Women and the U.S. Budget

Hurricanes and Budget Priorities

Mother Nature definitely got a bad rap for the tragedy that unfolded from the recent powerful hurricanes. I was struck by the way “killer” and “deadly” were repeatedly used to describe Katrina and Rita. Yes, these are powerful storms that are indifferent to what is in their paths. However, the forces responsible for the unnecessary loss of so much life and property are to be found in the human realm. Global warming, racism, classism, lack of emergency preparedness, lack of infrastructure investment, rampant coastal development without thought of the future, and disorganized and downsized government all played a part. Budget priorities reveal a deadly calculation: divert money slated to reinforce the New Orleans levees to the war in Iraq, and we see people losing their lives in both places.

Budget Alert: Key Programs for Women in Danger

The Congress is moving swiftly to finally finish the national budget for Fiscal Year 2006. (The Fiscal Year begins October 1 so they are late.) Because they did not pass the budget by October 1, they have put everything into an omnibus piece of legislation that makes it very difficult to make any changes once they come to floor votes in the House and Senate.

Conservative Republicans have used this truncated process, the excuse of a deficit they created, and the emergency funding needed to assist victims of the hurricanes, to ram through cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, and child support enforcement. This is insane public policy at the exact moment when more women and children, and elderly need Medicaid and when more people lack food security. The Senate has already voted for billions of cuts, but the House wants to cut even deeper.

Five Things Every Woman Needs to Know about the U.S. Budget

1. The Republican majority in congress is cutting back vital programs for women, children and working families.

These include Medicaid, food stamps, home heating assistance, child support enforcement, student loans, foster care, and supplemental security income for disabled people. This is insane public policy when we are dealing with the hurricane crises and rebuilding and when so many families in this country still need assistance to have basic needs met.

They are using the excuse of the deficit but this is what David Stockman, Reagan’s first budget director called a strategic deficit – it is created for the purpose of forcing cuts that they wanted to make anyway and this is a deficit they themselves created through their huge tax cuts and increases in military spending.

2006 Budget Comes with a Price

The budget for fiscal year 2006 (the fiscal year we are in that started on October 1) still has not been passed. The final votes will be at the beginning of February. The fact that it has taken this long is a testament to the controversial nature of the budget bills that the congressional republican leadership has been trying to force on the country. Huge tax cuts for the rich combined with large cuts in programs that serve low-income people creates a toxic brew that the vast majority of Americans do not want to drink.

The House of Representatives leaders – who came up with the most cruel cuts – used a parliamentary gambit called “martial law” which manipulated and blindsided us all. They rushed the House to a vote on the spending cut reconciliation bill before members of the House, the press or the public had a chance to examine the legislation and understand what it would do. The vote was taken at 5:43 a.m., only four hours after the 774 page bill was filed in the House. This made it impossible for members to understand the latest changes from the conference with the Senate, much less leaving time for us to exercise democracy by communicating with our elected representatives.

Budget Blues

Congress finally passed the budget for Fiscal Year 2006, five months late. Their pay should certainly be docked, since this is their main responsibility. The lateness of the budget is symbolic of the congressional leadership’s disregard for the public good. The budget cuts programs that are vital to working families, women and children, and to elderly women. At the same time, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and increases in money for the war in Iraq are going forward, even though there are large deficits. For the details of how these cuts will impact women and working families go to:

http://www.now.org/nnt/spri ng-2006/2006budget.html

Women and Children Last

As Congress begins the budget process for the next government fiscal year (FY 2007 to begin October 1, 2006), it is obvious that we continue to be plagued by congressional power brokers who cannot act responsibly as stewards of our resources. The first part of the budget process is for the House and Senate budget committees – and then the full House and Senate – to pass a Budget Resolution that gives overall numbers on spending and taxation that will guide the work of the individual committees as they decide on program budgets. The Senate has passed its resolution (there will be a conference committee with the House when they do theirs).

Taxing Women

Although so much public policy has been implemented through the tax code in the last twenty years, we still have a murky understanding of how this has changed our lives. Essentially, the tax system has been used to re-distribute wealth upward.

There has been very little written about the impact of the tax system on women, so it is exciting that earlier this month the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) issued the report "Taxes ARE a Women's Issue: Reframing The Debate" by Mimi Abramovitz and Sandra Morgen. The Council is a network made up of over 100 leading U.S. women's research and policy centers.

Sunset Commission Threatens Budget Programs

President Bush is determined to leave his mark on the federal budget process and outcomes, and not just through disastrous tax cuts, billions of dollars for the war in Iraq, and huge deficits. In a move that has received little attention from the media, he has proposed a way to bypass elected representatives and subject a wide range of federal programs to possible elimination. In a letter to Congress on April 5, members of nonprofit groups such as the AFL-CIO, Environmental Defense, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Sierra Club, YWCA USA, and Public Citizen reported that “the proposals could create a single unelected commission to review every federal program, and would mandate that all federal programs automatically "sunset"--completely cease--after a fixed period, unless Congress intervened.”

Gender Responsive Budgets

The following are excerpts from my article, “Gender Responsive Budgeting.” featured in the May/June issue of Dollars and Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice. Click this link for the full PDF of the article or better yet, support Dollars and Sense by buying the magazine. (To see the articles in the May/June issue go to www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0506toc.html)

Terms that are referenced in the full text of the article are defined at the end.

...Today, gender responsive budgeting is happening in over 60 countries, including Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the UK, Bangladesh, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, and India. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez recently announced his commitment to including gender equality principles in the national budget for this fiscal year.

Line Item Veto is Looming

President Bush is continuing his grabs for increased presidential powers by proposing the Line Item Veto Act of 2006. This is a direct threat to the constitutional separation of powers and will likely result in cuts to programs of vital importance to women, children, and working people and increased deficits. It also directly challenges Congress’ responsibility for the budget.

For more information and to take action by sending a message to your representatives, go to People for the American Way (PFAW) web site:

http://actions. pfaw.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx? c=enJHKINrFqG&b=848149&aid=6734 

For National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) testimony on the impact of the Line Item Veto Act of 2006 go to:

www.nwlc.org/pdf/MartinFir vidaTestimonyLineItemVetoApr06.pdf