The Numbers

March 10th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

The numbers for the Fiscal Year 2009 budget are out and as you may have heard the news is mixed. John Ruxin, a public health expert and New York Times blogger, told the story on his blog today–and made a shout out to ONE as the major organization taking action.

But the long and short is this: President Bush gets to request funds to operate the government each year and he requested increases for most programs to fight poverty worldwide (the major exception being Child Survival with a hefty $251 million cut).

Unfortunately, the House thought he budgeted “too much” and cut $1.5 billion. The Senate decided to cut even more–an extra $2.6 billion roughly.

Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Smith (R-OR) decided to take action, drafting an amendment to raise funding to House levels, which isn’t asking much since the House cut $1.5 billion from Bush’s request and Bush only requested about 28% of what he promised back in 2002.

You can sign ONE’s petition here in support of the amendment, and if the cuts to Child Survival funding bother you then send a letter in support of the Child Survival Act.

And calling Congress never hurt. A list of each Senators phone number is available here. Calling only takes 2 minutes but can make a big difference–I’m a Floridian so I’m calling Senator’s Nelson and Martinez after I post this for instance.