The Plum Line
Greg Sargent’s blog
Latest Cuts To The Stim Package: Head Start, Child Nutrition, Food Stamps Public Transit
I’ve just obtained an internal Senate committee memo detailing the latest cuts being eyed by the gang of Senators being led by Dem Ben Nelson and GOPer Susan Collins. Here is what’s being eyed in the bill right now:
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Total Reductions: $80 billion
Eliminations:
Head Start, Education for the Disadvantaged, School improvement, Child Nutrition, Firefighters, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Prisons, COPS Hiring, Violence Against Women, NASA, NSF, Western Area Power Administration, CDC, Food Stamps
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Reductions:
Public Transit $3.4 billion, School Construction $60 billion
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Increases:
Defense operations and procurement, STAG Grants, Brownfields, Additional transportation funding
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Nelson spokesperson Clay Westrope confirms the authenticity of the memo, adding that the figures obviously could change. But this is currently the general direction.
As you can see the amount being cut appears to have fallen, to a total of $80 billion, though Westrope says the actual number is closer to $100 billion. Also, it appears some of those cuts are being maintained even as defense funds appear to be getting added.
So let me explain a couple of acronyms first. NSF is the National Science Foundation. We need to cut that like I need a Mohawk hairdo. But, we do have to realize that these aren’t cuts to the current amount of tax payer dollars they get right now – it’s a cut to the increase. Everybody got that? So don’t go off thinking that these agencies are going to get starved because they won’t. They will still get their budget. These eliminations are for the stimulus only.
The second acronym I need to explain is the STAG grants. This is the State and Tribal Grant Program. They are given out by the EPA so that our Native American brothers can get their reservations up to snuff with the environmental regulations. Increasing the grants is not a bad thing, and neither is increasing Defense Procurement. The defense department supply system buys everyday items like pencils and toilet paper hopefully manufactured by Americans in America. (It is a shame that I have to make that distinction.) Defense procurement keeps a lot of folks in business and keeps the hiring rolling along.
Lastly we have the Brownfields. This is another environmental problem that needs all the dollars we can squeeze them. Let me just clip a bit from the Brownfields web site:
Brownfields are real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.
So if they want more money to clean up places like Hanford then I am on their bandwagon. That place is a nuclear meltdown nightmare with seeping, oozing, glowing goo, slowly starting to drip into the Columbia River. More bad news for the salmon. Governor Gregoire, D-WA, has been trying to coordinate the clean-up of that mess and kudos to her.
good news for Americans who depend on the Justice Department to defend their rights. A bit more under the radar, Monday also saw another important piece of news at the DOJ. 
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