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Children, Poverty and a Recession
Children who fall into poverty during a recession will fare far worse along a range of variables, even well into adulthood, than will their peers who avoided poverty despite the downturn in the economy. These children will live in households with lower overall incomes, they will earn less themselves, and they will have a greater chance at living in or near poverty. They will achieve lower levels of education, and will be less likely to be gainfully employed. Children who experience recession-induced poverty will even report poorer health than their peers who did not fall into poverty during the recession. These differences will persist for decades into their adult lives. Read this important report from one of our national partners, First Focus.
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Child Care Policies Study
A study released by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) of child care policies in 50 states and the District of Columbia reveals that between February of 2008 and February of 2009 more states made cuts than made improvements in desperately needed child care assistance, worsening an already bleak landscape for parents trying to afford reliable child care.
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Save the Date
February 1-3, 2010
Annual Congress and Day on the Hill | |
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Greetings!
I hope all of you are finding some time to enjoy our great fall weather. Oh, wait, it is fall, right? In this ECC newsletter, you will find some information regarding the 10% cuts to our state budget and a shout out to the great advocates who attended the Step Up for Kids advocacy trainings last week. Now more than ever we need individuals like you to step up for kids as we face some of the largest cuts to vital services that our state has seen. I have a feeling there will be a lot of opportunities to speak up for kids in the coming months!
Best ~
Sheila Hansen |
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Governor Orders 10% Across the Board Cuts
On Thursday, Governor Culver announced that he is implementing a 10% across-the-board cut to state government spending. The Governor has a couple of options to cut state government spending. He can implement an across-the-board cut in state government spending or call the legislature into a special session. Obviously, he chose the across the board cut option. You can find a revised state budget from the Governor's office here. State Departments are currently in the process of prioritizing services and seeking input from staff and stakeholders as to where specific cuts will occur.
The Governor took this historic action after the Revenue Estimating Committee (REC) met on Wednesday, October 7th. At this meeting, the REC approved an estimate that projects a decline of 8.4% in revenue for the current fiscal year, a loss of nearly $415 million.
We believe Iowa's revenue problem did require immediate action, but that action must be strategic. Everything needs to be on the table as the Governor and General Assembly address the state's short- and long-term budget challenges. The sagging economy has contributed to this situation, but we can't simply cut our way to recovery. We also must face up to the structural drain in revenues caused by excessive tax-cutting and a failure to close corporate tax loopholes.
You don't fix a $415 million problem with spending cuts alone without seriously damaging critical public services -and further damaging the economy. Those services are most needed now, during this recession, and keeping people at work helps the economy when it needs a boost.
The Iowa Fiscal Partnership has consistently shown Iowans that we must look not only at spending and how taxes are collected - but also at the taxes we don't collect at all. It's all part of Iowa's bottom line.
■ Tax credits to big business have grown from $180 million to $421 million in just three years. That includes millions of dollars in secret checks written to corporations to do research they might have done anyway.
■ We continue to leave more - as much as $80 million - uncollected from multistate corporations because we won't adopt better accounting rules to plug tax loopholes and assure Iowa profits are reported. Not only is that lost revenue, but it's unfair to Iowa businesses competing with those corporations.
This is the kind of spending that doesn't show up in the budget - and will go unaffected by the Governor's cuts announced last week, cuts that will result in layoffs in human services, education, corrections and other important services.
In short, we simply must be willing to address revenues. It is disingenuous to view our budget imbalance as happening on one side of the ledger. All parts of the budget - spending, reserves built up for possible downturns, and taxes forgiven - must be part of the solution. Our response will affect not only the state budget, but the state's economy as well. If we deal with this only by
cutting spending, we will make it all the more difficult for the economy to recover, and for Iowans to return to work.
In full disclosure - The Iowa Fiscal Partnership is a joint budget and tax policy initiative of two nonpartisan, Iowa-based organizations, the Iowa Policy Project in Iowa City and the Child & Family Policy Center in Des Moines.
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Step Up For Kids Week A Success!
Over 160 energized child advocates attended trainings offered in various parts of the state last week for "Step Up for Kids" week. The advocacy training highlighted the importance of individuals who care about kids to speak up and ask their elected officials to address the needs of children and families as they make their budgetary decisions and to shift spending priorities in the direction of our most valuable assets - our children.
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Children's Budget 2009
 First Focus has released a report, Children's Budget 2009, the newest edition of their comprehensive guide to all federal spending on children.
Each year, First Focus publishes Children's Budget to highlight the importance of children's programs and the level at which they are funded. The book includes information on the over 180 federally funded programs that are aimed at enhancing the well-being of our nation's children.
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