Urge Your Reps to Oppose the Budget

Because we tend to gloss over dollar amounts, even billion dollar amounts, and the budget is written in a fairly confusing way, I recently wrote a story about how Bush's budget is impacting real people. It focuses on seniors who can't afford food in South Carolina, AIDS patients in Alabama and parents who are struggling to find affordable child care in Indiana. Thanks to Bush's budget, their problems are getting worse by the day.

The following action alert is from the National Women's Law Center:

House Republican leaders plan to bring the budget resolution back for a vote on Thursday, May 4. The last time they tried this, your calls bolstered moderate opposition and leaders cancelled the vote. But the Republican leadership is trying again to muster the votes to pass the budget. Your Representative needs to hear from you now! If you’ve called before--it’s time to call again!

Call your Representative TODAY! Use this toll-free number: 800-459-1887

Tell Your Representative:

Vote “No” on the budget resolution. It threatens education, child care, health care, nutrition, and other vital services that women and their families rely upon. Cutting services to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy few are the wrong priorities.

The House budget resolution provides $10 billion less in funding in FY 2007 for discretionary programs than is needed to maintain current services. As you know, this will undoubtedly lead to cuts in programs such as education, Head Start, child care, job training, services for the elderly, and many health programs. In addition, the House budget resolution calls for billions in cuts to mandatory programs, much of which could come from cuts to critical supports for low-income families, such as the Earned Income Credit, Supplemental Security Income and Unemployment Insurance.

At the same time, the House budget proposes $228 billion in additional tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the very rich, all while increasing federal deficits by $256 billion over the next five years (as compared to what deficits would be without these policy changes).