CALL TO ACTION

Please call your U.S. Representative and both U.S. Senators to express your opposition to the Trump administration's short-term budget request for Fiscal Year 2017, which artificially insists on $33 billion in new defense and border spending and $18 billion worth of spending cuts elsewhere in order to prevent the federal government from shutting down on April 29. Instead, urge your Member of Congress to work across party lines to pass a "clean" spending bill that keeps the government funded at or near its current levels. Find your Congressional members at WhoIsMyRepresentative.com. Feel free to customize the suggested script below with your own words.

Suggested Script:

My name is _____________, and I am a constituent of [Congressional member]. I strongly oppose the President's short-term budget request for the remainder of this fiscal year, for a number of reasons.

First, the military does not need an additional $30 billion dollars in defense spending over the next five months. The United States already spends more on its military than the next seven countries in the world combined. . Congress should work to eliminate wasteful spending on bureaucracy and unnecessary weapons programs before it considers allocating a penny more in additional defense spending, especially in light of recent reporting from the Washington Post and others that the Pentagon wastes approximately $25 billion per year in overhead costs alone

Second, Congress should reject President Trump's request for $1.5 billion to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Leaving aside the ineffectiveness of a physical border wall, President Trump promised that Mexico would pay for his wall, not American taxpayers. Hold President Trump to his word.

Third, and most importantly, the $18 billion worth of spending cuts contemplated in the President's short-term budget request are morally unacceptable. The White House wasn't courageous enough to publicly share the specifics of their proposed cuts, but according to leaked reports they have requested that Congress cut funding for affordable housing programs, food assistance, HIV/AIDS research, Pell Grants for low-income college students, and many other important domestic and international programs. Some Members of Congress apparently want to use the shutdown deadline to try and completely defund Planned Parenthood.

These kinds of partisan, last-minute budget battles aren't what the country needs right now. Please tell [Member of Congress] to work across party lines to pass a "clean" spending bill that keeps the government funded at or near its current levels. If Congress is really serious about finding immediate savings in the federal budget, it should start by demanding President Trump to cover the exorbitant travel and security costs associated with his weekly golf outings at Mar-a-Lago.

Thank you.

BACKGROUND:

Stopgap legislation funding the federal government is set to expire on April 28. If Congress fails to pass a budget extension, the government will shut down on April 29, President Trump's 100th day in office.

While Democrats and many moderate Republicans in Congress would be happy to pass a "clean" spending bill that keeps the government funded at or near current levels, prospects for a government shutdown ratcheted up last month when the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a supplemental budget request for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year asking for $30 billion in additional defense spending, a $1.5 billion "down payment" for construction on a U.S.-Mexico border wall, an additional $1.5 billion for detaining and deporting undocumented persons, and $18 billion worth of unspecified budget cuts. An OMB spreadsheet provided to Congress and subsequently leaked to the press identified a "menu" of suggested budget cuts, including:

• a $1.2 billion cut in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH);
• a $1.3 billion reduction in Pell Grants, which help low-income students afford to attend college;
• a $1.5 billion cut to the Community Development Block Grant overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD);
• a $200 million cut to the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food assistance program; and
• a $439 million cut to AmeriCorps, which would completely defund the program.

Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) are also reportedly considering a non-negotiable demand to defund Planned Parenthood in exchange for their votes on any budget bill, though HFC leader Mark Meadows has expressed reservations about the strategy.

Although initially overshadowed by the larger dollars amounts included in OMB's budget request for FY 2018 (which begins on Oct. 1, 2017), the President's budget request for the remainder of FY 2017 has assumed a renewed importance in recent days as the April 28 shutdown deadline approaches. Fortunately, any budget agreement to keep the government open would need Democrat support to overcome a potential filibuster in the Senate. Given Paul Ryan's inability to control extremists in the HFC, a budget bill would also likely need Democratic votes to pass in the House, as happened repeatedly throughout Barack Obama's presidency. Perhaps cognizant of political reality, the White House may not even be serious about its FY 2017 budget request, with one anonymous official characterizing its spending proposals as merely "planting flags" in an early-stage negotiation.

Here, Rise Stronger members need to pressure their Members of Congress to avoid partisan brinksmanship over the continued functioning of the federal government. Government shutdowns can cost billions of dollars in avoidable waste and damage to the economy, and it's curious how Republicans may be willing to risk such costs over a partisan budget request that would actually increase the budget deficit by $15 billion.

Larger budget battles loom later this summer over the FY 2018 budget and a possible breach of the federal debt ceiling, but engagement by an informed citizenry now will send a message that Congress needs to choose stability and bipartisan cooperation over dysfunctional extremism.