Congressional Agenda Changed Due to Attacks, Economy
November 2001
The Action Center's government relations
work on welfare reauthorization, hate crimes, new violence against
women legislation, Patients' Bill of Rights, Social Security and
other issues slowed considerably this fall as Congress has focused on
terrorism-related measures and appropriations bills. Unfortunately, though,
the "war" on terrorism hasn't stopped conservative
leaders in the House of Representatives or the Bush Administration from
pushing their regressive domestic agenda under the guise of economic
stimulus and national security.
We are keeping our eyes on various items
in the FY '02 budget which contains numerous reductions in funding
levels for important programs. Most notable among those programs is the
Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program that benefits 7.5
million women and their children. Demand for services is rising as the
economy worsens, but the budget allocation of $4.387 billion allows no
room for increasing needs. Experts estimate that several hundred thousand
eligible participants -- four-year-olds, for example, or perhaps some
combination of three-year-olds and four-year-olds -- may be turned away.
WIC serves one out of every two infants born in this country. NOW and
numerous other organizations have jointly sent a letter to Congress urging
that sufficient funding be provided in this budget.
Many other social programs
are funded at last fiscal year's levels -- again meaning that
there are insufficient funds to meet increased demand or keep place with
inflation. Especially alarming are effective cuts in programs like home
heating assistance for seniors and low income families, a population that
could easily increase this winter with heightened unemployment. These and
numerous other cuts in social programs are supported by conservative Republican
leaders looking for ways to offset looming deficits caused by last
spring's expensive tax cuts for the wealthy combined emergency
anti-terrorism and industry bail-out measures.
NOW continues to
speak out against these policies and to urge that activists remind members
of Congress that the social safety net has huge gaps through which many
will fall as unemployment rates continue to climb.
Action
Needed:
Your Representative and both of your Senators need to hear
from you. Please tell them: "In making decisions about the federal budget,
stimulating the economy and fighting terrorism, don't sacrifice
the poor. An economic recession will surely increase the need for
assistance. I urge you, especially, to restore funding to the Women,
Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program that helps 7.5 million
mothers and their children. Additionally, please oppose any cuts in
domestic spending that would jeopardize the social safety net to pay for
other spending related to the current economic and terrorism crises."
Activists can send a message to members of their
Congressional delegation from the NOW Web site by going to
http://www.now.org/congress or by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202)
224-3121 and asking for members' offices. The Web site for Congress,
http://thomas.loc.gov, also allows constituents to access Congressional
members' homepages from which you can send an email.
Economic Stimulus Package an
Outrage
November 2001
Conservative
Republicans have
exploited a spirit of bipartisanship and national unity in time of national
crisis to promote a regressive economic stimulus package that accelerates
and makes permanent tax cuts for the rich. At the same time, they
have rejected nearly all suggestions for providing desperately needed relief
to the poor and lower middle income earners, who are being hardest hit
by the economic downturn. The House of Representatives passed a bill (216-214)
in late October that is an outrageous collection of special favors
such as a cut in the capital gains tax and a retroactive repeal of the
Alternative Corporate Minimum Tax, giving billions to large companies. Here's a partial list of corporations that would receive 15 years' worth
of federal income tax rebates under the House plan: IBM, $1.4 billion;
Ford, $1 billion; GM, $833 million; GE, $671 million; Chevron Texaco, $572
million; Exxon, $254 million; IMC Global, $155 million; CMS Energy, $136
million.
A broad coalition has formed to fight this Republican
proposal that has almost nothing to do with stimulating the economy or
protecting workers hurt by the recession. NOW president Kim Gandy spoke
out against the package as one of the lead speakers in a press conference
sponsored by the coalition on October 18. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney
and leaders of other major national organizations also criticized the
so-called stimulus plan. All spoke about the opportunity that Congress has
to develop a stimulus plan that would protect working families and rebuild
the economy by investing in our distressed transportation, utility,
education and housing infrastructure.
NOW officers and staff have participated
in a number of meetings, press conferences and interviews to emphasize
the need to aid women in the welfare-to-work process many of whom
are employed in the hospitality industry. Democrats, some moderate Republicans
and prominent opinion-makers are increasingly concerned about the
sudden national transformation from seemingly endless economic expansion
to one of urgent crisis. More than 700,000 are reported to have lost
their jobs in recent weeks; many more may be out of work in the near future
while the country's social safety net is, perversely, allowed to
shrink.
In concert with organized labor, civil rights, human
services and other advocacy organizations, NOW has spoken out for workers
hard hit in the last two months, calling for an extension of Unemployment
Insurance programs to cover more workers and for the federal government to
assist the states in funding those additional responsibilities. We have
also have cited the need for continued health insurance coverage for
workers, a tax rebate for middle and low income workers most likely to
spend (thus stimulating the economy), passage of the long-debated federal
minimum wage hike, increases in funding for emergency benefits and
services and expanded child care tax credits, increased funding to child
care programs and more funding for Food Stamps. NOW and other groups have
also asked that the five year time limitation on TANF (Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families) benefits be lifted so that former welfare
recipients who now find themselves laid off will not be penalized.
Additionally, NOW President Gandy co-authored with Hugh Price of
the National Urban League an op-ed article that appeared in the Washington
Post, urging that the five-year clock on TANF recipients be stopped and
unemployment insurance programs be strengthened and expanded to cover low
income, part-time and temporary workers.
NOW
Membership Vice President Terry O' Neill
heads up the domestic policy task force of the National Council of
Women's Organizations and has developed a statement for distribution
to the public and policy makers regarding the coalition's concerns
about legislation and policy in the aftermath of the post-September
11th attacks. The statement outlines a series of principles that
would protect the vulnerable, fairly distribute economic sacrifices and
advance women's economic opportunities, legal and reproductive
rights.
Sign-carrying NOW interns and staff participated in a press
conference on the east front of the Capitol on November 2nd to convey a
message that working families hurt by job layoffs should be the first to
benefit from an economic stimulus bill. Labor leaders and Democratic
leadership headed up the list of speakers at that event. NOW will soon
send a letter to Congress (when the ban on receipt of mail by Senators and
Representatives is lifted) outlining our concerns.
Action
Needed:
You can go to the NOW interactive political page at http://www.now.org/congress
and send an urgent message to your Senators and
your Representative which says: "I strongly urge you to oppose an
Economic Stimulus Package that rewards corporate donors and wealthy
individuals, while ignoring workers hard hit in the wake of terrorist
attacks and economic decline. Please make certain that the stimulus
package contains expanded unemployment insurance coverage, temporary
health care benefits for unemployed workers and their families, tax cuts
targeted to middle and lower income families (especially those who did not
benefit from earlier tax cuts), assistance for families with child care
needs through increases in the Child Care Tax Credit and funds for
subsidized child care, and other types of emergency assistance to
displaced workers."
"Finally, it is especially important that you stop
the clock on the five year time limitation for benefits under the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as many former welfare recipients
have lost their service industry jobs and can not easily find other
employment. Congress must restore parts of the social safety net to aid
the nation's poorest in a time of crisis."
Social
Security Commission to Propose Options, Benefit Cuts
The Social Security
"study" commission appointed by George W. Bush (and stacked with pro-privatization
members) announced in early November that it would miss its
deadline for issuing a final report at the end of this year and that it
would make several recommendations -- not just one -- for revamping the system.
The commission's charge was to produce a single plan for the
president in changing the current social insurance approach to a private
investment account scheme.
Ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee,
Robert Matsui (D-Calif.) criticized the move saying a specific plan
"would let us directly debate the merits of the president's policies
and see the costs and trade-offs." Critics of privatization proposals
see the commission's move as an effort to cloud the
issue and confuse the public with lots of "fuzzy" numbers.
The Social
Security trustees' most pessimistic projection indicates that by the
year 2037 there may be insufficient funds to pay full benefits. So Bush
commission members have proposed tying future Social Security benefits
to inflation rather than wage growth. This would reduce the fund.
s long-term deficit; however, the Congressional Research Service
found that the change would reduce benefits by 12.9 percent in 2030 and by
40.8 percent (!) in 2070. These drastic reductions would occur because
wages tend to increase faster than inflation. Democrats, of course,
sharply protested the proposed remedy. For women, such a reduction in
benefits would be disastrous as many rely mainly on their monthly Social
Security check.
At a recent meeting (10/18) of the commission in Washington, D.C.,
Amy Holmes of the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum
criticized the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority
for our outspoken opposition to privatization. Holmes said that such
opposition hurts female-owned businesses, although she provided no factual
support for that claim. Possibly she meant that privatizing Social Security
would make more investment capital available to women-owned businesses.
But we wonder how many such businesses are publicly traded -- probably
not many, as women-owned businesses tend to be small. Holmes also claimed,
incorrectly, that NOW and other women's organizations support
collective government investment in the stock market, to the advantage of
Fortune 500 companies. In reality, NOW has not endorsed that idea,
although it is one of several that we believe should be further evaluated
as a means to build up income for the Social Security trust fund and yet
not have individuals risk their own contributions.
Holmes did apparently concede
the validity of a major concern we have about privatization. NOW
has repeatedly warned that privatization of Social Security will
leave many women wholly dependent upon their husbands. theoretical desire
to share investment earnings -- making those women potentially far
worse off than they are with Social Security's current guarantee
of a lifetime, inflation-adjusted, separate monthly spousal benefit.
Holmes advocated an "earnings sharing" approach to this problem,
under which spouses split retirement savings in separate accounts. When
studied over a decade ago, earnings sharing under the current Social
Security system was found to result in a reduction in benefits for some
women. Under a system of private investment accounts it would likely be
difficult to force the higher income earner to share his investment
earnings. The funds in his investment account would be considered his
private property, so his spouse would have to pursue costly litigation get
her share of the earnings.
Speaking to the commission at the same meeting,
our advocates emphasized once more that privatization means deep cuts
in benefits for all recipients and pointed out that the Bush administration.
s $1.35 trillion tax cut may have to be pared back to pay
for the very costly transition to either a fully- or partially-privatized
program, on top of new expenditures to shore up the economy and fight
terrorism. Such complications did not deter some privatizers on the
commission who suggested that we could just borrow the trillion dollars!
Our allies achieved a victory of sorts in that the commission agreed
to produce a 75-year projection showing how a private investment account
system would be established, funded and operated and showing anticipated
earnings, to be compared with a 75-year projection of results under
the current system of social insurance. Both projections would be
scored. by Social Security actuaries; that is, subjected to analysis via
an econometric model. Supporters of private accounts have never produced
such projections for public scrutiny.
With the rapidly
accelerating recession and decline in the stock market, backers of
privatization have been soft-pedaling their ideas. A series of House Ways
and Means Committee public meetings held around the country have been
poorly advertised and not well-attended. At the same time, advocates on
our side for preserving and strengthening the current social insurance
structure have garnered more press attention at such sites as Columbia, Mo.
and San Diego, Calif.
George W. Bush is reported to have said that he
would not press for legislation on Social Security until 2003, but a
number of Republican members of Congress have told him that they do not
want to campaign for re-election next year without having passed a bill.
Observers are predicting that the battle may begin in earnest early in
2002.
___________________
An article by former NOW president
Patricia Ireland is to appear in an upcoming book, Controversial Issues
in Social Policy (Allyn and Bacon of Boston, pub.), that discusses how
women would be hurt by privatization of the system. The book is aimed at
graduate school students studying government, sociology or related
subjects and contains pro and con articles on a wide variety of public
policy questions.
New Welfare Legislation
Introduced
Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) introduced in mid-October the TANF
Reauthorization Act (H.R. 3113) -- a re-worked version of our welfare legislation,
the Building Real Opportunities Bonus Act ("BOB" bill). Sen.
Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) will be joining with Rep. Mink in offering a similar
version of the TANF Reauthorization Act in the Senate. Prepared under the
leadership of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund in coalition with many
other advocacy organizations, the proposed legislation would alter the
dynamics of welfare reform, replacing the goal of reducing welfare rolls
with one of reducing poverty by rewarding states for assuring that poor
women get education, training, support services and jobs that pay a living
wage.
Co-sponsors for H.R. 3113 as is feedback on the legislation
are being solicited. Some welfare hearings have gone forward on the House
side, but Hill briefings on various aspects of TANF, or Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families, sponsored by our coalition probably will not
take place until next year. The bill text can be found on the Website for
Congress, http://thomas.loc.gov. Written comments on the legislation can
be forwarded to Jan Erickson, Government Relations Director at
govtrel@now.org or mailed to National Organization for Women, 733 15th St.
NW, 2nd Fl., Washington, D.C. 20005.
If activists are familiar with
state welfare studies and reports on how TANF recipients have fared over
the last five years or, themselves, have recommendations for improving
the system, please let us know. Sen. Wellstone's office has
indicated that they would like to receive such information as they
finalize their version of the legislation.
Conference
Committee Battle Brewing over Gag Rule
November
2001
Finally, as the Foreign Operations FY '02 authorization bill
(H.R. 2506) goes to a conference committee this week, we expect protracted
negotiations over the Senate-approved repeal of the global gag rule (or
GGR, as it is known inside the beltway), which prohibits international
family planning agencies that receive U.S. aid from providing abortion
services, giving women any information about their abortion rights, or
advocating abortion policies to their own governments -- even if these
activities are done with the international agencies' own, non-U.S. funds.
The repeal provision, the Global Democracy Protection Act, is sponsored by
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), was approved by the Senate Appropriations
Committee and is tacitly supported by a majority of senators. George W.
Bush has threatened to veto the entire Foreign Operations bill if it
includes the GGR repeal.
The Senate bill also funds the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) family planning program at $450 million
-- $25 million more than the House and president's versions of the
budget which contain funding levels that have not grown since 1995 when
anti-family planning members took over control of Congress. Another welcome
increase from Senate budget-makers is a $15 million hike for the United
Nations Fund for Population Assistance (UNFPA) to total $40 million,
also not contained in the House or president's
versions.
Anti-reproductive rights groups are utilizing the
opportunity to organize against the U.S. contribution to the UNFPA which
is the largest internationally funded source of population assistance to
developing countries.
Action Needed:
Send a message as soon
as possible (via http://www.now.org/congress) to all members of your Congressional
delegation which indicates that: "I urge you to support the
Senate version of the Foreign Operations FY '02 spending bill that
would repeal the global gag rule. The gag rule is an unfair and dangerous
constraint that threatens the health of millions of women in developing
countries. In addition, I urge you to support increased levels of funding,
as the Senate version does, for international family planning programs
under the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations
Fund for Population Assistance."
Violence Against Women Funding Falls
Short
November 2001
The president. s budget called for full
funding for such Violence Against Women (VAWA) programs as STOP grants, civil
legal assistance, supervised visitation, and rural domestic violence grants
in the Justice Department. The House has approved funding at those
levels as has the Senate Appropriations Committee. However, Department of
Health and Human Services VAWA programs -- like Family Violence Prevention
and Services Act (FVPSA) funds, the National Domestic Violence hotline,
Transitional Housing and Rape Prevention and Education -- have
been allocated only "level" funding (meaning the same as last fiscal
year's amount) that were not at the full funding level. In
addition, the transitional housing component was authorized for only one
year and needs to be reauthorized; that provision was promoted by Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and funded at $20 million.
Most regrettable is
the $58 million shortfall in FVPSA which means that shelters may have to
turn away women and children. Past experience has shown that domestic
violence escalates during times of economic stress, so this shortfall is
particularly disturbing at this time.
Action
Needed:
Please go to http://www.now.org/congress and send a message
to all members of your Congressional delegation that says "Please
restore full funding levels for all programs under the Violence Against
Women Act, especially those that provide assistance to shelters under the
Family Violence Prevention and Services Act which has been underfunded by
$58 million. Also, please help to reauthorize and fund the very important
Transitional Housing program that helps battered women afford long term
housing after leaving the shelters."
This Legislative Update was compiled by the Government
Relations/Public Policy Team at the NOW office. Questions? Call Jan
Erickson, Government Relations Director at (202) 628-8669, Ext. 101. To
receive free copies of any bill, call your U.S. Senator or Representative
at (202) 224-3121 or connect to the Website for Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov. This Update is
mailed monthly to the NOW leadership. Any NOW member can receive it by
mail for an annual subscription fee of $25. Join our Action Alert email
network, which also receives the Update electronically, by sending the
message subscribe now-action-list to majordomo@now.org.
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