RESPONDING TO TERROR: Budget Ax Nicks Youth Programs, Bigger Cuts Loom

As Congress neared completion of the 2002 federal budget last month, youth programs generally dodged the spending cuts that many youth program advocates had feared after the Sept. 11 attacks.

While noting the need for enhanced defense and security spending, some youth advocates feared that bolstering those efforts would come at the expense of social services programs both this year and in the long run.

“We can rebuild New York and build up our defenses without shifting the cost to the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable children,” said Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities of America.

The federal government is almost certain to make budget cuts in social programs next year as defense programs are enhanced, according to congressional sources and the White House.

A report issued by the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee after the attack warned, “Whether the budgets of other departments will be squeezed is uncertain, but seems unlikely in the short run. Over the longer run, however, if increased defense spending is built permanently into the budget baseline, resources left for other areas of the budget will naturally become tighter.”

Even before the attack, the White House was girding up to reduce federal spending. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), informed all executive department heads to draft 2003 budgets that were at least 5 percent less than Bush proposed for that year. OMB sent the memo Sept. 10.

Daniels told a business group in New York in mid-October that federal spending in the wake of the attack was out of control. Defense and anti-terrorism will remain the top priorities, he said.

“Beyond these imperatives, everything is secondary. Many lesser priorities will have to yield while we ensure that the essential functions of government are provided for,” Daniels said, providing no details.

“It’s unknown where all that money is going to come from,” said Stuart Campbell, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs. “There won’t be enough done to help families this year, and we’re going to see across-the-board cuts next year.”

Feeling the Fallout

While 2002 spending was not curtailed, several of President Bush’s proposed initiatives went unfunded. And at least one spending proposal directly fell victim to the new budget concerns.

Before Sept. 11, Bush had sought to increase mandatory spending for the Safe and Stable Families Act by $200 million annually, to $505 million. The spending increase was nixed by a House Ways and Means subcommittee. Human Resources Subcommittee Chairman Wally Herger (R-Calif.) cited changing budget priorities for his opposition to authorizing an increase in entitlement spending.

The House Appropriations Committee added $70 million in discretionary spending to the program’s budget in its bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Supporters of increased entitlements were not mollified. They wanted the larger mandatory increase so states could plan on the future funding, without the increase being offset elsewhere in the budget.

“That means they had to cut something else” to stay within budget caps, said Liz Meitner, director of public policy for the Child Welfare League of America. “Our concern is very much on this entitlement funding.”

The Senate version of the appropriations bill contained no increase for the program.

Another victim was a proposed $60 million voucher program to help educate youth aging out of the foster care system. Appropriations committees in both chambers declined to fund the proposal because Congress had not passed legislation to authorize, or create, the program.

Bush also failed to secure funding for a $67 million program to mentor the children of prison inmates. Appropriators cited the same lack of authorizing legislation for the rejection. (For more on the budget, see page 44.)

Several national organizations were concerned about one element of Bush’s post-attack economic stimulus proposal: Using $11 billion from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to help states expand healthcare to low-income workers and their families.

“That’s a really bad idea. That isn’t just money laying around being unused,” Campbell said. “We are definitely looking to help adults [and] unemployed families get health care. That doesn’t mean you take some money out of another program.”

Some youth workers said the CHIP program may appear to have an unused surplus because some states are not covering all their eligible children. “It’s not like those dollars aren’t being used, they just aren’t being used yet,” said Mary Bourdette, director of intergovernmental relations for the Children’s Defense Fund. “You can’t do it at the expense of the children. It is a very serious threat to CHIP.”

The U.S. General Accounting Office, in a report released in September, noted that “unused [CHIP] funds can be redistributed among states” and that granting a state waivers to increase coverage “would affect the amount of available unused funds that other states could use for children.”

Further, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured reported in September that about 900,000 children have been added to CHIP annually for the past three years. In enacting the program in 1997, Congress agreed to authorize the program at $4 billion annually for 10 years, so any surpluses may be used in later years.

Beadle, Andrew D. "RESPONDING TO TERROR: Budget Ax Nicks Youth Programs, Bigger Cuts Loom."Youth Today, November 2001, p. 11.

©2000 Youth Today. Reprinted with permission from Youth Today. All rights reserved.