Advocate urges Congress to vote in best interest of children
This afternoon’s vote on a stop-gap funding measure threatens significant cuts to programs and services that support the well-being of children and their families.
The year-long continuing resolution up for a vote in the House of Representatives proposes a $13 billion cut to non-defense discretionary spending, which fuels a large share of the U.S. investment in children. The highly partisan legislation also lacks traditional Congressional directives, which will allow the Trump Administration to reshape funding priorities.
“This year-long budget commitment goes way beyond a stop-gap measure designed to keep the government open and crosses the line into deliberately pilfering money from children’s programs,” said Michelle Dallafior, senior vice president for budget and tax at First Focus Campaign for Children. “We urge Congress to avoid a government shutdown by passing a clean short-term continuing resolution that gives lawmakers the time to finalize and pass real, true, considered annual spending bills in a bipartisan, bicameral manner that makes the best interest of our children a top priority.”
The share of federal spending on children has declined for three consecutive years and today’s measure would advance that disinvestment at the same time lawmakers are targeting spending cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, family assistance and other mandatory programs that support our children. The harmful cuts to these mandatory programs will inevitably increase child poverty and hunger, strip health care from the nation’s children, and deny economic assistance to low-income families in order to finance a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the ultra-wealthy.