Think Progress
A flight delay is inconvenient, not being able to receive your cancer treatment is a matter of life and death.
April 26, 2013
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As they were rushing to board their flights home for the weekend,
Senators and members of Congress pushed through a bill to allow the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to reshuffle funding in order to
avoid the
flight delays caused by FAA furloughs due to the sequester.
Unfortunately
for millions of Americans who cannot afford to get on a plane, Congress
has yet to repeal the disastrous and devastating cuts to important
programs for the poor, mothers, children, and many others.
A flight delay is inconvenient,
not being able to receive your cancer treatment is a matter of life and death. Here's
12 important programs that
Congress has so far refused to save from the sequester's automatic
cuts, even though they've been in place for nearly 2 months. By
contrast, the FAA furloughs caused flight delays for just four days.
1. Long-term unemployment: There
are 4.7 million Americans who have been unemployed for longer than six
months, but sequestration cut federal long-term unemployment insurance
checks by
up to 10.7 percent, costing recipients as much as $450 over the rest of the year. Those cuts compound the cuts
eightstates have made to their unemployment programs, and
11 states are
considering dropping the federal program altogether because of
sequestration — even though the long-term unemployed are finding it
nearly impossible to return to work.
2. Head Start: Low-income children across the country have been
kicked out of Head Start education
programs because of the 5-percent cuts mandated by sequestration, as
states have cut bus transportation services and started conducting
lotteries to determine which kids would no longer have access to the
program, even though the preschool program has been proven to have
substantial benefits for low-income children. In all, about 70,000 children will lose access to Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
3. Cancer treatment: Budget cuts have forced doctors and cancer clinics to
deny chemotherapy treatments to thousands of cancer patients thanks to a 2 percent cut to Medicare. One clinic in New York has refused to see more than
5,000 of
its Medicare patients, and many cancer patients have had to travel to
other states to receive their treatments, an option that obviously isn’t
available to lower-income people. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) proposed
restoring the funding, but the legislation so far hasn’t moved in Congress.
4. Health research: The
National Institutes of Health lost $1.6 billion thanks to
sequestration, jeopardizing important health research into AIDS, cancer,
and other diseases. That won’t just impact research and the people who
do it, though. It will also hurt the economy, costing the U.S. $860
billion in lost economic growth and at least
500,000 jobs. Budget cuts will also hamper research at colleges and universities.
5. Low-income housing: 140,000 low-income families — primarily seniors with disabilities and families with children — will
lose rental assistance thanks
to sequestration’s budget cuts. Even worse, the cuts could likely make
rent and housing more expensive for those families, as agencies raise
costs to offset the pain of budget cuts, and sequestration will also cut
from programs that aid the homeless and fund the construction of
low-income housing.
6. Student aid: Sequestration is already
raising fees on
Direct student loans, increasing costs for students who are already
buried in debt. The budget cuts reduce funding for federal work study
grants by $49 million and for educational opportunity grants by $37
million, and the total cuts will cost
70,000 college students access to grants they depend on.
7. Meals On Wheels: Local Meals on Wheels programs, which help low-income and disabled seniors access food, have faced
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts,
costing tens of thousands of seniors access to the program. Many of
those seniors have little access to food without the program, but
Congress has made no effort to replace the funding.
8. Disaster relief: The Federal Emergency Management Administration will lose
nearly $1 billion in
funding thanks to sequestration, jeopardizing aid for families, cities,
and states right as the spring storm season begins. The aid package
Congress passed for Hurricane Sandy relief will also see more than $1
billion in reductions.
9. Heating assistance: The
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps nearly 9
million households afford their heating and cooling bills. Sequestration
will cut the program by an estimated $180 million, meaning about
400,000 households will no longer receive aid. These cuts come on top of
$1.6 billion in reductions since 2010.
10. Workplace safety: The
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has long suffered
from a lack of funds, which means its staff is so stretched that many
workplaces go without an inspection
for 99 years. The fertilizer plant that exploded in West, Texas, for example,
hadn’t had a visit from OSHA since 1985. That will get worse, as sequestration will cut the agency’s budget
by $564.8 million, likely leading to
1,200 fewer workplace inspections.
11. Obamacare: Sequestration cuts
a number of important programs in the Affordable Care Act:
$13 million from the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan Program, or
CO-OPs; $57 million from the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control
program; $51 million from the Prevention and Public Health Fund; $27
million from the State Grants and Demonstrations program; and $44
million from the Affordable Insurance Exchange Grants program, or the
insurance exchanges.
12. Child care: Child care costs can
exceed rent payments or college tuition and waiting lists for getting assistance are already long. Yet sequestration will reduce funds even further, meaning that
30,000 children will lose subsidies for care. For example, Arizona will experience a
$3 million cut to funding that will force 1,000 out of care.
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