Home > Take Action > Action Alert - 12/20/05

Status and Targets: The FY2006 Budget Reconciliation Conference which passed the House before dawn on Monday, December 19th, is currently being debated on the Senate floor. [House vote, http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll670.xml] A vote in the Senate can occur as early as Tuesday evening (December 20). While calls to all Senators are very important, it remains critically important that calls and emails go out immediately to the following Senators:

Chafee (RI), Coleman (MN), Collins (ME), DeWine (OH), Landrieu (LA), McCain (AZ), Nelson (NE), Smith (OR), Snowe (ME), Santorum (PA), Specter (PA), Talent (MO) and Voinovich (OH).

Efforts to ensure the presence of Senators Corzine (D-NJ) and Dodd (D-CT) for the vote are also needed. Please use the toll-free number: 800-426-8073. Ask to be connected to your Senators, and tell them:

• “Vote NO” on the budget reconciliation conference report (S. 1932).

• It hurts low- income children, families, the elderly and disabled.

• Do not allow these one-sided sacrifices to be directed at low-income Americans while Congress is preparing to give still more tax breaks to the rich.

Background: Budget Agreement Would Increase Hunger Through Other Cuts in Aid for the Poor:
While the Reconciliation bill does not include any of the harsh food stamp cuts included in the House version, the bill still contains many harmful cuts in Medicaid, child support, foster care, SSI, TANF, and student loans. The bill will harm families’ ability to make ends meet.

Medicaid:
Low-income families will have to pay more than they can afford for medical care under Medicaid and face shrinking benefits.

SSI:
People with disabilities will have to wait as long as a year to receive the back SSI benefits they are owed because the government has taken so long to approve their application.

Child Support:
Children will be deprived of $2.9 billion over 5 years/$8.4 billion over 10 years in child support not collected because of cuts in enforcement.

Foster Care:
Grandparents or other relatives in certain states will lose foster care assistance.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families:
The agreement assumes that work requirements will be made harsher and expects states to fail – and so estimates that states will pay penalties to the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office expects that states will in turn create harsher penalties for poor families, causing more to lose benefits.

Child Care:
CBO estimates that it will cost $12.5 billion in new funding to pay for the harsher work requirements and to keep up with the costs of providing existing child care. The budget deal only provides $1 billion – a gap of $11.5 billion. That means 255,000 fewer children will receive child care in 2010 compared to this year.

Student Loans:
Cut $12.7 billion over 5 years.

For more information about the conference agreement, see the paper by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities posted at: http://www.cbpp.org/12-18-05bud3.htm

For additional assistance or feedback, contact evollinger@frac.org; eteller@frac.org; or ichavez@frac.org.

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