The Federal Budget is A Feminist Issue A Toolkit for Chapters and Activists

Share/Save

Send

Print Shop Amazon

The Federal Budget is a Feminist Issue
A Toolkit for Chapters and Activists

July 2011

We need to act now: The budget negotiations are ongoing, and the economic safety net for women is at stake. Aug. 2 is the deadline for the U.S. to raise the debt ceiling or else default on our financial obligations. Actually, an agreement between the White House, congressional Republicans and Democrats needs to be reached even before that date. So, women's rights activists should act NOW to tell Congress that a budget deal which hurts the most vulnerable -- women, children, seniors, low-income workers and persons with disabilities -- is NOT acceptable.

Robbing women to pay millionaires and corporations will not save the economy. We need jobs -- not harmful cuts to key government programs. The people of this country overwhelmingly know this to be true, but wealthy elites are demanding tax breaks for themselves and spending cuts for the rest of us.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, college grants, Head Start and many other programs that disproportionately serve and employ women are on the bargaining table. The administration is holding out for $4 trillion over 10 years in the most gut-wrenching program cuts ever, but at least the president also wants to require the wealthy to pay some taxes. Republicans thus far have refused to agree to taxes to raise new revenues. We CANNOT allow the White House or congressional Democrats to accept a bad budget deal that throws women and their families under the bus to go forward.

We have to speak out in the coming weeks more than ever.

NOW is the only feminist grassroots organization with the power and the reach to demand that women NOT be sold out in the budget negotiations -- but we can't do it without YOU! We need as many chapter leaders and activists as possible to speak to their congressional leaders.

What can you do NOW?? Organize your chapter, and send messages to your friends and family to tell their senators and representatives not to sell women out in the 2012 budget negotiations. Messages should go to senators as a first priority. We need to make sure that we can get moderate Democrats and (the very few remaining) moderate Republicans on the correct side of this issue.

Below are the tools you will need to be effective in this critical campaign. We encourage you to speak out by writing, calling, and meeting with your senators and representatives. Women's lives are at stake, and we must do everything possible to protect them.

Questions? Contact Anita Lederer, NOW's field organizer, at fieldorg@now.org or at 202-628-8669, ext. 134.

Action Kit Materials