Civil Rights Group Identifies Essential Programs Facing Severe Cuts in House Budget Bill

In a letter to U.S. senators urging them to oppose House Resolution 1 (H.R. 1), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is raising concerns about proposed budget cuts to programs serving the needs of the most vulnerable Americans.

“H.R.1 makes cuts that are
extreme and irresponsible, slashing or eliminating many services that are
needed by communities represented by The Leadership Conference, including
vulnerable and low-income people such as young children, students, older
people, the jobless, and the uninsured,” write Wade Henderson, president and
CEO of The Leadership Conference, and Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of
The Leadership Conference.

Henderson and Zirkin argue that
the federal budget cuts in H.R. 1 — which appear to be ideologically driven —
are overly focused on spending and fail to address revenue shortfalls caused by tax breaks for oil and gas companies and the wealthiest
Americans.

 The letter outlines seven areas
of concern:

• Head
  Start: H.R. 1 cuts more than $1
  billion from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early
  childhood services – education, nutrition, health, social, and emotional
  development – to nearly one million low-income children and their
  families. This cut would eliminate these vital services for about 218,000
  children and their families next year.

• Pell
  Grants: H.R. 1 reduces the maximum
  annual Pell Grant award by $845 to $4,705, a 15 percent cut below the
  current maximum of $5,550. This would have a devastating impact on the
  roughly 8 million needy students that qualify for the maximum award,
  nearly 90 percent of whom come from families making less than $40,000 a
  year. 

• Consumer
  Protection: H.R. 1 reduces the
  newly-formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding –
  which, in this case, is not a Congressional appropriation – from $143
  million to $80 million. The cut will hamstring the CFPB’s ability to
  enforce the consumer protection laws that were largely ignored by existing
  regulators in the years before the mortgage and financial crisis.

• “Gainful
  Employment” Rule:
  H.R. 1 blocks the Department of Education from issuing or enforcing its
  proposed “gainful employment” rule, eliminating accountability for career
  colleges that educate 10 percent of higher education students, receive
  approximately 24 percent of federal grants and loans, and account for 48
  percent of defaults.

• Repeal
  of Open Internet Rules:
  H.R. 1 repeals the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Open Internet
  rules, including those that prevent the private blocking of
  constitutionally protected speech. This causes significant harm,
  particularly to the constituencies represented by our member organizations,
  and diverts attention from other critical media and telecommunications
  issues that are so vital to our nation’s economic and civic life. 

• Health
  Services for Women and Girls:
  H.R. 1 prohibits any federal funding from being made available to Planned
  Parenthood Foundation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or any of its affiliates,
  for any health care services whatsoever for women and girls. This
  ideologically-driven attack on PPFA is unnecessary, as existing law
  already prohibits federal funding from being used to pay for abortions and
  will instead wipe out a range of other vital health care services.

• Equal
  Access to Justice Fees:
  H.R. 1 prohibits any federal funds from being distributed under the Equal
  Access to Justice Act (EAJA). This will deprive people – including
  seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, small business owners and
  farmers – who cannot afford a lawyer from being represented against the
  federal government, when the government acts illegally against them.

For
a more comprehensive look at the impact of the budget cuts contained in H.R.1, see
the Half in Ten campaign’s analysis in “Deficit
Reduction on the Backs of the Most Vulnerable.”