Congressional Black Caucus FY 2013 Budget
Washington DC – On Tuesday, the Congressional Black Caucus offered an alternative budget to the Rules Committee for the Fiscal Year 2013. The Congressional Black Caucus has a long history of submitting fiscally sound and morally responsible budget alternatives proposed by the President of the United States. The CBC Budget Alternative for Fiscal Year 2013 continues this long tradition by developing a plan that reduces the deficit over the next decade and alleviates some of the harm inflicted by the Budget Control Act. It increases economic opportunities and job creation by ensuring sustained investments in education, job training, transportation and infrastructure, and advanced research and development.
The CBC Budget focuses on our priorities of economic development and job creation, cradle to college and workforce education, and protecting the Affordable Care Act–all priorities that will accelerate our economic recovery. The budget also focuses on administrative justice, investing additional funding towards our justice system for vital programs including the protection of the right to vote. At the same time, the CBC Budget protects the social safety net without cutting Social Security, killing Medicaid, or making seniors contribute more to Medicare. We have difficult choices to make when it comes to addressing the budget deficit, but the Republican Budget makes the wrong choices by deeply cutting vital programs, like Medicare, Medicaid, education, job training, and transportation, to pay for massive tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest Americans. Our nation’s communities of color have been hit hardest by the effects of the recession and the Republican Budget does little to address the priorities of these communities. Even as our nation’s economy has created nearly 3.9 million private sector jobs since February 2010, communities of color are still experiencing disproportionately higher rates of unemployment, home foreclosure, educational disadvantages and economic hardship. As a result, vulnerable communities are increasingly relying on public programs to meet their basic needs. With the passage of the Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution, the Budget Control Act of 201,1 and Fiscal Year 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act, these same vital programs have been slashed and targeted for even deeper cuts in the House Republican Budget.
The Members of the Congressional Black Caucus believe that budgets serve as a window into the moral compass of a nation’s conscience—and our nation’s compass is horribly off. Recklessly cutting vital programs like job training, education, and health care to millions of hardworking American families is not a roadmap to balancing the budget. Our success as a nation is interwoven in the success of every community and this goal is reflected in the Congressional Black Caucus Budget Alternative for Fiscal Year 2013. The United States Congress will debate and vote on the CBC Cleaver, Scott, Moore, Bass Amendment—the CBC Budget, Thursday March 29, 2012.
To read the budget amendment, factsheet, and for more information on the CBC FY 2013 Fiscal Year Budget click here.
