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Where Would
the Cuts Be Made Under The President's Budget?
According to the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, the Bush Administration’s budget calls for substantial
reductions in a wide range of domestic discretionary programs. These are the programs funded by annual
appropriations, except for programs related to the Department of Defense,
homeland security, or international affairs. The budget calls for $214 billion
in reductions over five years in these programs, compared to current funding
levels adjusted only for inflation. These programs encompass a broad array of
public services such as education, environmental protection, transportation,
veterans' health care, medical research, law enforcement, and food and drug
safety inspection. Many of these programs provide funding to states and
localities and are essential to the services that states provide to their
residents, as well as to the soundness of state budgets.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-22-05bud.htm
President’s Budget Sabotages Pipeline of Skilled Workers
The Center for Law and Social
Policy estimates that nearly half a million people, at least 470,000, would be
denied literacy, Adult Basic Education, GED, and English as a Second Language
services due to the President’s proposed budget cuts. This analysis includes a
table of state-by-state data estimating the impact of the proposed cuts.
PDF: http://www.clasp.org/publications/adult_ed_budget_cuts.pdf
Bush Budget Proposes Halt in
Housing Aid for Disabled
According to a report in the
New York Times, with little fanfare, the Bush administration is proposing to
stop financing the construction of new housing for the mentally ill and
physically handicapped as part of a 50 percent cut in its housing budget for
people with disabilities. The proposal,
which has been overshadowed by the administration's plans to shrink its
community development programs, affects what is known as the Section 811
program. Since 1998, Section 811 has helped nonprofit developers produce more
than 11,000 units of housing for low-income people with disabilities
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/nyregion/22housing.html?ex=1266814800&en=6840b83b4b994f80&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
**Children, Youth &
Families
Children's
Defense Fund Releases State Fact Sheets On Foster Care
and Other Child Welfare Programs
The Children's Defense Fund
released new national and state fact sheets on child abuse and neglect that
pull together important details for the budget debate. In its proposed budget, the Administration
has made policy choices that leave the nation's most vulnerable children at
risk, according to the director of CDF's Child Welfare and Mental Health
Division. The plan would jeopardize the already precarious situation of abused
and neglected children with proposals to end a longstanding federal guarantee
of help to provide them safe foster homes, she said. It also would cut Medicaid
in ways that may harm children with special needs who are in the child welfare
system and freeze funding for most other child welfare programs.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/pressreleases/050217.aspx
NCCP Warns Against
Ignoring Children in Social Security Debate
The National Center for Children in Poverty points out that although
Social Security is the single largest program that provides support to American
children, the debate over privatization has focused almost entirely on changes
in benefits for retirees. While it is true that retirees and their spouses are
the largest block of beneficiaries from the program, over 5 million children in
the United
States
benefit from Social Security, either directly as beneficiaries or indirectly as
members of households that receive a monthly Social Security check. Of the 48
million people who currently receive Social Security benefits, one in three is
not a retiree; one in 15 is a child under the age of 18.
http://www.nccp.org/rel_6.html
Whose
Security? What Social Security Means to Children and Families
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, over 7 percent of all
children in the United States benefit from Social Security—over 5 million children.
Most of them receive support through the survivor and disability components of
the program. These insurance protections have kept many middle- and low-income
families from falling into poverty because of a parent's death or disability.
http://www.nccp.org/pub_wsw05a.html
Investigation of Programs
to Strengthen and Support Healthy Marriages
A report from the Urban
Institute highlights key components of current marriage education programs,
identifies opportunities and challenges for expanding services into other
service delivery systems, and provides recommendations for evaluations of
healthy marriage programs.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9175
CDC Launches Learn the
Signs. Act Early. Campaign
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with a coalition of national
partners, launched a public awareness campaign to help parents learn more about
the importance of measuring their child’s social and emotional progress in the
first few years of life. The campaign,
“Learn the Signs. Act Early,” is designed to educate parents about early
childhood development, including potential early warning signs of autism and
other developmental disabilities.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r050222.htm
Boys, Girls Are Faring
Equally, Study Finds
Findings from a Duke University study contradict both sides in the long-running
debate on whether boys or girls have it better in America. The most
comprehensive examination of the overall well-being of male and female children
has found that the sexes are faring about equally. Although boys have the advantage in some
areas and girls score better in others, they are doing about the same in a
broad array of measures assessing essential dimensions of life, such as health,
safety, economics and education, the researchers found.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050217.095859&time=21%2000%20PST&year=2005&public=1
More High School Seniors Working their way through School
A new University of Washington study suggests more high school seniors have jobs and many are working
more than 15 hours per week. The research didn't ask why the students worked,
but one researcher said "consumption seems to be a probable cause."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/usatoday/20050222/ts_usatoday/morehighschoolseniorsworkingtheirwaythroughschool
**Community Development
HUD Awards nearly $27
Million in ‘Sweat Equity Grants’ to help Low-Income Americans become First-Time
Homeowners
The Department of Housing and
Urban Development announced nearly $27 million in 'sweat equity grants'
provided through HUD's Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP). The funding taps into the power of volunteerism,
the experience of tradesmen and the hard work of the families themselves to
increase homeownership. The funding
represents a record level of support in the history of HUD's SHOP program.
http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr05-020.cfm
**Economic
Security
The Lukewarm 2004 Labor
Market: Despite Some Signs of Improvement,
According to the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, the labor market showed some signs of improvement in 2004; most
notable in this regard was the job growth that occurred in every month of the
year. This was the first year of consistent job growth since 2000, signaling
the end of the jobless recovery. The unemployment rate also showed improvement,
falling from an average of 6.0 percent in 2003 to an average of 5.5 percent for
last year. On the other hand, several other indicators and comparisons depict a
labor market that remains distinctly weak.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-16-05ui.htm
Is There a Way for
Low-Income Families to Break Cycle of Poverty?
NM Project Featured in National Campaign Provides Hope for Many
The Catholic Campaign for
Human Development (CCHD) recently launched a new national public awareness
campaign that calls attention to the nearly 36 million Americans now living in
poverty. Named "Portraits of Hope," the public service campaign
focuses on poor and low-income people who are doing something to combat poverty
at the local level. One of the three programs featured in the new campaign is
the southern New
Mexico child
development center. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=43477
**Education
State Legislators Offer
Formula for Improving No Child Left Behind Act
According to a bipartisan
review of the law, granting states flexibility to meet the goals of the No
Child Left Behind Act will result in stronger democracy
and strengthen the nation's economic future.
A special task force of the National Conference of State Legislatures
released the results of a 10-month study that identified specific areas of the
act that need to be changed if states are to guarantee that young people will
learn at their full potential.
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2005/pr050223.htm
All
Together Now: State Experiences in Using Community-Based Child Care to Provide
Pre-Kindergarten
According to the Center for
Law and Social Policy state pre-kindergarten programs have grown dramatically
in the last two decades, and much more attention is being paid to the school
readiness of children. This paper, commissioned by the Brookings Institution,
studies the emergence of the mixed delivery model, in which pre-kindergarten is
delivered in community-based settings and schools. It describes preliminary
findings of CLASP survey of states that was undertaken to understand the policy
choices, opportunities, and challenges of including community-based child care
providers in their pre-kindergarten programs.
PDF: http://www.clasp.org/publications/all_together_now.pdf
**Health
Model in Utah May Be Future for Medicaid
Mr. Leavitt, who as President
Bush's new secretary of health and human services is now leading a drive to
change how Medicaid works and often points to Utah as an illuminating example
that other states might consider - although it is an innovation that policy
experts, doctors and advocates for the poor are deeply ambivalent about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/national/24utah.html?ex=1266987600&en=8a5650749b9defb5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
**Hunger & Nutrition
Federal Nutrition Programs
Making Record Difference for Families, Children and Elderly
According to the Food
Research and Action Center (FRAC) annual report, “State
of the States: A Profile of Food and Nutrition Programs Across
the Nation,” Federal nutrition programs are making a record difference for
families, children and elderly persons.
Proposals to slash the federal budget threaten the nutrition safety net,
even though the nutrition programs are not the cause of, and should not be the
solution to, budget deficits.
http://www.frac.org/Press_Release/02.22.05.html
Nutrition and Health
Characteristics of Low-Income Populations
Five Department of
Agriculture summaries in the Nutrition and Health Characteristics of Low-Income
Populations series highlight key findings of the multi-volume Nutrition and
Health Outcomes Study. The summaries examine the nutritional and health status of:
Food Stamp Program (FSP) participants; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program
for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participants; school-age children; and
older Americans
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/AIB796/
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