The Committee for Economic Development (CED), an influential organization of business leaders and educators, released a report on March 5, 2003, titled "Exploding Deficits, Declining Growth: The Federal Budget and the Aging of America."

EPI, Campaign for America’s Future and State Groups Release Reports Detailing Damage Caused by Bush Tax Cuts

Check for the report on the problems your state will face if the Bush tax cut goes through – and find out how to work to stop it.

A person can’t open a newspaper these days without catching sight of at least one article reporting on recent slashes in some local or state budget or in one of the many threads of the country’s social safety net. From coast to coast, over the course of just the last two weeks, cuts have been announced: Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) announced that several million dollars will be cut this year and next from the state’s Medicaid program, which had been heralded for its success in providing mental and dental benefits, in addition to the traditional hospital care, to Oregon’s poor, elderly, and disabled residents; newly-elected Maryland Governor Bob Erhlich (R) has proposed a $25 million cut in state-funding for child care for low-income parents – this is on top of a 70% cut in funds for Maryland’s Child Care Resource Centers Network, which provides families of all income levels with guidance and information on available local child care providers.

As reported in today’s Washington Post, House and Senate conferees are nearing completion on negotiations over H.R. 2, the omnibus bill for the remaining 11 FY 2003 appropriations bills that were not enacted by last October 1.

In addition to the National Priorities Project’s handy “State of the States” reports announced in the last Watcher, there is also a new set of fact sheets from AFSCME documenting the draconian cuts states have been forced to make to contend with their 3-year cumulative budget gap of $189 billion. A one-page fact sheet looks comprehensively at the cuts used by many states to meet their own constitutions’ mandates of a balanced budget. Some of the cuts recently used by states include releasing prisoners before completion of their sentences, cuts to higher education, increases in tuition at state universities, reducing funds for community services and child support enforcement, tightening eligibility requirements for the working poor and disabled for state Medicaid health plans, raiding state rainy day funds, and layoffs. Other state-by-state analyses will be available soon, which OMB Watch will note.