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Thursday June 3, 2010
$850 Million Hole In The Pennsylvania Budget.
Dear Friend of Children,
We need your help filling an $850 million hole in the Pennsylvania Budget by clicking here.
Last week members of the House left Washington for the Memorial Day break without providing a six-month extension of federal aid to states through enhanced FMAP (the federal Medicaid match) funds. If the Senate does not put the FMAP provisions back into the Jobs Bill, funding for most state programs for children and families will be in jeopardy.
Senators Casey and Specter have worked hard to finalize the FMAP extension, but there is great and mounting pressure to exclude it from the final Jobs Bill. Let Senators Casey and Specter know we appreciate their efforts and need their continued commitment to protect children and families!
Add your individual or organization’s name on a letter to Senators Casey and Specter to send a STRONG signal that FMAP must be in the final bill!
Act now - Senators Casey and Specter need to hear from you TODAY. Sign-ons will be collected through NOON on Monday June 7th.
Thank you for your continued advocacy.
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Some Additional Background Information:
The enhanced FMAP rate was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and has been crucial to Pennsylvania’s budget so that deeper cuts to health and human services could be avoided at a time that demand was way up for such services. The FMAP provision is set to expire in December – midway through the state fiscal year. Congress has sent consistent and strong messages to states that they believe continued high unemployment and too little economic rebound on Main Street are justification to provide states with a temporary extension of enhanced FMAP. Despite lots of promises, Congress did not get the job done, setting the stage for budget crises in the states.
Last week, prior to final passage of H.R. 4213 (American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010) in the U.S. House the FMAP provisions were stripped from the bill. This despite the fact that nearly all of the House Democrats from PA signed a May 7th letter urging their leadership to get the job done on FMAP. There has been lots of talk but nothing to assure Pennsylvania legislators that the money will be in the bank when they negotiate a final budget.
State revenue collections are currently $1.2 billion (nearly 5%) below expectation. Without FMAP that deficit would exceed $2 billion. Even if lawmakers are (and they should be) courageous to move on some revenue-raising measures, the gap in Pennsylvania’s budget is still too big to be filled without deep deep cuts!
So do your part to help close an $850 million GAP in the PA Budget by clicking here.
About this E-Alert
In an effort to keep our friends and colleagues up-to-date on what’s going on with children and families in our region, PCCY will, from time to time, issue an E-Alert on an issue that we need YOU to take action on!
We will: provide you with the information on the issues
We need YOU to: take the action step(s) that are listed
We hope that you will join us in helping to protect the lives and life chances of children and families in our region by doing something TODAY to help protect their tomorrows. However, if you would like to be removed from the e-mail list and receive no further updates, please send an e-mail to info@pccy.org.
* END ALERT *
President: James Martin
Executive Director: Shelly D. Yanoff
Communications Director: Sid Holmes
Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY)
1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Sixth Floor
Philadelphia, Pa 19103
Phone: 215-563-5848
Fax: 215-563-9442
Website: www.pccy.org
E-mail: info@pccy.org
Webmaster: Steven Fynes
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