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Money Matters: Budget for a New Country - 3/18/09

Money Matters

Budget for a New America

3/18/09

^I. Take Action: Budget for a New Country

^II. FCNL Joins New Budget Campaign

^III.Obama Signs Omnibus Budget

^IV. New Panel Established to Reform Pentagon Spending

^V. Housing Legislation Proceeds to Senate

 

I. Take Action: Budget for a New Country

President Barack Obama's recent budget proposal is transformative. The spending plan, which covers fiscal year 2010, represents a significant funding increase for education, health care, environment, diplomacy and other non-military programs FCNL has advocated for. Obama's budget proposes to pay for this increased investment in human needs and environment by putting a price tag on carbon pollution and allowing to expire tax cuts that benefit primarily very wealthy people. See FCNL's first snapshot of Obama's budget proposal.

There is no guarantee that the president's budget will make it through Congress with the same level of human needs funding and with the investments in responses to climate change intact. Many members of Congress are saying that Obama's budget proposal "spends too much, taxes too much" and are suggesting cuts to human needs and environmental spending. Contact your members of Congress today and tell them three things:

1. I support the president's proposals to increase funding for domestic human needs programs (health care, education, child hunger, housing, jobs). In order to strengthen our economy, we need to invest in domestic human needs programs. Any budget cuts Congress considers should come out of the military budget, which has increased by 7 times more than other discretionary spending over the past eight years.




2. At a time when we’re facing global climate change and growing poverty world wide, I support the increased funds for environmental research, foreign aid and diplomacy programs in the president’s budget proposal.


3. I support raising revenues to support this budget by placing essentially a user's tax on carbon emissions and by limiting some of the tax benefits extended to the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers.

Contact your members of Congress now.

II. FCNL Joins New Budget Campaign

The Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now was launched this past week. It represents a broad range of national organizations, from large political coalitions to smaller faith-based and public interest groups. The campaign's main goal is to support and build on the increased commitment to human needs and the environment in Obama's proposed 2010 budgetproposal. The campaign also emphasizes that wasteful spending needs to be cut from the military budget. FCNL is contributing expertise on the military budget to the campaign's legislative and lobbying efforts.

See FCNL's handout "Keeping Military Spending in Balance with the Nation's Priorities."

Visit the Rebuild and Renew America Now website.

Sign up for campaign news.

III. Obama Signs Omnibus Budget

After heated debate over earmarks, Congress passed and President Obama signed last Wednesday an omnibus spending package to fund the federal government through September 2009. Obama expressed reluctance at signing a bill with more than 8,500 earmarks, and he outlined a plan to reform the practice of adding earmarks to future bills, including a 20-day executive review period and a requirement that legislators post potential earmarks online so they are open to public scrutiny. The omnibus increased overall discretionary spending by 8 percent compared to fiscal year 2008. For most of the social programs included in the omnibus, the increase represents just a first step back to the levels of funding provided eight years ago. The omnibus included several programs for which FCNL has persistently advocated, including one to add hundreds of jobs to the Civilian Response Corps and a big increase in funding for the program that cleans up loose nuclear weapons around the world. The bill made permanent a ban on U.S. export of almost all cluster bombs. Military funding was not included in the omnibus bill, as it had received its appropriation in regular order last fall. See FCNL's press release on the omnibus.

IV. New Panel Established to Reform Pentagon Spending

Tight times call for stricter control of spending, and on March 6 the House Armed Services Committee announced a "Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform." The panel is charged with rooting out wasteful spending in the Pentagon budget. Announcing the panel, Rep. John McHugh (NY), a ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said, "This is all the more important in an environment of declining defense spending on weapons systems, when we must ensure that every dollar is spent as effectively as possible." The panel will examine the Pentagon's acquisition (purchasing) process for spending inefficiencies. It will then report back to Congress with proposals to reform spending in the 2011 defense budget. Read the House Armed Services Committee's press release.

V. Housing Legislation Proceeds to Senate

On March 5 the House passed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 (H.R. 1106), one component of Obama's "Making Home Affordable" plan. This act would allow homeowners to modify the terms of the mortgage on their primary residence in bankruptcy court. This could include changing the principal, or amount owed, on the mortgage in certain circumstances (a measure often referred to as "cramdown"). For example, a bankruptcy judge could reduce the principal owed on a mortgage to reflect the home's current market value. The Senate leadership is working toward passing a version of the bill.