Research

As the federal budget debate continues on Capitol Hill, Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is here to track possible impacts on low-income people. This page covers national reporting and local papers that outline the impacts of potential budget changes to local or state programs, in addition to statements and resources shedding light on potential consequences for vulnerable Americans. Check back here for up-to-date news and information about key developments. To submit a resource, email Tamanna Man sury at tamanna@thehatcherg roup.com .



EVENTS
  • February 26: The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution held a forum bringing together experts from a variety of backgrounds and political leanings to discuss innovative proposals for lowering the deficit by reducing expenditures or raising revenues, that that take into account effects on the economy at large. Click here for more information. 
  • February 22: The Center for American Progress held a panel discussion to examine the effects of impending sequestration, a large set of spending cuts set to kick in on March 1, which could impact an array of services and benefits including nutrition assistance for pregnant women.  Click here for more information.

FROM SPOTLIGHT ON POVERTY & OPPORTUNITY

  • The President's Budget: Two Views, Maya MacGuineas, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Joel Friedman and Sharon Parrott, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 25, 2013

FROM THE WHITE HOUSE & CONGRESS


BUDGET STATEMENTS & RESOURCES
FISCAL CLIFF STATEMENTS & RESOURCES

FISCAL CLIFF EVENTS

  • On October 2, 2012, the Urban Institute held a forum to examine what's store for taxpayers if Washington fails to act on the tax increases or if only some of them are repealed or deferred. Panelists included Robert Greenstein , president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin , president of the American Action Forum. Click here to watch the event video .

NEWS

Brattleboro Reformer, May 18, 2013: Federal cuts hit local Head Start programs

“The Brattleboro School Board at its meeting this week approved a plan by Early Education Services to cut 25 Head Start classroom slots, and another 12 Early Head Start home-based visiting slots due to the federal cuts that will go into place on July 1. Early Education Services Executive Director Debra Gass said the cuts had to be made after Congress failed to address the sequester earlier this year and the EES budget, which starts on July 1, had to be put in place.”

Providence Journal, May 15, 2013: Advocates: R.I.'s homeless population could surge because of federal cuts

“The state's growing homeless population could surge because of federal cuts to housing and shelter programs, advocates at the State House said Wednesday.”

San Francisco Chronicle, May 10, 2013: Federal cuts inflict more pain on the poor

“Slowly and largely under the radar, sequester cuts are trickling down to programs like Kraintz's in Contra Costa, which just lost $100,000. To deal with the cuts to Meals on Wheels, which delivers food to low-income homebound seniors, the program stopped accepting new people into the program. Ordinarily, it accepts 50 new seniors a month.”

Lowell Sun, May 10, 2013: (Op-Ed) Sequestration's effects now rippling across the state

“Community Teamwork Inc. (CTI) seeks to assist low-income people to become self-sufficient and to alleviate the effects of poverty. As an economic engine within the community, our goal is to strengthen the economy in Lowell by strengthening families and small businesses. We have an array of programs funded by the federal government that at their core help individuals to work and contribute to our local economy and help small businesses grow.”

The Journal News, May 10, 2013: 267 kids to miss Head Start under sequester

“Some 267 children in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties will miss out on the chance to be better prepared for kindergarten as the effects of the $85 billion in federal budget cuts known as sequestration hit close to home.”

POLITICO, May 08, 2013: President Obama's cigarette tax up in smoke

"With attention diverted to the failed gun control effort, comprehensive immigration reform and sequester politics, Obama’s universal preschool program hasn’t received the full weight of a White House push since he introduced it during the State of the Union address and traveled to suburban Atlanta to tout it two days later. "

The New York Times, April 30, 2013: (Blog) Missing the Big Picture

“Mr. Obama continues to make the case for thinking bigger, but his actions suggest he is still willing to play the mini-game that Republicans are encouraging, playing favorites among those affected by spending cuts. If he had refused to go along with the FAA sequester exemption, for example, then he might have been able to make a very different case today: Yes, travelers will have to bear some pain, but they will be sharing that pain with pre-school kids and scientific researchers and cancer patients and low-income housing tenants.”

The Washington Post, April 28, 2013: (Op-Ed) A grand bargain is still possible. Here’s how.

“Our proposal contains concrete steps to reduce the growth of entitlement programs and make structural changes to federal health programs, such as reforming the health-care delivery system to move away from the fee-for-service model and gradually increasing the eligibility age for Medicare. At the same time, it would provide important protections and benefit enhancements for low-income and vulnerable Americans, such as an income-related Medicare buy-in for seniors affected by the increase in Medicare’s eligibility age and greater protections against catastrophic health-care costs for low-income seniors.”

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 28, 2013: Sequestration steamroller set to flatten vulnerable Utahns

“A recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities predicted that if Congress fails to reverse the sequester, ‘low-income families will experience a significant loss of rental assistance, and more individuals and families will likely experience lengthy periods of housing instability and homelessness, compromising their children’s chances to develop into healthy and productive adults.’”

The News Tribune, April 25, 2013: (Op-Ed) House budget starts rebuilding opportunity for low-income families

“Families are suffering, and opportunities for our most vulnerable and low-income families have been slowly diminishing in Washington. For the past few years, WorkFirst, the state’s initiative for helping low-income parents find and keep jobs, has suffered round after round of crippling cuts.”

The Roanoke Times, April 17, 2013: (Editorial) A powerful plea for TAP

“TAP leaders announced last week that the nonprofit must cut $775,000 of its $18 million budget due to automatic reductions in federal spending under sequestration. Three Head Start classrooms will be shuttered, affecting about 100 low-income children. Employment training, housing and financial services also will be scaled back. In total, about 760 people will lose access to programs that help them to become self-sufficient. The pain is likely to get much worse. President Obama's recent budget proposal would cut funding for Community Services Block Grants in half.”

The Kansas City Star, April 13, 2013: Rural poverty part of spending equation

“In fiscal year 2012, an average of 2,475 Sumner Countians received food stamps every month — more than 10 percent of the people who live there. Food stamps in Sumner County cost federal taxpayers more than $3.5 million that year, about $120 a month for every recipient.”

The Oregonian, April 12, 2013: Effects of sequestration go deeper than cancellation of air shows, fleet weeks

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, they failed to make a deal, and sequestration began March 1. Many of the effects have yet to be felt, but reports are coming in from around the country about Head Start enrollments being slashed, drugs for cancer patients on Medicare being denied and workers being furloughed. Nobody knows whether sequestration's effects will persist, because Congress and the president still haven't agreed on a budget and the numbers are fluid. But the longer it lasts, the more its effects will be felt.”

The Washington Post, April 11, 2013: (Blog) The three best ideas in Obama’s budget

“Making it particularly expensive for lower-income people to be become addicted or remain addicted to cigarettes will mean fewer lower-income folks become addicted or remain addicted to cigarettes. In that way, it’s a regressive tax with two very progressive benefits: Less cigarette addiction, and near-universal pre-K.”

The New York Times, April 10, 2013: Health Care and Military Spending Bear the Brunt of Proposed Cuts

“The budget would require $57 billion in higher payments by Medicare beneficiaries, cut $306 billion in projected Medicare payments to health care providers and squeeze $19 billion out of Medicaid, the program for low-income people.”

The Wall Street Journal, April 08, 2013: Inflation Proposal To Shield Poorest

“President Barack Obama's budget on Wednesday will propose slowing the growth of Social Security and other benefits, but include measures to shield a broad range of Americans from the plan's full impact, including very old recipients as well as low-income seniors and veterans.”

The New York Times, April 07, 2013: (Op-Ed) Insurance and Freedom

“As I've already suggested, the old trick of blaming the needy for their need doesn't seem to play the way it used to, and especially not on health care: perhaps because the experience of losing insurance is so common, Medicaid enjoys remarkably strong public support. And now that health reform is the law of the land, the economic and fiscal case for individual states to accept Medicaid expansion is overwhelming.”

The New York Times, April 05, 2013: Obama Budget to Include Cuts to Programs in Hopes of Deal

“President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.”

The Plain Dealer, April 05, 2013: Obama plan hits seniors, low-income taxpayers

“President Barack Obama's proposal to change the way the government measures inflation could lead to fewer people qualifying for college grants and anti-poverty programs, reduced benefits for seniors and veterans, and higher taxes for low-income families.”

The Nation, April 05, 2013: (Blog) Sequestration, Housing, Homelessness

“Indeed, as the report notes, there are currently ‘waiting lists for vouchers in almost every community,’ and only 1 in 4 eligible households receives a voucher or some other form of federal rental assistance. Half of the current households in the voucher program include seniors or people with disabilities, and the rest are mostly families with children. The average household income is just $12,500—well below the poverty line of about $18,000 for a family of three.”

Springfield News-Sun, April 03, 2013: Schools face up to $1.3M cuts

“Springfield receives the largest cut of federal funding locally at nearly $8 million, including more than $5 million through Title I. With potential cuts of 5 percent in July and an additional 8 percent in October, Miller said the district stands to lose nearly $1 million in federal funding.”

The Palm Beach Post, April 03, 2013: Impact felt: sequester cuts eliminate meals for elderly poor, buses for Head Start

“County commissioners Tuesday cut a series of federally supported community service programs that feed impoverished seniors and bus children to Head Start centers. The sequester cuts $1.9 million in grants for those programs, leaving seniors without breakfast, poor children without rides and bus drivers without jobs.”

POLITICO, April 02, 2013: (Op-Ed) Poverty at home

"As Washington careens through one headline-grabbing, self-imposed fiscal crisis after another, one in three Americans faces a daily crisis of poverty or low-wage jobs that is barely a topic of conversation in Congress or the media."

The Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2013: (Op-Ed) Beyond the sequester: The merits – and flaws – of Obama's preschool plan

“Of course, Mr. Obama's initiative has come face to face with the reality of federal budget constraints, as the sequester - or across-the-board spending cuts - begins to take effect. Those cuts will stymie Obama's early childhood education agenda for the foreseeable future, but expanding preschool for low-income families is still an idea whose time has come. Based on what the White House has released so far and some judicious reading between the lines, there are several aspects of the president's preschool plan to applaud.”

San Luis Obispo Tribune, March 26, 2013: Sacramento-area schools face cuts from federal sequester

“Schools in low-income areas will have fewer materials and teachers, as well as larger class sizes. Programs designed to improve teacher quality, provide academic support to low-income families and assist homeless students also face cuts.”