Thursday, December 22, 2005
Outcome of the budget reconciliation bill...
The U.S. Senate finally voted this morning on the budget reconciliation bill, which includes reauthorization of child care and TANF. Unfortunately the bill squeaked by on a 51-50 vote, including a vote from Sen. Christopher Dodd, who was brought in from his recovery from knee surgery, and the final tie-breaking vote from Vice President Cheney, who was called back from a trip abroad in order to vote.
Senator Mark Dayton voted against the bill while Senator Norm Coleman voted in favor - disappointing, given that last week he signed a letter (with encouragement from all of you!) asking that child care and TANF be omitted from the budget reconciliation bill.
Nonetheless – your voices were certainly heard! Senator Coleman’s office was besieged with phone calls and emails, shutting down the lines and filling up voicemails. So, well done! Yet, there is more ahead. The bill was changed on the Senate floor due to a successful procedural challenge, a “Point of Order,” raised by U.S. Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Kent Conrad (D-ND) to strip a few particular provisions from the bill that violated budget rules. The changes are minor — all of the devastating cuts and changes to child care, TANF, Medicaid, child support enforcement, and foster care remain in the bill — but the U.S. House and Senate bills are sufficiently different to force a second vote in the House. It’s unclear whether the U.S. House will come back into session yet this week or next, or wait until January to take the bill up again.
The vote in the U.S. House on December 19th was close, 212-206, and sixteen members of Congress missed the vote. So – there will be another chance for Minnesota advocates to educate our congressional delegation about the harmful nature of including the Child Care and Development Block Grant reauthorization within the budget reconciliation bill.
What this means for child care:
The provisions on the nation’s welfare-to-work program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), would impose expensive new expectations on states without providing them with adequate resources. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the cost to states of meeting the new requirements would be $8.4 billion over five years. This includes $4.3 billion in costs associated with operating significantly larger welfare-to-work programs and $4.1 billion in additional child care costs. Yet the bill includes just $1 billion in additional child care funding — less than states need just to ensure that their current child care funding keeps pace with inflation — and no additional welfare-to-work funding.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that nationally some 255,000 fewer children will receive child care assistance, as states would likely divert significant child care funding away from low-income working families not participating in the state welfare-to-work programs in order to meet the new TANF program requirements.
In 2003, Minnesota made a series of substantial cuts to its child care assistance programs for low-income working families. Those cuts dramatically reduced the income level at which families can receive child care assistance and substantially increased the copayments that families pay.
The conference agreement’s welfare-to-work provisions could force Minnesotato make still larger cuts in child care subsidies for low-income working families not receiving TANF cash assistance, undermining Minnesota’s long-standing (if already scaled back efforts) to “make work pay” as part of its welfare reform agenda.
Under these new provisions, Minnesota would have to significantly increase the number of parents participating in welfare-to-work programs, at significant cost to the state. Moreover, the bill would significantly restrict the flexibility Minnesota now has when helping families move towards self-sufficiency — this flexibility has been the key to successes in Minnesota’s welfare-to-work programs.
The U.S. Senate finally voted this morning on the budget reconciliation bill, which includes reauthorization of child care and TANF. Unfortunately the bill squeaked by on a 51-50 vote, including a vote from Sen. Christopher Dodd, who was brought in from his recovery from knee surgery, and the final tie-breaking vote from Vice President Cheney, who was called back from a trip abroad in order to vote.
Senator Mark Dayton voted against the bill while Senator Norm Coleman voted in favor - disappointing, given that last week he signed a letter (with encouragement from all of you!) asking that child care and TANF be omitted from the budget reconciliation bill.
Nonetheless – your voices were certainly heard! Senator Coleman’s office was besieged with phone calls and emails, shutting down the lines and filling up voicemails. So, well done! Yet, there is more ahead. The bill was changed on the Senate floor due to a successful procedural challenge, a “Point of Order,” raised by U.S. Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Kent Conrad (D-ND) to strip a few particular provisions from the bill that violated budget rules. The changes are minor — all of the devastating cuts and changes to child care, TANF, Medicaid, child support enforcement, and foster care remain in the bill — but the U.S. House and Senate bills are sufficiently different to force a second vote in the House. It’s unclear whether the U.S. House will come back into session yet this week or next, or wait until January to take the bill up again.
The vote in the U.S. House on December 19th was close, 212-206, and sixteen members of Congress missed the vote. So – there will be another chance for Minnesota advocates to educate our congressional delegation about the harmful nature of including the Child Care and Development Block Grant reauthorization within the budget reconciliation bill.
What this means for child care:
The provisions on the nation’s welfare-to-work program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), would impose expensive new expectations on states without providing them with adequate resources. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the cost to states of meeting the new requirements would be $8.4 billion over five years. This includes $4.3 billion in costs associated with operating significantly larger welfare-to-work programs and $4.1 billion in additional child care costs. Yet the bill includes just $1 billion in additional child care funding — less than states need just to ensure that their current child care funding keeps pace with inflation — and no additional welfare-to-work funding.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that nationally some 255,000 fewer children will receive child care assistance, as states would likely divert significant child care funding away from low-income working families not participating in the state welfare-to-work programs in order to meet the new TANF program requirements.
In 2003, Minnesota made a series of substantial cuts to its child care assistance programs for low-income working families. Those cuts dramatically reduced the income level at which families can receive child care assistance and substantially increased the copayments that families pay.
The conference agreement’s welfare-to-work provisions could force Minnesotato make still larger cuts in child care subsidies for low-income working families not receiving TANF cash assistance, undermining Minnesota’s long-standing (if already scaled back efforts) to “make work pay” as part of its welfare reform agenda.
Under these new provisions, Minnesota would have to significantly increase the number of parents participating in welfare-to-work programs, at significant cost to the state. Moreover, the bill would significantly restrict the flexibility Minnesota now has when helping families move towards self-sufficiency — this flexibility has been the key to successes in Minnesota’s welfare-to-work programs.
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 5:37 PM 
