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The Human Needs Report is the Coalition on Human Needs' newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. It is published every other week while Congress is in session.
Article from the May, 21 2004 editionof the CHN Human NeedsReport:By a surprisingly close vote of 216 to 213, the House approved a final fiscal year 2005 budget resolution late on Wednesday, May 19. The vote came nearly two months after the House and Senate approved separate budget resolutions and after negotiators struggled to find compromise. Despite the House adoption, continued opposition to the deal by key Senate moderates forced the Senate leadership to postpone the budget vote until after the Memorial Day recess.
The one-year budget plan opens the door for billions in new tax cuts now andin future years that will deepen the deficit and threaten human needs programs.It also cuts the “income-security” portion of the budget by $3.1billion in FY 2005, or 6.3 percent below current service levels (including housing,child care, and nutritional assistance for women, infants and children). If allthe programs in the income security category were cut proportionally, Section8 housing would receive about $1.3 billion less than the amount needed to maintaincurrent services and about 200,000 families would lose their vouchers, accordingto the Democratic Caucus of the House Budget Committee.
Because the House opposed Senate provisions restricting both tax cuts and spendingincreases from increasing the deficit, negotiators drafted a plan that wouldapply loophole-riddled restrictions for one year only. For weeks, four SenateRepublicans have resisted the pressure of their party leadership by insistingthe final budget resolution include a real “pay-as-you-go” rule requiringCongress to pay for any new tax cuts or new spending by offsetting revenue increasesor spending cuts. The conference agreement includes a weak pay-as-you-go ruleexpiring next April 15 and exempts nearly $28 billion in tax cuts from beingsubject to it. This renders the rule toothless and advocates point out that nobudget resolution would be more fiscally prudent than this one. Without a newbudget resolution, the Senate will operate under existing rules requiring 60votes to enact additional tax cuts. The new resolution allows $28 billion inFY 2005 tax cuts to be voted under reconciliation instructions that only require51 votes to pass.
The four holdout Senators are Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), JohnMcCain (R-AZ), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). These Senators have continued to standby their principles in public statements opposing the budget deal. They and otherSenators will be under great pressure to vote for the budget as the leadershipscrambles for a winning margin by their return from the Memorial Day recess onJune 1.
In part due to the pressure of advocates, the agreement does not include reconciliationrules forcing cuts to Medicaid or other entitlement programs as included in theoriginal House budget resolution. (These rules require committees with jurisdictionto make cuts; if they do not, the Budget Committee will.) Nevertheless, the incompletefive-year outline in the resolution passed by the House assumes net cuts of $1.6billion in health entitlement programs, according to the analysts for the Democratson the House Budget Committee, most of which would have to come out of Medicaid.
The conference agreement allows for $821 billion in discretionary spending infiscal year 2005 for programs that must be appropriated each year, as in theHouse budget resolution. The Senate budget resolution included $819 billion indiscretionary spending, but for technical reasons included a separate $821 billioncap. In addition to the $3.1 billion in cuts to programs in the income securitysection, the budget under funds education by nearly $9 billion less than theamount promised under the No Child Left Behind Act.
For More Information
S Con Res 95Conference Report
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