By Jubi Headley

As the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee once again indefinitely delayed markup of its FY 2000 bill, rumors of cuts in these key programs spread throughout Washington children and family advocacy organizations. In a strong preemptive strike, The Children’s Defense Fund, one of the nation’s premier advocacy organizations on behalf of children, drew a proverbial line in the sand and issued statements on July 21 cautioning Congress against ‘raiding’ key programs that support children-including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, and the two year-old Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP)-in order to meet unrealistic FY2000 spending caps.

"There are in excess of eleven million uninsured children in the United States," the statement read. "The states, with the federal government as a financial partner, are engaged in outreach and enrollment efforts to get eligible children into Medicaid and CHIP. Cuts in the federal financial support of the Medicaid and CHIP programs will serve to undermine these efforts."

Currently, nearly 20 million children, a majority of them from working families, rely on the Medicaid program as the source of their health care; it is estimated that another 4.7 million children are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled. And while another one million children are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, millions more are expected to enroll as states accelerate the implementation of the program. Cuts in these programs would not only jeopardize efforts to increase the numbers of children with access to critical primary health care, but in fact could increase the numbers of uninsured children.

While specific information regarding the size of the cuts was not mentioned, Mayors and other child advocates in Washington and across the nation have expressed strong opposition to any cuts, and have in fact called for increases to provide greater access to health care for children. The Conference of Mayors has a strong policy record of advocating for providing every child in America with quality health care, and was a strong supporter of the 1997 Hatch-Kennedy child health legislation that authorized and created CHIP.

In addition to cuts in CHIP and Medicaid, the Children’s Defense Fund issued a second statement reporting that the Labor/HHS subcommittee is considering a $5 billion cut in Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF). (The program was created as a result of the 1996 welfare law, and distributes funds to states by formula). Congress has threatened in the past to cut TANF allocations, charging that states have not been spending the monies appropriately, instead setting portions of their allocations for ‘rainy day’ funds.

The statement declared, "It is incredible that members of the House would consider repealing estate taxes, slashing capital gains taxes, and repealing the alternative minimum tax-tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest of Americans (primarily the top ten percent of all taxpayers), at the same that [they] would consider cutting TANF assistance for families who struggle to put food on the table in low wage-paying jobs."

While the markup dates for both the House and Senate continue to be postponed, it is certain that should Congress in fact propose these cuts to the FY2000 Labor/HHS appropriations bill, Mayors, governors, child advocates and others across the country will take swift action, condemning any move to cut funding for children in need.