On Thursday night, Nov. 3, 2005, the Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program. This bill does provide for funding of Money Follows the Person and Family Opportunity Act. The Senate bill passed 52 to 47, mostly along party lines.

Also on Thursday, the House Budget Committee voted 21 to 16 to approve a more extensive bill saving nearly $54 billion through 2010 with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, agriculture subsidies and child support enforcement. The House bill would allow states to impose and enforce premiums and co-payments on poor Medicaid recipients for the first time. This may be the most difficult vote of the year! Some Republican moderates are balking at cuts to anti-poverty programs, especially in light of a $70 billion tax cut that could come to a vote soon after the budget bill, more than wiping out the first bill’s deficit reduction.

Participate in the National Call-in Week to Save Vital Services. Beginning Monday, November 7 and through the rest of the week, call 1-800-426-8073 to be connected to the Capitol Switchboard. Ask to speak to your Representative. If you don’t know who your Representative is, the people at the Switchboard can tell you, or you can visit www.congress.org where you can insert your home address and it will identify your member of the House.

We urge you to focus on these points:

• More than $47 billion would be cut from Medicaid over 10 years including imposing and enforcing premiums and co-payments to recipients.
• Money Follows the Person and Family Opportunity Act are not included in the bill as it was marked up.
• Changes to TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) will increase the work requirements while not providing sufficient resources to states to help TANF recipients find and keep jobs.
• Nearly 300,000 people would be knocked off food stamps, including 70,000 legal immigrants.
• About 40,000 children would loose eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches, under this bill.
• Federal administrative aid to state child-support enforcement programs would be scaled back.
• Changes to Social Security Income could impact people with disabilities by imposing additional reviews and breaking up large payments owed to beneficiaries by the Social Security Administration.

TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO VOTE NO ON THIS BILL!!!