On Monday evening, House and Senate negotiators unveiled a bill that fills in the details of the budget agreement reached at the end of last year. If passed, the appropriations bill doles out specific funds to a huge variety of government programs. It now heads to the House and Senate, where it will likely be voted on Wednesday in the former and before the weekend by the latter.A second round of sequestration cuts would have taken place if Congress hadn’t reached a deal and would have been even more damaging than the reductions in 2013, but instead lawmakers increased spending to partially undo the automatic cuts. But until yesterday’s bill,it wasn’t clear which programs would get complete relief and which would still have reduced budgets. Here’s how the negotiators handled some of the programs that suffered from sequestration last year:
Head Start
Negotiators parceled out $8.6 billion for Head Start, $612 million more than what the program received in 2013. Democrats on the Committee on Appropriations say this is enough “to both fully restore the cuts to Head Start and to invest in the Administration’s Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships.” That could mean re-opening slots for themore than 57,000 children who were kicked out of Head Start last year and allow programs to bring back bus services that had been eliminated and longer hours and more days of service that had been reduced.
Meals on Wheels
The Seniors’ Nutrition programs, which fund Meals on Wheels, gets $815 million, $46 million more than it got after sequestration cuts kicked in. Democrats say that is enough to fully restore meals. In the face of last year’s cuts, nearly 70 percent of Meals on Wheels programs reduced the number of meals they served, cutting 364 per week on average. But it had a larger impact than just cutting meals, forcing one in six programs to close home meal programs or congregate meal sites and about 70 percent to create or add to waiting lists for those who wanted to join the programs.
i used to say a deal made by necessity was still a passed bill, i have since rethought that if it's not done by their own volition then it is subject to change if the fool enough people into believing they are changing and becoming what they've been promising last 5 years but haven't to this day done
in fact all they've done is rebuke themselves, recently they renewed the false pledge and just read back on my earlier post and note what they say is not what you get.
if you let them in they will immediate repeal that which they have demonized as a drain and unnecessary gift to the poor they have never supported it look how many they left after Christmas with no source of money. changed their minds today or lying for votes again?
Food safety
The Food and Drug Administration will get $2.55 billion, $96 million than what it would have gotten before sequestration, and the Department of Agriculture food safety and inspection program gets $24 million more than it did under the automatic cuts. The FDA had already experienced rounds of budget cuts to its food safety programs before sequestration came around, and the budget cuts hampered the agency even more, putting more Americans at risk of contracting food-borne illnesses.
Heating assistance
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program will get $169 million more than under sequestration, but still $40 million less than it would have otherwise last year. The program had already absorbed a 25 percent reduction in funding between 2011 and 2012, even though the number of households who rely on the program to stay warm in the winter has remained steady. That means less of their heating bill is covered by the subsidy, which can lead people to turn their heat down too low or rely on heating their homes with ovens or space heaters, which can end up being fatal.
i will leave you with one thought, have any of you ever heard a word positive of these programs they either call for ":giving them stuff" as they called it why Pres. was elected both times or regulation none of these has ever been a republican talking point just a talking against point
