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Ed Walz
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Washington – First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy organization, today released an analysis of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee’s revised subcommittee funding allocations. The analysis shows that the revised 302(b) allocations will result in deep funding cuts for congressional appropriations legislation that includes critical investments in children.
“If budgets are about priorities, the House Appropriations Committee doesn’t place a high priority on kids,” said First Focus Bruce Lesley.
The analysis examined the impact of revised allocations on seven specific congressional appropriations bills that provide funding for key children’s initiatives. The revisions would result in cuts totaling nearly $15 billion to bills that fund education, health care, child abuse and neglect prevention and response, child nutrition, anti-poverty initiatives, and a range of other children’s priorities. These cuts would follow billions in across-the-board cuts to children’s initiatives resulting from federal budget “sequestration.”
“The House allocations aren’t just adding insult to injury for children’s initiatives already impacted by sequestration – they’re actually adding more injury,” said Lesley.