Proposed budget will deeply cut domestic discretionary spending, including Education and Environmental spending!

The 2005 Budget submitted by the president last week only contained partial information for spending over the next 5 years. The spending proposals for specific programs are contained in a 1,000+ page Office of Management and Budget (OMB) computer run that was provided to some members of Congress, but was not included in the budget documents originally made available to the public.

Among the programs or program areas that would be cut are the following:

* Education for the Disadvantaged: By 2009, Title I funding (funding for school districts to improve educational outcomes for low-income and other disadvantaged children) would fall $660 million below the 2004 level adjusted for inflation.

* Environment: In 2005, funding for the Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund, which loans money to states to pay for sewage treatment plants, would be cut 37 percent below the 2004 level adjusted for inflation. The budget calls for even deeper cuts in this area by 2009.

* Veterans Health Benefits: Funding for veteran ’s health services in 2009 would fall 17 percent —or $5.7 billion —below the 2004 level, adjusted for inflation.

* Housing Assistance: Under the President ’s budget, funding for the housing voucher program, the nation ’s principal low-income housing assistance program would be cut sharply. By 2009, state and local housing agencies would be forced to reduce the number of low-income families and elderly and disabled households assisted by 600,000 —or 30 percent —or to reduce sharply the level of assistance provided to voucher tenants by raising the rents these families pay by an average of $2,000 a year. Most of these families live below the poverty line.

* Head Start and WIC: Head Start funding would fall 7 percent below baseline levels in 2009, resulting in an estimated reduction of 62,000 in the number of children able to participate in Head Start programs. In the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, funding cuts would cause the number of low-income pregnant women and young children at nutritional risk that the programs serves to be cut by approximately 450,000 by 2009.

For more info, try these links:
www.cbpp.org/2-27-04bud2.htm
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...icles/A17315-2004Feb5.html
www.cbpp.org/2-5-04bud.htm
www.ombwatch.org/article/a...leprint/2046/-1/18

Speak Out:
action.ourfuture.org/action/index.asp

VOTE 2004

So here it is, November 2, 2004. Voting Day, and also Day of the Dead. I have never in my life lived through something so significant as this day. Yes, while I told my daughter to lock the moment in her head on 9-11, because that day would be a critical day in American history, I believe that this day is more significant.
Today will be the day when Americans decide who they are, who America is, and what we truly stand for.
Will we stand for ourselves, in yet another ploy to colonialize the rest of the world, ending their customs and wiping out all opposing belief systems in the name of the Land of the Almighty Dollar Store?
Or will we choose to bring our children home, and allow others to enjoy the same freedoms in their own countries that we pretend to protect and enjoy in ours?
Will fear dominate, or will we use our collective wisdom to turn this country around and make it a decent place to be, and to have decent relations with?

Will the election be fair?
If you look at the reports already coming into Michael Moore's website, (it's currently only 12:07 pm EST), it looks as though it won't be. My co-worker registered for the first time this year, and never got her ID card. The machines are a mess. People are bribing incarcerated individuals in jail for their absentee ballots. This election is already wrought with fraud.

Will we stand for it?
Or will we tire quickly of fighting for our constitutional rights when we are told that everything is fair and there is little we can do.
I think that this election, all of America will feel what it's like to be black. To be a woman in certain places of business. To be of a minority, coming to America to try and make a better life for themselves. To be Native American and fighting for land you've always lived on before the white men came.
This election, we all share a common snow-job.
This election, I do not think it is even so much who we vote for, but what we DO about the manipulation of the election, the government, the media, as it all unfolds.
This will determine who America is to us, and to the rest of the world.
Will we rip the wool from our eyes, or stand in line to be sheared?