BUSH BUDGET WOULD HURT WOMEN
March 16, 2006

Women will be particularly hard hit by the year 2007 budget cuts proposed by President Bush. The Bush budget would:

·         Cut child care assistance by 300,000 children by FY 2010.

·         Eliminate Women’s Educational Equity Act programs, which fund activities promoting educational equity for girls and women.

·         Eliminate vocational education, destroying innovative career and technical education programs. This would result in huge cuts in funding currently available to states to provide programs that train women and girls for jobs in careers from which they have traditionally been excluded, among other things.

·         Cut Violence Against Women programs by $19 million, or 5%, below this year’s enacted level.

·         Provide only half of the funding promised to after-school programs, meaning that 1.7 million children who were promised these services will not get them, further handicapping women trying to remain in the job market.

·         Cut Medicaid by $45 billion (net), which would have a particularly devastating impact on women because women account for over 70% of adult Medicaid beneficiaries.

·         Raise health care costs for 2.2 million veterans, many of whom are women. Over five years, the budget for veterans’ health care is $15 billion below the amount needed to maintain services at current levels.

·         Eliminate funding for dropout prevention; 10% of young women drop out of high school, badly limiting their opportunities for independence and success.

·         Completely eliminate funding for Perkins Loans and provides inadequate funding for Pell Grants, closing the door on a college education at a time when only 19% of women finish their bachelor’s degree.

·         Completely eliminate a $24 million Justice Department program that assists victims of human trafficking.