The President’s proposed budget for discretionary spending for 2018 landed with a crash as it includes dramatic cuts across agencies and departments as a way to pay for increases to the Pentagon. The proposal was released on Thursday, March16 and applies to the discretionary portion of federal spending with the rest to be published with
On Tuesday, March 14, CWLA sent a letter to Capitol Hill opposing the American Health Care Act. Citing the new Congressional Budget Office analysis, in the letter, CWLA President and CEO Chris James-Brown points out the importance of expanded mental health and substance abuse services saying, “The availability of health care coverage through the Affordable
Late Monday, March 13, The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its required analysis of the American Health Care Act concluding that it would both reduce the number of people with health insurance while cutting health care costs to the federal government. The analysis determined that 14 million people would become uninsured next year (2018), 21
On Wednesday, March 15, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources held a hearing and took the first step toward a reauthorization of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. Members from both sides seemed positive in their assessment of the program they were also well informed on how the
The House health care plan confronts what are two overarching Medicaid issues but the second one may be the most significant. The first issue is how to deal with the Medicaid expansion enacted under the ACA. Thirty-one states have expanded their Medicaid programs to all adults up to 138 percent of poverty. The second issue
On Thursday, March 9, more than 80 members of Congress signed onto a letter to denounce a suggestion by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly that the Department might look at foster care placements as an enforcement tool regarding immigration. At a press conference, led by Congressperson Karen Bass (D-CA), several members of Congress addressed reporters
Last fall when HHS released the new ACFARS Report Number 23, they pointed out that nearly three quarters of states reported an increase in the numbers of children entering foster care from 2014 to 2015. They went on to highlight that the five states with the largest increases were Florida, Indiana, Georgia, Arizona, and Minnesota;
Efforts to better coordinate access to education for children and youth in foster care may have suffered a setback last week Thursday. The Senate approved a roll-back of Obama Administration regulations to implement the new education law. The regulations covered numerous parts of the newly reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education ACT (ESEA). In part the
A coalition group including CWLA has sent Capitol Hill an updated letter of support of SSBG on Thursday. The letter includes more than 75 national organizations and organizations and agencies from all fifty states. CWLA has created a new resource on the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). The new resource are state-by-state fact sheets found
The President’s desire to provide a ten percent increase in the Defense Department budget could devastate a number of human services and domestic programs. Unless Congress agrees to fund the increase through deficits, the $54 billion will create enormous pressure on the annual appropriations (discretionary spending) which totals only $1.1 trillion out of a federal