SSI also in jeopardy in budget conference - help needed now!
April, 2005

HOUSE BUDGET RESOLUTION COULD LEAD TO CUTS IN SSI   MS Word   Text    pdf

From: Marty Ford (CCD)

We are very concerned that, in addition to Medicaid cuts, the conference committee on the Budget could also include an instruction for cuts by the Ways and Means Committee that could result in huge cuts in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. A short paper from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is attached and explains the problem.

In summary, the House version of the budget includes an instruction that the Ways and Means Committee make mandatory spending/entitlement cuts of $18.7 billion over five years. The Chairman of the Budget Committee was clear that these cuts will not come from Medicare and the rules bar Social Security cuts in a budget bill. As a result, the next two biggest mandatory spending/entitlement programs in the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee are the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and SSI. The paper attached includes charts showing what the cuts could mean on a state-by-state basis in SSI if half of the entire cut came from SSI or if the SSI cut was a lower figure assuming that cuts came equally from all entitlement programs in the Committee except Medicare and Social Security (so, cuts from Title XX Social Services Block Grant, the TANF block grant, the foster care and child welfare programs, and child support enforcement, all of which are much smaller than SSI and EITC and probably less likely to be cut).

Please take the following actions:

Include references to SSI cuts in the budget alerts you are sending out. If you are urging your members to join in the Hill call-in day on April 12th, please ask them to specifically mention SSI (as well as Medicaid) in the messages that they leave. An alert about the call-in day is attached. In your messages to Senators and Representatives, please make clear that SSI cuts are not acceptable, will hurt people with disabilities, and need to be stopped - the best way to do this is to omit entirely or reduce greatly the size of the mandatory spending cuts allocated to the Ways and Means Committee in any conference budget bill. If you are talking with the press, please make sure they know that SSI is at risk. Help us to think of other ways to elevate this important issue.

Federal Budget Action: Call Your Senators and Representative on Tuesday, April 12: Tell Them, We’ll pay our share in taxes, but we expect you to set the right priorities when you spend those dollars!

TOLL-FREE NUMBER: 1-800-247-2971
This toll-free number is provided courtesy of the American Friends Service Committee which has launched a new budget campaign, Save Our Services website. If you can't get through on that line, please call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or or find your Senators' direct line.

The House and Senate will be working out their differences to decide what goes into the 2006 Budget–
Your calls are urgently needed!

The House passed a budget that will require Medicaid/SCHIP cuts of at least $14.9 billion, cuts of nearly $15 billion in basic programs such as SSI, foster care, TANF, child care, and Earned Income Tax Credit, and up to $5.3 billion in food stamps. The Senate requires cuts of up to $2.8 billion in food stamps. Both would cut job training, education, services for youth, community development and many other services (the Senate would cut somewhat less in these items).

As Tax Day approaches, remind Congress what the money should be for, now that they are back at work on the budget.

Tell them: please protect children, the elderly, people with disabilities and families by opposing cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled, TANF, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Don’t vote for a Congressional Budget Resolution that cuts vital programs!

For more information, contact Steve Wamhoff at the Coalition on Human Needs, (202) 223-2532; Find lots of facts about threatened cuts at The Coalition on Human Needs website.

Spread the word to your friends and families to call on Tuesday, April 12!

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