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Congress is taking 'recess' and won't be back until after Labor Day, and then on to Budget Reconciliation ... This is pretty SICK!
:sarcasm:
BUDGET
Tax Cuts Come Home to Roost
When Congress returns from its August break next Tuesday, congressional committees will be charged with cutting approximately $35 billion from mandatory spending programs through an annual process called budget reconciliation. Vital programs important to the daily lives of many Americans, such as Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, student loans, and other forms of government assistance, are likely to suffer drastic and consequential cuts.
The budget-cutting measures are necessitated by, as President Bush noted, a need to "reduce our deficit." In turn, the deficit-cutting measures are needed because the Bush tax cuts, which predominantly favor the wealthy without providing much economic stimulus, have played such a large role in creating the deficit, and Bush is stubbornly refused to rolling them back (instead, Bush is calling for the tax cuts to be made permanent).
Even conservatives, such as Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, acknowledge that " reconciliation will be painful." One Senate veteran of budget fights said the battles this fall over budget cuts could "become an explosive cocktail" for Congress.
MEDICAID MAY BE LEFT TO WITHER ON THE VINE: As stipulated by the budget reconciliation instructions, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley will be forced to find as much as $10 billion in savings primarily by cutting Medicaid, thus "trimming anticipated growth by as much as 13 percent at a time when states such as Tennessee and Missouri are throwing tens of thousands of people off their Medicaid rosters." Because the Finance Committee is not required to cut one certain program to find the $10 billion in savings, it is possible that other entitlement programs under the committee's jurisdiction, such as Medicare and welfare programs, may also fall under the budget ax. States such as Michigan, which stands to lose approximately $300 million if the Medicaid cuts are enacted, are preparing to "turn away tens of thousands of its neediest citizens" or raise taxes or cut other vital state services. For Michigan, $300 million amounts to paying for 360,000 of 900,000 children who are now enrolled in the state's Medicaid program, or 40,000 of its 270,000 blind and disabled adults.
OTHER VITAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES FACING PAINFUL CUTS: According to the Washington Post, the Senate Agriculture Committee is considering cutting $600 million from food stamps. Early this month, 68 minority House members wrote a letter to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte stating, "There is no way to reduce food stamp spending without eliminating the eligibility for vulnerable groups of people or lowering benefits in ways that increase the threat of hunger for millions of struggling families, seniors, and people with disabilities."
And another fight that may be brewing, according to Congressional Quarterly, is whether the reconciliation package will include cuts to welfare programs or omit increases for child care funding. Funding for Section 8 housing is also on the chopping block.
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