Take Immediate Action:
 

President Clinton needs to hear from activists this week-end, urging him to stand firm in his negotiations with Congress. Of special urgency are two measures that are priorities: increasing child care funding and passing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (S. 622). President Clinton may soon veto the Labor/Health and Human Services/Education appropriations bill which contains only $1.182 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant program. The Senate wants to add another $818 million to bring up the funding to about where it was last fiscal year, but House conferees dropped the addition. Urge President Clinton to hold firm and demand that child care gets funded at $2 billion when he resumes negotiations with Congressional leaders.

Additionally, conference committee members on the Commerce/State/Justice appropriations bill dropped the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 and President Clinton has not been strong in demanding that they restore the bill to the CJS measure. We need to help stiffen the President's resolve on this important bill that would add the categories of sex-based, sexual orientation-based and disability-based hate crimes to the federal criminal statutes. Please call the White House and urge the President to demand that the conference committee restore the Hate Crimes bill, S. 622 to the Commerce/State/Justice spending bill. Please make your calls now.
 

Who to Call:

On the child care message, please call Mary Beth Cahill in the White House Office of the Public Liaison at (202) 456-2930 or Minyon Moore at the White House Office of Political Affairs at (202) 456-1125. Say that we need to have $2 billion for child care block grants.

For the Hate Crimes bill, call either John Podesta, Chief of Staff, at (202) 456-6798 or Minyon Moore at the White House Office of Political Affairs, (202) 456-1125. Message: Only the President's insistence on restoring the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S. 622) to the Commerce/State/Justice spending bill can save it. Please tell the President to demand that it be restored.
 

Other Information of Interest:

The huge Labor/HHS/Education bill contains many funding cuts programs that NOW activists are interested in. There is a roughly one percent across-the-board spending cut that would affect all discretionary programs. Housing, nutrition, and many other social programs which assist women and children would be impacted. Social Service Block grants that fund elder care, child care, family planning and many other services has had one-third of its budget slashed. The spending bill also cuts Temporary Assistance to Needy Families transfer of funding authority to social services by more than half --thus reducing services which could go to welfare-to-work families. Roughly 20% of Head Start monies will be withheld for a year -- this in a program which is only able to serve a fraction of all eligible children. There is no funding whatsoever in the new Clinton administration initiative, the National Family Caregiver Support program; no money for the new Right Track Partnership that would grant fund local programs for disadvantaged youth and no funding for the administration's Work Incentive grants that would help people with disabilities find and keep jobs.
 

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You can help in our advocacy efforts on behalf of women and girls; increase your support with a gift from Working Assets, and get a tax deduction. You can do this three times. Each individual can have their gift matched once a month for October, November and December. Act quickly to get your match for October.

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