March 2007
Volume 6, Number 3
In this Issue:
Take Action on Senate Home Visitation Legislation
Congress Begins Action on FY 2008 Budget
Take Action on the Senate Home Visitation Legislation
Ask Your Senators to Cosponsor S. 667
Please ask your Senators to cosponsor the Education Begins at Home Act (EBAH, S. 667), recently reintroduced in the Senate by Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY). EBAH would establish the first dedicated federal funding stream to support parents with newborns and young children through quality, voluntary home visitation. If enacted, EBAH would extend to a broad range of families the opportunity to benefit from home visiting programs like Healthy Families America. Making quality home visitation programs more widely available in all communities is one of Prevent Child Abuse America’s top priorities.
As of March 27th, the following Senators have already joined Senators Bond and Clinton as cosponsors to S. 667: Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Kerry (D-MA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and John Rockefeller (D-WV). If your Senator is on this list, please be sure to thank him/her.
TAKE ACTION NOW
Why Congress Should Pass EBAH:
- Home visitation is an effective, evidence-based, and cost-efficient way to bring families and resources together and help families to make choices that will give their children the chance to grow up healthy and ready to learn.
- Home visitation delivers parent education and family support directly to parents with young children in their homes providing guidance on how parents can enhance their children’s development from birth through kindergarten entry.
- Quality early childhood home visitation programs lead to proven, positive outcomes for children and families, including improved child health and development, improved parenting practices, improved school readiness, and reductions in child abuse and neglect.
- Existing home visitation programs like Healthy Families America serve only a small percentage of families in need of prevention and family support services. EBAH dollars would enable programs to reach thousands more families who have very young children -- the same cohort of children that suffers disproportionately from abuse and neglect in this country.
Take Action on EBAH!
Take action by e-mailing your Senators through Prevent Child Abuse America’s Legislative Action Center. Prevent Child Abuse America has created a sample e-mail asking Senators to cosponsor EBAH that we encourage you to personalize. All Senators can (and should) be asked to cosponsor the EBAH. Support from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is crucial, however, because it has jurisdiction over the legislation and can move EBAH forward. Italics indicate a Senator who has already signed on as a cosponsor to S. 667.
Senate HELP Committee
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Democrats
Edward M. Kennedy (MA), Chair
Christopher J. Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Sherrod Brown (OH)
Independent
Bernard Sanders (VT) |
Republicans
Michael B. Enzi (WY), Ranking Member
Judd Gregg (NH)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Wayne Allard (CO)
Tom Coburn (OK) |
And remember, this is a new Congress, so Senators who were on the bill last year will have to sign onto the bill again this year. Cosponsors from the 109th Congress who have not signed onto S. 667 as of March 27th are: Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Thomas Carper (D-DE), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). If your Senator is on this list please remind them in your message of their past support of the bill.
Congress Begins Action on FY 2008 Budget
On March 23rd, the Senate passed a fiscal year (FY) 2008 Budget Resolution (S Con Res 21) that allows for an $18 billion increase in domestic discretionary spending over the President’s FY 2008 budget request. The resolution passed by a vote of 52 to 47, with Senators Snowe (R-ME) and Collins (R-ME) crossing party lines to vote for the resolution.
Key discretionary increases over the President’s request include $6.1 billion more for education programs and $3.5 billion more funding for veterans’ benefits. In addition to increases in discretionary programs, the plan provides for up to a $50 billion increase to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) over five years (a sharp contrast to the President’s budget proposal of a $5 billion increase). $35 billion of the proposed SCHIP increase is contingent upon finding sufficient offsets within the federal budget. The Senate plan also rejects the President’s proposed $500 million cut to the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a key funding source for prevention.
| What is the Congressional Budget Resolution?
As part of the annual budget and appropriations process, Congress develops a Congressional Budget Resolution that establishes the framework for all tax and spending legislation in that year. The resolution is not sent to the President and does not become law; however, appropriators may not exceed the spending caps set in the resolution, making this perhaps the most important part of the federal budget process.
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According to Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the budget plan achieves a $132 billion surplus by FY 2012. Senate Republicans, however, are skeptical of Sen. Conrad’s proposed strategy for balancing the budget which relies heavily on collecting unpaid taxes owed to the federal government. Sen. Conrad believes that decreasing this “tax gap” by closing offshore tax loopholes and strengthening tax collection procedures will result in a revenue increase of approximately $450 billion over five years. Many Senate Republicans are doubtful that those kind of results can be achieved without raising taxes or allowing tax cuts to expire.
The House is expected to vote on their Budget Resolution on Thursday, March 29th. The House plan as passed by the House Budget Committee provides for a $24 billion increase in discretionary funding above the President’s FY 2008 request. Like the Senate plan, the House Budget Resolution provides for up to a $50 billion increase over five years to SCHIP, and rejects the proposed cut to SSBG.
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