Skip to main content
Lecia Imbery's picture

Minority health programs cut by 10 percent. Juvenile justice programs cut nearly in half. Housing for the elderly cut by 46 percent; housing for people with disabilities cut nearly 57 percent. Job training to assist ex-offenders reintegrating into their communities cut nearly 28 percent.

Out of the 167 programs tracked by CHN that assist low-income people, 135 saw funding cuts from FY 2010 through FY 2017 after taking inflation into account. But it wasn’t just inflation eroding the value of the funding. New research by the Coalition on Human Needs found that more than half of the programs (85 of them, to be exact) were cut by 15 percent or more, and nearly one-third (53 programs) were slashed by 25 percent or more. Only 32 programs, or less than one in five, actually received an increase in funding over this time.

Among the programs that have seen substantial reductions over this period are emergency medical services for children (cut by more than 16 percent since FY10) and employment services for older Americans (cut 57 percent). Substance abuse treatment programs were slashed by 31 percent over seven years, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has been cut by one-third over this time. You can see details on how all 167 programs fared here.

It’s clear that additional investments are needed to shore up these programs so they can lift more people out of poverty. But unless Congress acts soon to undo sequestration cuts that are scheduled to go back into effect for FY 2018, domestic and international discretionary programs (those that are annually appropriated, as all of the programs CHN tracks for this analysis are) will be subjected to billions more in cuts. While the spending caps for this category for FY18 are about $3 billion below FY17 levels, a combination of unavoidable cost increases and loss of revenue means $16-$20 billion more will be needed just to stay even with current levels.

But it gets even worse. President Trump’s proposed FY18 budget cut $54 billion below the sequester caps for discretionary programs and gave this money to the Pentagon. This alone would eviscerate some programs that help low-income people: 250,000 families would lose access to rental assistance and be placed at imminent risk of homelessness, and 1.8 million children would be terminated from afterschool and summer programs, just to name a few of the horrible outcomes.

The more detailed version of President Trump's budget was just released on May 23, and it's a harsh attack on Americans. Crippling Medicaid by over $1 trillion in cuts will leave many millions of people without health coverage. Untreated health problems will make it harder for people to work. Cutting nearly $200 billion from food assistance will make millions of people hungrier, with especially damaging consequences for children. The budget includes billions in cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income, which provides income assistance to poor seniors and people with disabilities. It elimnates funding for legal services to prevent eviction and help to heat or cool homes. Funds are eliminated for the anti-poverty community action agencies.services. New reports also state that the House budget, expected out in June, will cut $400 billion from these entitlement programs; advocates fear the House budget will also include some of the cuts to discretionary programs included in Trump’s budget. The GOP plans to use a special budget process that would allow them to pass cuts to entitlement programs (such as Medicaid and SNAP), along with billions in tax cuts to the rich, with only a simple majority in the House and Senate.

As one Politico article put it when referring to the expected House budget,

“If enacted, such a plan to curb safety-net programs – all while juicing the Pentagon’s budget and slicing corporate tax rates – would amount to the biggest shift in federal spending priorities in decades.”

That's why we're encouraging you to sign up for our webinar at 1 p.m. ET this Thursday, May 25. The webinar will lay out what’s in the Trump budget and what we can do to oppose it. We also encouraged you to visit the web site of the Hands Off! campaign and share your stories to tell members of Congress what budget proposals by Trump and House and Senate leaders would mean for you and your family. The site also includes an activism toolkit, including social media, to help human needs advocates contact Congress.

This post was originally published on the Coalition on Human Needs' blog, Voices for Human Needs. Receive similar articles in your inbox by subscribing today, and follow CHN on Facebook and Twitter.

 


The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of MomsRising.org.

MomsRising.org strongly encourages our readers to post comments in response to blog posts. We value diversity of opinions and perspectives. Our goals for this space are to be educational, thought-provoking, and respectful. So we actively moderate comments and we reserve the right to edit or remove comments that undermine these goals. Thanks!