Last week in Congress

SENATE

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families - The Senate, on Wednesday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act not to accept changes to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program such as increased work hours for mothers of small children and cuts in child care.

Proponents said that additional funding was unavailable for child care if mothers of young children were forced to work a 40 hour week. The vote was 64 yeas to 27 nays.

Medicaid Program Cuts - The Senate, on Wednesday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act not to accept Medicaid cuts included in the House version of the bill. Proponents said that the House provisions amounted to a tax on the country's poorest citizens. The vote was 75 yeas to 16 nays.

Food Stamp Program Cuts - The Senate, on Wednesday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act not to accept cuts to the food stamp program included in the House version of the bill. The vote was 66 yeas to 26 nays.

Child Support Enforcement Program - The Senate, on Thursday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act to reject House cuts to the program that assists in the collection of child support payments. The vote was 75 yeas to 16 nays.

Pell Grants - The Senate, on Thursday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act to reject House cuts in aid to Pell grant-eligible students that were offset by other budget savings. The vote was 83 yeas to 8 nays.

Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program - The Senate, on Thursday, approved a motion sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., that instructed conferees on the Budget Reconciliation Act to completely fund the program that helps individuals who need assistance with home heating and cooling bills. The vote was 63 yeas to 28 nays.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051218/1040686.asp

Pelosi: 'Democrats Secured a Victory for America's Children Tonight'

12/16/2005 9:17:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both of the Office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi; http://democraticleader.house.gov/

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement tonight on Democrats' victory on a motion by Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina to instruct budget reconciliation conferees to reject draconian cuts in Medicaid, student loans, child support enforcement, and food aid offered in the Republican spending bill. The motion passed by a vote of 246 to 175.

"Democrats secured a victory for America's children tonight. By successfully passing a motion to instruct the budget reconciliation conferees, Democrats stood together and voted to eliminate the most appalling Republican cuts to our child support enforcement programs, food aid, and health benefits for low-income children. Democrats stopped the Republican raid on student aid, helped make college more affordable, and did away with so-called 'mining reform,' which is really a massive give-away of public lands to special interests.

"Two days ago, hundreds of faithful Americans descended on Capitol Hill in peaceful protest to stand up for working Americans, our children, the poor, those still hurting from Hurricane Katrina, and our elderly. In the freezing cold, in prayer and song, they called the Republican budget what it is -- a moral failure, devoid of spiritual hope and nourishing resources. Tonight, we took a step in restoring our budget to a moral document that lives up to our American values of fairness and opportunity.

"If the Republican leadership once again ignores the clear will of the majority and tries to insert any of these cuts in the final budget conference report, Democrats will stand firm and we call upon the 46 Republicans who voted against these horrific cuts tonight to do the same."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=58338

Rethink bill

To the editor:

Christians are now in the season of Advent, preparing for our annual celebration of the coming of the One who proclaims, "Good news to the poor."

We will reflect on the meaning of His life and love and how we are called to behave as His followers in this broken world. And we will do so with the anguished faces of the poor exposed during hurricanes Katrina and Rita before us.

At the same time, Congress is about to take its final action on next year's federal budget, a budget that is decidedly not good news for the most vulnerable in our society. For that reason, I call upon all Michigan members of Congress to oppose the FY 2006 Federal Budget Reconciliation Bill now being considered by a conference committee.

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Instead, Congress should stop the budget process for FY 2006 and begin anew. Lawmakers should reflect on the anguish we saw following the hurricanes and the shameful numbers reported by the U.S. Census Bureau telling us that in 2004, 37 million Americans lived in poverty, an increase of more than one million since 2003.

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As the holidays draw near, I pray that Congress will produce a budget that reflects our nation's commitment to justice and brings hope to those who are without hope "good news to the poor." Then we can truly rejoice.

Bishop JAMES A. KELSEY

Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan

Please read the rest @ http://www.mininggazette.com/letters/story/1217202005_let03-l1217.asp

Bush's Fiscal Trade-Offs: Finally Becoming Transparent
Gene Sperling

As Congress wraps up votes on their initial reconciliation bills this week, I would love to get excited that at long last some moderate Republicans are beginning to express moral and economic queasiness about fiscal policy that combines escalating deficits and tax relief for the most fortunate with forced restraint and spending cuts for those Americans most in need.

<snip>

All that has really happened in this budget cycle is that value trade-offs that have always been implicit in Bush budget policies have finally become transparent. As I discuss in The Pro-Growth Progressive, a core element of the Bush strategy has been to divide up, phase in, and pretend to "sunset" their tax cuts to mislead the public about the true, permanent costs of the tax cuts and the trade-offs that escalating deficits would force in terms of generational responsibility and programs for children, workers, and the poor.

When the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership in Congress somehow decided that helping our fellow citizens recover from a natural disaster -- and not new corporate subsidies or repealing the estate tax -- was the only thing we needed to pay for, suddenly the value choices and trade-offs their policies entailed were so embarrassingly self-evident, even some in their own party had to distance themselves publicly.

<snip>

The fact that some moderate Republicans are starting to feel a bit queasy about the trade-offs when they are made so transparent in this year's appropriations and reconciliation bills is a good first step. But we need to do a lot more to show the misguided choices the White House and Congress have already made—and that we should certainly revisit -- if we want to travel the longer road to fiscal sanity and restore a respect for the values of generational responsibility, fair starts, and upward mobility to our national budget.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-sperling/bushs-fiscal-tradeoffs_b_11884.html