Women and the U.S. Budget

Accountability & Transparency

I guess the public is getting really sick of hearing about the government contract game and its consequences, particularly in the middle of a war in which Americans and Iraqis are dying while military and security corporations are thriving. The evidence confirming this is the Senate’s move toward making government contracts available for viewing on the web! This sort of thing – blatant transparency about the use of taxpayer money – doesn’t usually happen without public anger rising. Perhaps the four no-bid FEMA contracts for post Katrina housing contributed to this outrage too.

The bill – the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) - was introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) with lots of co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. It calls for “the existence and operation of a single updated searchable database website accessible by the public at no cost that includes for each entity receiving Federal funding...”. With the ease of a Google search, taxpayers could get information on government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance worth $2.5 trillion of their money.

Incomplete Budget

This year the congressional leadership decided to devote 72 days (a little over two months) to legislative business. This is the least amount of time spent on legislative business over the past twenty years. The results are reflected in the budget update below. 

October 1 is the start of the fiscal year so the budget for Fiscal Year 2007 is supposed to be finished, but Congress has decided to wait to make some of the hard budget decisions until the politically volatile election season is over. This continues the “governance by continuing resolution” syndrome. A continuing resolution is not so great for budget programs, because continuing to fund them at current levels usually means at significantly lower levels than under a full budget process.

Democratic Gains Spur Hope

The recent election results were a devastating indictment of the political status quo in our country. It has become very difficult to beat incumbents in Congress, so it really did require an uprising of energy, money and conviction to create those results.

One clear thing emerged from the elections: the gender gap is back. "If only men voted, Jim Webb (D-VA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Claire McCaskill (D- MO) would have lost, and the Republicans would still control the Senate," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms. Magazine. "In the 2006 election, in key races, women were the deciders."

Women's votes also led the way in key House races. According to the Ms. Magazine/Women Donors Network (WDN) nationwide exit poll, 55 percent of women voted for Democratic candidates while only 50 percent of men voted for Democrats, for a 5-point gender gap. In close races, this was the decisive margin (full press release).

Support Grows for National Health Care Legislation

We all know horror stories of people in this wealthy country who suffer health crises because they cannot afford health insurance. Many workers who are fortunate enough to have health insurance pay a high percentage of their pay check for that coverage and are required to handle co-payments on top of that.

Due to the sweeping change in political power on Capitol Hill following the November elections, this is the best time we have seen in a decade to get national legislation to improve our health care system. What could be more important?

We are even fortunate enough to have a very dedicated and brilliant member of the House of Representatives who has studied this issue carefully, worked with organizations across the country, and has crafted legislation that would give us a single payer, not-for-profit health care system in the United States – H.R. 676. It would be funded on a sliding scale according to income.

Women the U.S. Budget: Where the Money Goes and What You Can Do About It

"In the old budget paradigm, the concept of scarcity is an overriding feature. If we believe that scarcity is real, the possibilities shrink and we can come to believe that not much change is possible. A belief in abundance, however, opens the door to many different outcomes: anything is possible."

From Women and the U.S. Budget

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What is Women and the U.S. Budget?

What is Women and the U.S. Budget?

A CRASH COURSE IN "BUDGET LITERACY" THAT UNCOVERS THE SECRETS HIDDEN IN THE NATIONAL BUDGET

Women and the U.S Budget: Where Your Money Goes and What You Can Do About It, written by Jane Midgley, published in September 2005 by New Society Publishers. The foreword was written by U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA).

Women and the U.S Budget

is a crash course in budget literacy for women and everyone who wants to understand and transform the use of our nation's common resources.