LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Cuts: Programs
built 619 days ago
The announced cuts eliminated the Court Challenges Program. The program was introduced after the ratification of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and was a way of providing ordinary Canadians with the resources to challenge laws that may violate the Charter. The program made a decisive contribution to several historic and successful challenges including the judgment guaranteeing pay equity and marriage rights for same-sex couples as well as francophone rights outside of Quebec. The program was specifically designed to assist equity-seeking groups who would not otherwise have had the resources to bring a challenge. The program was run by a board of professionals who vetted all proposals for viability before extending funding. The cancellation of the program will save the government $5.6 million.
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Congress is proposing cuts to Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) benefit, which pays for care for more than 300,000 Medicare beneficiaries with kidney failure and dialysis care. These cuts have been proposed despite a formal recommendation to Congress by the non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC) to account for inflationary adjustments in Medicare's payment for ESRD care. These adjustments would account for normal increases in labor costs, some patient services and medication-related supplies. Further, the proposed cuts ignore the strong and growing congressional support for the Kidney Care Quality & Education Act (H.R. 1193), introduced by Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and David Camp (R-MI), which establishes a three-year continuous quality improvement initiative to reward quality, provides an inflationary adjustment for three years tied to clinical performance, and initiates a robust patient education and disease prevention program. Currently, the bill has more than 100 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
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The impact of the cuts will reverberate beyond seniors who rely on Medicare. America's military families will ... be hurt, as the military health insurance program, TRICARE, faces the same physician payment cuts as Medicare. In fact, all patients should be concerned about the Medicare cuts, as more than two-thirds of physicians tell the AMA they will defer purchases of information technology next year. Over the life of the cuts, about eight in 10 physicians report they will have to forgo this important purchase used to improve health care quality. Also troubling, more than half of physicians say they will reduce their practice staff, and 14 percent will completely get out of patient care when Medicare cuts hit next year.
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This Thursday marks the beginning of a renewed effort by the White House economic team to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. Bush Administration officials will carry this message to key states: their tax policy program has helped the U.S. economy to thrive, with steady job creation and strong economic growth. If the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are allowed to expire, millions of working families will see their economic prospects dim, their job opportunities diminish, and economic uncertainty rise.
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The cuts in skills and literacy funding were deep, unexpected, and puzzling. The federal government had given no indication that it would be cutting skills and training funding. The curious logic used by the government to justify the cut to literacy funding is that they want to focus on improving literacy amongst young people in the K-12 system. While no one could argue against that pressing need, it is difficult to see how that justifies cutting funding for programs that offer literacy courses in local communities across the country. Literacy programs are designed specifically to give adults a second chance at literacy and enhanced job skills.
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The TE program’s small size – it counts for less than two cents of every surface transportation dollar – and slow state implementations in its early years contributed to the significant balances of unobligated funds that open it to far-reaching cuts. But there is overwhelming evidence of growing public support for the TE program at the local and national level. Spending records show that in the past five years most state obligation rates have grown by at least 10 percent, or 2 percent annually, for a current -- and climbing -- national average of 76 percent. And in September 2003, when the House Appropriations Committee voted to eliminate TE funding, a Rails-to-Trails Conservancy-led campaign resulted in tremendous public outcry – and prompted a House vote of 327 to 90 to fully restore the program’s funds.
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