Our nation and our Congress have some momentous decisions to make in the coming weeks. Will we balance our nation’s budget on the backs of working families, which hurts our economy in the long-run, or will we instead end tax breaks for billionaires? Budget cuts proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are extremely concerning. Indeed, this past Spring, both the U.S. House and Senate passed budgets that generated two-thirds of their cuts from programs that assist low- and moderate-income people including block granting CHIP and Medicaid, making $125 billion in cuts to SNAP, and additional cuts to Pell Grants, K-12 education, and child nutrition.  These awful budgets are their vision for the next decade, and it’s a vision that is bad for families and bad for our economy as a whole.

The spending bills Congress has proposed for the current year are almost as bad. Unless Congress changes its tune, another round of deep “sequestration” cuts will kick in, keeping harmfully-low spending caps in place and cutting needed funding for vital human needs programs. For example, to stay within the harsh sequester caps, Congress wants to cut as many as 50,000 existing rental housing vouchers this year alone (over and above the 70,000 vouchers lost as a result of cuts made in 2013).

But we’ve been here before. And we’ve beaten back these types of unjust cuts in the past that attempt to balance the budget on the backs of our kids, hurting our economy overall, while preserving unfair tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. We know that programs like SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, Head Start, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit, housing assistance, and tuition assistance boost our families and also create a stronger economy. We know that cuts aren’t the way to strengthen our economy or our families. Cuts weaken the people who, together, can do the most for our economy. And we know that when we all band together and speak out against massive cuts that primarily fall on the backs of already struggling families, that our voices can be heard.

Through today’s #StoptheCuts Blog Carnival, MomsRising and the Coalition on Human Needs want to spread the word about the value of various federally-funded human needs programs and how they boost moms, women, children, and families. We also voice our concern about budget cuts and the sequester (across-the-board cuts) that would disproportionally affect programs that assist families and the poor.

**Join us in the #StoptheCuts Blog Carnival by reading the important blog posts below, leaving comments, sharing your own stories, sharing on social media, and taking action!

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Congress isn’t facing a crisis of resources but of priorities, Linda Meric

Giving all families a chance at healthy lives, Kathy Ko Chin

Tight Spending Caps Continue to Squeeze Important Priorities, David Reich

We're Asking the Wrong Question, Abby Liebman

Michigan Families Need Federal Action on EITC, CTC, Gilda Jacobs

Preserve tax credits so struggling families can do more than just survive, Ruth Innocent

Housing Matters, Linda Couch

WIC: #StopTheCuts to Protect Women and Children! Elisabet Eppes

Stop The Cuts: Public Programs Lift Millions of Women and Children Out of Poverty, Amelia Bell

Let's Stop the Tax Cuts for Corporations Instead, Reggie Oldak

Building a Better UI Program for Today's Working Mothers, Rick McHugh

Budget Cap Will Cap Dad's and Daughter's Futures, Kathryn Baer

Five Reasons We Can't Wait for Universal Pre-School, Lindsay Koshgarian

#StopTheCuts So We Can #EndHungerNow, Jim Weill

A Slow Motion Disaster in the Making, David J. Socolow

Access to Campus Childcare: Supporting the Success of Today's Parents and the Next Generation, Konrad Mugglestone

An Open Letter to Women Nationwide, Randi Schmidt

Raising Revenues Must Be Central Goal of Budget Talks, Frank Clemente

Death By A Thousand Cuts, Susan Shaer

#StopTheCuts and Fund What Matters for Safer Kids and Communities, Marcy Mistrett

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From The MomsRising Blog Archives:

Connecting Homeless Kids and Their Families to Medicaid, Barbara DiPetro
To Support Millions of Low-Wage Workers, Protect Tax Credits, Chuck Marr
Helping Mom and Baby Breastfeed,  Dana Posley
Congress: Stop Scaring Us, Debbie Weinstein
Unshared Recovery: 46 Million Poor; Poverty Rate Unchanged, Debbie Weinstein
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Budget Threats to Medicaid, Elyssa Schmier
Federal Budget: How does it affect school lunches?, Elyssa Schmier
Hands off SNAP! Elyssa Schmier
Moms & Dads say "Our families need the EITC and Child Tax Credit!" Elyssa Schmier
Moms Tell Their Stories About Medicaid, Elyssa Schmier
Support Dads by Supporting the EITC and Child Tax Credit, Elyssa Schmier
The EITC and Child Tax Credit has rescued these families! Elyssa Schmier
These Moms Need Congress to Protect Medicaid! Elyssa Schmier
Why WIC is an Essential Program for Moms and Families, Elyssa Schmier
Medicaid at 50: Five Decades of Working for Kids, Judith Solomon
Don't Mess with CHIP: Seventeen Years of Success, Marian Wright Edelman
The Piercing Cry of Child Poverty in Economically Rich but Spirtually Poor America, Marian Wright Edelman
$1 Raise Cost Her $205 in Food, Migdalia Rivera
Storify: #EarlyEd Chat on Learning and Nutrition, MomsRising and National WIC Association
Strengthening Families' Health with WIC Breastfeeding Support, Rev. Douglas Greenaway
Happy 50th Birthday Head Start, Sharon Horton
How Head Start Helped My Daughter with Special Needs, Sheila Arias
Why I love Tax Season (and why Congress should keep making it lovable), To-wen Tseng
WIC: A Proven Program , With Long-Term Payoffs, Zoe Neuberger