I decided to write about the across-the-board spending cuts the Budget Control Act mandates because I wanted to be sure we all had a common frame of reference when I turned to what we all, I trust, really care about.
How much less would federally-funded programs have to help low-income people?
Easy enough to answer, I thought. After all, the new report from the Coalition on Human Needs includes program-specific tables.
But I was immediately overwhelmed. The primary table lists more than 140 programs that serve what CHN classifies as basic human needs.
For each, we?ve got past and current spending levels, plus two estimates* of how much the program would lose in January 2013, when the first round of sequestration is due.
The range and extend of the losses is overwhelming. Trying to get a handle on them is overwhelming too. This is one thorough report!
So I?ll focus on a subset of the handful of programs that CHN breaks down to state-level impacts ? those that best answer the question my title poses.
WIC
WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) has already suffered from a series of cuts.
If Congress resists the urge to take another whack at the program, the District of Columbia would lose close to $1.5 million as its share of the 2013 automatic cut.
Less money at a time when food prices are rising. We might see a waiting list, though mothers can hardly put their children on hold till they can nourish them properly.
LIHEAP
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has also suffered from federal deficit-reduction fever.
Current funding is about $1.6 billion less than it was in Fiscal Year 2010, not counting the temporary boost LIHEAP got from the Recovery Act. The President?s budget would cut another $452 million.
But say the program got level-funded. The District would then lose somewhat over $1 million in the first round of sequestration.
Some unknown number of eligible households would be literally in the cold ? some homeless, since evictions can follow unmanageable utility bills.
National survey figures suggest that about 41% of the at-risk households would be families with children.
Child Care and Development Block Grant
The Child Care and Development Block Grant has two funding streams ? one so-called entitlement that?s shielded from the across-the-board cuts and one dependent on annual appropriations that isn?t.
If the Fiscal Year 2013 appropriation were the same as what the block grant is getting now, the District would lose $296,000.
May not seem like much, but the program already lacks funds to make affordable high-quality child care available, especially for low-income parents with infants and children with disabilities.
Head Start
Here in the District, as nationwide, Head Start supports a range of services for low-income children and their parents.
If Congress level-funds the program, the District would lose close to $2.8 million in Fiscal Year 2013.
So there goes more money that supports early childhood development ? and gives some low-income parents an alternative to the dauntingly high costs of market-rate child care.
Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Title I of what?s now called No Child Left Behind funds services to help low-income students graduate ?college and career ready.? It?s the single largest source of federal financial support for public school systems.
If Congress approves the same amount the program is getting now, the District would initially lose well over $4.6 million.
As the DC Fiscal Policy Institute tells us, Mayor Gray?s proposed budget will mean a cost crunch for at least some schools ? and no extra funding for those with high student poverty rates.
The Title I cut would, of course, increase the cost-crunch ? and undermine urgently-needed efforts to prepare low-income youth for the demands of our high-education/high-skills job market.
IDEA Grants
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal government provides three sets of grants to help states meet their legal obligations for educating children with disabilities.
Again assuming level-funding, the District would lose more than $1.7 million from the cut in the largest grant program. Total loss would be larger, of course.
As you may know, the District?s budget has long been stressed by the costs of providing the required ?free and appropriate? education to children with disabilities.
The Mayor aims to bring more of these children into the regular public school system ? better for them as well as for the bottom line, if the schools get enough funding to meet the children?s needs.
The partial loss of federal grant funds would presumably require the District to invest more local dollars in special education services ? more, at least, than it would otherwise have to.
I shudder to think where those dollars would come from.
* Analysts can only ballpark funding losses because the across-the-board cuts would be based on Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations. And Congress has only just started working on these.
CHN provides two sets of estimates based on current appropriations. One applies a percent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. The other uses a higher percent estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
CBPP explains ? convincingly to me ? that CBO oversimplified its Fiscal Year 2013 estimates to make them consistent with out-year estimates. So I?m reporting cuts estimated with the Center?s percent.
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