jeopardize the integrity of career training programs for women and girls who rely on these programs to help them advance in non-traditional careers. This drastic decrease would reduce federal assistance to high school and post-secondary programs that prepare students for jobs in the skilled trades. Cuts in these programs are especially harsh, since the proposed budget also indicates that vocational education programs would be required to meet higher academic standards at the same time that their funding is being reduced. This scaling back of resources comes at a time when funds should be bolstered to ensure that girls and women in vocational programs have equal access to non-traditional occupational training, which enhances their ability to provide for t hemselves with jobs in fields such as construction, aviation, and computer technology.
- Housing for low-income families faces steep cuts. The Administration proposes an FY 2005 cut of $1.6 billion (adjusted for inflation), and by FY 2009 the cut would equal $6 billion--a 40 percent cut. Over 250,000 families, most of whom are headed by women raising children or are elderly or disabled households, could lose access housing vouchers next year, according to CBPPP. In addition, the Administration proposes changing the housing voucher program into a state-run block grant. This could eliminate many critical protections for the families accessing government housing assistance by allowing states to set their own policies.
- The President seeks to "restructure" Medicaid, limiting the federal dollars going to states by converting Medicaid into a block grant. Seventy percent of adults on Medicaid are women. This year, the President is bypassing legislation to achieve state-controlled Medicaid programs, and instead proposes in the budget to use administrative means, to pressure states individually to convert their programs to a block grant. Many states have already cut Medicaid eligibility and/or services; this proposal will mean even fewer women will get the services they need. Family planning, now a service all states provide to all beneficiaries, will be especially at risk.
- Almost 18 percent of women under 65 lack health insurance. The proposal in the budget to provide refundable tax credits to help low-income people buy individual health insurance will not help women obtain meaningful health care coverage. Individual health insurance plans vary dramatically in what they cover, who can buy them and how much they cost. Women are consistently charged more for these policies than men. The benefit packages often leave out services crucial for women's health, including maternity care. The proposed tax credit, at best, will allow women to buy plans with high out of pocket costs, leaving health care unaffordable for the women they are intended to help.
- The $17 million Small Business Administration Microloan program is eliminated. Most of the Microloan program provides very small loans to start-up, newly-established, or growing businesses. Most small businesses are women-owned.
- Violence Against Women Act programs in the Department of Health and Human Services would recieve $3 million less in FY 2005 than in FY 2004, leaving less funds to provide crisis hotline services and shelters for victims of domestic violence.
- The President's budget would reduce the Prison Rape and Prevention program by 78 percent--cut from $37 million in FY 2004 to $8 million in FY 2005). The remaining funds would focus on research and statistical analysis of the prison rape problem. The program provides grants for the prevention of sexual assaults in federal, state and local prisons and requires the US Department of Justice to collect statistics on the occurence of prison rapes.
- The $18 million National Youth Sports program in the Administration for Children and Families is eliminated. The program provides a comprehensive developmental and instructional sports program for approximately 70,000 low-income youth. The proposed elimination of this program is distressing as regular athletic participation has been found to decrease girls' chances of becoming overweight and developing obesity-related diseases and also to promote a reduced risk of developing health problems later in life; reduced incidence of risky behaviors such as illegal drug or tobacco use; enhanced personal skills; and greater success in school.
Take Action: Help Focus Media Attention on Unfair Tax Cuts and Budget Gaps for Women and Their Families
Newspapers across the country will be tuned in to deciphering the fiscal priorities of the Bush Administration and Congress over the next several months. Many national papers have already run stories on the President's budget; an Editorial, Skewed Priorities, appeared in the Washington Post on Monday, February 9 and an article, Domestic Spending: Gains for Education but Not Much Else, appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday, February 3rd. Take a moment to help shape public opinion on the nation's budget priorities: click here to write a letter to the Editor of your local paper in repsonse to a story on the federal budget. You can use the bullets in this newsletter as a starting point for your letter. Please let us know if you are able to have your opinion published. E-mail us at info@nwlc.org.
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