Budget Woes: Do Our Dollars Make Sense?

Talking Points

Discretionary Spending- President Bush’s plan

· A 0.5% cap on growth of non security discretionary spending will cut domestic programs and represent the lowest growth since 1993.

· A total discretionary spending increase of only 3.9% is less than the increase in the average family income.

Deficit

· Last year the government spent $318 billion on interest payments for the National debit – three times a much as the entire budgets for NASA, Education and the Department of Transportation combined.

· To date, interest payments on the National Debt have cost $115 billion dollars and are the third largest expense in the federal budget.

· As of February, the National Debt has risen to $7 Trillion dollars

Unemployment

· It takes 150,000 new jobs a month to allow for new entry to the job market. To lower the unemployment rate 1% a year would 300,000 new jobs a month

· Currently, 1 out of 9 African Americans cannot find a job.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

· More than half of 47 states surveyed in a report on NCLB said fiscal problems affected their ability to implement the law.

· Currently under funded by almost $7 billion dollars, NCLB has come under fire from Democrats and Republicans for issuing mandates without necessary funding.

· A report by the Brookings Institute says the needs of gifted or high achieving students are ignored by NCLB

The Wage Gap

· The Gender Gap costs working families $200 billion of income annually – and hits single parent families hardest as more women head households alone than men.

· Two thirds of working women and over half of married women provide at least half of the family income