In honor of President’s day, I thought it would be fitting to take a look at President Bush’s final budget proposal of his presidency. The total budget comes in at $3.1 trillion dollars.
The Bush budget does provide a slight increase in funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development but it freezes funding for child care assistance for low-income families, funds most Special Education related programs at the level set in the FY 2008 budget. No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act State Grant Programs will see a slight increase but the IDEA Preschool and Early Intervention programs received cuts. It also reduces the Social Services Block Grant by $500 million and funds Developmental Disabilities Programs at the FY 2008 funding level. In the area of Protection and Advocacy for People with Traumatic Brain Injury the Bush budget cuts all funding.
Let’s start with education. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released two reports this year. The first report was on the 4 year and 5 year cohort graduation rates. For children with disabilities the four year cohort graduation rate was 48% and the five year rate was 50%. These were the lowest rates of any group tracked in this report. The second DPI report focused on drop out numbers. Last year 23,000 students dropped out of school in North Carolina. This report did not detail the numbers of students with disabilities that dropped out. What we do know is that early intervention for students with disabilities is critical for their academic and social development. President Bush may not be reading these reports since he will be cutting the IDEA Preschool and Early Intervention programs.
Affordable housing for people with disabilities is a critical need in our state and in the nation. Bush’s housing budget request has a few positives and a bunch of negatives.
The Tenant Based Rental Assistance account has a requested $39 million worth of new vouchers for elderly and people with disabilities who lost their homes due to Hurricane Katrina. At the same time there is a 32% of $77 million cut to Section 811 housing for people with disabilities. According to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, the overall cuts to the Public Housing Capital Fund could be as high as $11,669,000 or more importantly these cuts could potentially affect 75,616 citizens of our state. With the rising numbers of foreclosures (WRAL reports that foreclosures in Raleigh/Cary are up 122%) and the success of state programs like the Housing 400 Initiative and the Housing Trust Fund, the federal government should be investing more in affordable housing not less.
Then there are the cuts to the Social Services Block Grant. This grant takes a whopping $500 million cut and ends up providing only $1.2 billion for 2009 and eliminating the grant starting in FY 2010. This means serious cuts to epilepsy and injury programs including TBI (traumatic brain injury). Social Services Block Grants provide discretionary funds for child care, child welfare, prevention and intervention programs, and special services for the disabled. North Carolina could possibly see a cut of $14,708.000.
More bad news for people with TBI, the funding for their Protection & Advocacy Grants has been zeroed out in President Bush’s proposed budget. Apparently the connection between military men and women returning home with TBI and the needs of these brave soldiers has not been pointed out to President Bush.
Last we come to the proposed cuts in Medicaid and the children’s health insurance programs. The Bush budget would cut Medicaid by $1.8 billion in FY 2009 and by more than $18 billion over the next five years. In addition to these proposed cuts is the additional $14.7 billion in five year cuts that will come from new Medicaid regulations. If you have been reading this blog, we have been discussing the targeted case management changes and the reimbursements for school administration and transportation for children with disabilities. SCHIP would see a $19.7 billion funding increase but this increase does not keep up with the rising cost of health care. To simply continue the current services provided by SCHIP we would need to see funding increased to $21.5 billion. In North Carolina we currently have over 1,300 children with special needs enrolled in our state children’s health insurance plan. Current 2008 funding shows North Carolina having a shortfall in SCHIP funding by June.
President Bush’s budget clearly does not address the needs of the disability community. It does not speak to the need for equitable well funded education, affordable housing options, and quality health care. The Bush administration budget leaves us all behind.
Want to read more:
WRAL-Foreclosure Rates Soar
http://www.wral.com/business/story/2429648/
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget State Report
http://budget.house.gov/pres_budgets/09S_by_sFINAL.pdf
Children’s Defense Fund-Health Child Campaign
www.childrensdefense.org/health-child
US Department of Housing and Urban Development
News Release-Bush Administration Seeks $38.5 billion HUB Budget in 2009
http://www.hug.gov/
Coalition on Human Needs-FY 2009 Budget
http://www.chn.org/issues/budget/
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