FCNL LEGISLATIVE ACTION MESSAGE - (01/29/04)  [posted here 1-31-04]

TOPIC: BUDGET PRIORITIES

BUDGET PRIORITIES: Next week (Monday, 2/2), the Administration will submit to Congress its budget plan for fiscal year 2005. The main elements of the President's budget proposal are likely to include increased spending for the military by over seven percent (to about $420 billion) and for homeland security by over nine percent (to about $45 billion). He is likely to challenge Congress to keep the rate of growth in spending for most other discretionary programs at or below one percent (i.e. cut spending below this year's levels when adjusted for inflation). And, in his State of the Union message, he has already asked Congress to make permanent the temporary tax cuts, which Congress enacted over the last three years. Missing from the President's budget request will be any mention of an additional supplemental spending request to pay the costs of the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is expected to request $40 to $100 billion more for FY2005 later this year.

The escalating cost of the on-going wars, the run-away military budget, and permanent extension of the tax cuts are likely to bankrupt the federal government in the years to come, making it unable to address on-going national needs, emerging challenges, and the impending insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare systems.

ACTION: Please send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Object to these misguided, unbalanced budget priorities. Stress that Congress has the responsibility to enact a more sensible budget plan that will address the real challenges facing our country today. Our leaders cannot pass the buck to future generations.

WRITING A PERSONALIZED LETTER TO THE EDITOR IS EASY: Use the sample letters located in the "Talking Points" to help you write your own personalized letter to the editor. Then email or fax your message directly from our site. You can also print it out and mail it. To view the sample letters, click on the link below and click <Go> in the <Take Action Now> box. Here is the link: http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=4919456&type=ME.

FOR TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Be sure to write your letter in your own words, though you are welcome to use the sample letter as a guide. For TIPs on writing a letter to the editor, go to <http://www.fcnl.org/getin/tips.htm>.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

PRESSING NATIONAL NEEDS: High rates of unemployment continue. More than 2 million jobs have been eliminated since this recession began--many of them permanently. Over 8 million workers are officially counted as unemployed, but there are millions more who have given up looking for work and thus, are no longer counted. Almost one-fifth of the officially unemployed have been unemployed for at least six months, the highest rate since 1983. The drop in unemployment rate in December was due primarily to the fact that over 300,000 unemployed workers stopped looking for work and thus were dropped from the unemployment rolls--not because of an increase in employment. Congress allowed the extension of long-term unemployment insurance to expire in December, and as a result approximately 90,000 people per week have lost income support and have been dropped from the rolls. Only a net of 1,000 new jobs were added that month.

According to the Coalition on Human Needs, poverty rates in the U.S. are once again on the rise, affecting almost 35 million people in 2002. The number of people without health insurance is growing as well--up to an estimated 43 million. Over 13 million children live in households in which the specter of hunger still lingers. Funding for child care is woefully inadequate to meet the demand. Unemployed parents are required to work under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families law, but they cannot find affordable, quality child care. Only one quarter of families eligible to receive low-income housing assistance receive it. Waiting lists for Section 8 Housing vouchers are long and last year tens of thousands were threatened with being dropped from the program. Tens of thousands more families need help paying there heating bills, especially in this time of plunging temperatures and soaring gas and oil prices, but funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program meets only a fraction of the need. Many state governments, facing the worst fiscal crises in decades, are cutting programs rather than expanding them, despite the growing human needs.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports (Dec. 13, 2003): "Hunger and homelessness continued to rise in major American cities over the last year, according to the new U.S. Conference of Mayors-Sodexho Hunger and Homelessness Survey, released today at the Conference of Mayors headquarters. As the overall economy remained weak, requests for emergency food assistance increased by an average of 17 percent over the past year, and requests for emergency shelter assistance increased by an average of 13 percent in the 25 cities surveyed."

DEBT AND THE DEFICIT: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts that the FY2004 budget deficit is likely to be about $477 billion. That would follow last year's deficit of $375 billion. CBO estimates the federal debt will increase an additional $2.9 trillion over the ten-year period between 2002 and 2011--not including the proposed increase in military and homeland security spending, additional costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reduced revenues if the tax cuts are made permanent, or the anticipated change to the "alternative minimum tax." This estimate is based on relatively optimistic assumptions about future economic expansion. If these other policies are enacted and the costs factored in or if the economy does not grow as fast as expected, the debt could grow by another $2 trillion or more over this same period. (For comparison purposes: the total estimated U.S. gross domestic product in 2003 was about $10.7 trillion. The current total gross federal debt today is about $7 trillion.)

CONTACTING LEGISLATORS

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Sen. ________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Rep. ________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Information on your members is available on FCNL's web site:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq

CONTACTING THE ADMINISTRATION

White House Comment Desk: 202-456-1111
FAX: 202-456-2461
E-MAIL: president@whitehouse.gov
WEB PAGE: http://www.whitehouse.gov

President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
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