Women's Week in Review

BUSH WAR ON WOMEN MARCHES ON While the Republican Party holds photo ops at the White House to mark Women's History Month, there is no 'honoring' America's women in the budget this Administration has put forward for 2007. The truth is the war on women marches on ... and it's marching all over us. The Bush Administration and Washington Republicans have lost all credibility and failed to fulfill their promises. The lip service given each year in the State of the Union address and photo-ops at the White House does not square with the real day to day needs of America's women. As the President's approval numbers continue to drop with women of all political stripes, Democrats must speak out that our Party stands ready to rebuild the trust, the credibility and the results so that women can be full partners in our country's success. Want some examples of the cuts that will impact your community? See how this President's Budget is more of the same misplaced priorities and puts special interests ahead of America's Families. The President's budget: Cuts overall funding for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs. When all Violence Against Women programs are taken into account, the budget cuts funding by $19.5 million - cutting programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and providing essential services to victims of domestic violence. Eliminates funding for programs that increase women's opportunities in non-traditional employment. Under the President's budget, the Women in Apprenticeships and Nontraditional Occupations Act (WANTO) is eliminated. The WANTO program awards grants to employers to help them recruit, train, and retain women in non-traditional high-wage jobs. Women who have access to WANTO-funded projects are 47 percent more likely to enter a higher-paying technical occupation. Eliminates the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA). The Bush budget completely eliminates WEEA, an initiative that has funded hundreds of programs to expose girls to careers from which they have traditionally been excluded; develop teaching strategies for math and science; and clarify school obligations with regard to sexual harassment. Increases child care waiting lists by hundreds of thousands. The Child Care and Development Block Grant program provides child care assistance for low-income families and early education services to our country's most disadvantaged children. The President's budget freezes funding for this program for the fifth consecutive year and cuts child care assistance by 400,000 children by 2011. Freezes the maximum Pell Grant for the fifth year in a row. Women at all levels of education still face significant disadvantages in financing a college education and disproportionately rely on Pell Grants. Despite these challenges, the Administration refuses to increase the size of the maximum Pell Grant, making these disadvantages harder to overcome. Cuts funding for food stamps and eliminates nutritional food program for women and their families. Single mothers and their children and elderly women living alone disproportionately rely on federal nutrition assistance - nearly 70 percent of adult food stamp recipients are women. Yet changes to eligibility in the food stamp program could cause 300,000 Americans to lose their food stamp benefits. Slashes funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). The Bush budget makes significant cuts in the Community Development Block Grant, a program that helps women, especially single mothers and elderly women, find shelter in a difficult housing market. The CDBG program plays a critical role in providing housing to our country's most vulnerable, including victims of domestic violence and Hurricane Katrina survivors. THE ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S HEALTH Now that South Dakota Republican Governor Mike Rounds has signed legislation to prevent women from making their own decisions about reproduction, America's women are wondering what next? If a challenge to this legislation were to make it to the Supreme Court, as many observances suggest, the likely timing would place the debate squarely before the next Presidential election in 2008. South Dakota is not the only state to debate prohibition of abortion and ignore the danger to the mother's health or in the case of rape or incest. And if our Supreme Court reverses or modifies the Roe vs. Wade ruling, states could have even more purview to regulate the private decisions of Americans. Democrats know this debate stirs a variety of feelings for our members - as we are the Party that stands not only for a woman's right to privacy and choice in reproductive health care but also as the Party who fights for programs and policies that prevent unwanted pregnancies and in turn works to reduce abortions. It is interesting to note that, according to the South Dakota affiliate of Planned Parenthood, while this Legislature worked so hard on studying the abortion prohibition issue and passing restrictive legislation, they let legislation that could have helped men and women PREVENT unwanted pregnancies dwindle and die in committee. These bills included a requirement that hospitals make women aware that emergency contraception is available, a requirement that insurance companies cover contraceptive drugs if they cover other prescription drugs and a requirement that school districts to offer sex education. So women - and men - who are without affordable access to contraception, are without medically-accurate sexual education information and are not informed that emergency contraception is available in the instance of sex with no consent - are left to ponder... Just where is the compassionate conservatism? DEMOCRATS TAKING THE LEAD This week began with devastating news - that Dana Reeve, who was never a smoker - lost her battle with lung cancer. Dana, along with her late husband Christopher Reeve, were tireless advocates and eloquent champions for people with disabilities and the promise of life-saving stem-cell medical research. The sudden loss of such an effective champion and committed mother is painful. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Reeve's children and the rest of her family. Reeve's courage and strength in the face of her husband's struggles and her own illness are not unlike the daily challenges that caregivers in each of our communities face every day. Caregivers - who are most often women - must struggle with the increasingly complicated maze of health insurance choices, prescription drug costs and Medicare changes brought to us by a Washington Republican establishment who gives insider access to drug and health industry special interests. The Bush Administration's recent budget proposals for 2007 will only bring more confusion and headache to caregivers: Slashes Medicare by $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over 10 years. The GOP budget-cutting bill (S. 1932) that the President just signed into law includes cuts in Medicare payments to health care providers of $22 billion over 10 years. Now, the Bush budget is calling for extensive new cuts in Medicare payments to providers - slashing Medicare by $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over 10 years. This drastic cut in Medicare would have a particularly damaging impact on women, as women account for over 56 percent of adult Medicare beneficiaries. Includes gross Medicaid cuts, including both legislative and regulatory cuts, of $17 billion over five years and $42 billion over 10 years. The Bush budget calls for $42 billion additional Medicaid cuts, on top of the deep cuts Congress enacted in 2005. Medicaid beneficiaries, the majority of whom are women and girls, will be adversely affected by these new cuts. Medicaid cuts of this magnitude cannot be found by simply closing loopholes - the pain will be felt by women and their families who must pay even more for their care, or lose access to care if they are under-insured. Fails to make health care affordable for women and their families. More than 20 million women do not have health insurance, and millions more can barely afford to pay their premiums. Yet the President's plan to expand Health Savings Accounts gives employers an enormous incentive to drop or reduce the health benefits that they provide now - thereby undermining employer-based health care coverage. For women, who typically need and use more health care than men, HSAs can lead to high out-of-pocket costs that will discourage necessary health care use. While President Bush is cutting the programs that affect the care and health of our families, Washington Republicans are stonewalling advances in scientific and medical research. Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist continues to postpone debate on legislation to expand stem-cell research opportunities despite a majority of Americans supporting expansion of this important and life saving research. Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid (NV) knows debate on this key issue is what American families want. DEMOCRATS MARK INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY The Democratic Party understands that in order to fight hunger, to fight against poverty and to fight for peace, we need the leadership of women in our communities and in our statehouses, here and around the world. The global community has seen the election of women as leaders in several continents - including Liberia's new president and Africa's first woman head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Angela Merkel in Germany, Tarja Halonen in Finland, Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia, and Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand. During a speech to the US Congress this week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), acknowledged that "Women are still severely underrepresented in the halls of power." Goals set at the 1995 Beijing World Conference of Women compel us to work towards parliaments with 30 percent women representation but here at home only 15 percent of the members of Congress are women, half of the goal! Why does it matter that women are at the policy table? Because women policy makers raise women's voices - about basic rights such as health care and security, about fairness and equal treatment in the workplace, about our government being open, honest and less susceptible to fraud and waste. Pelosi and the Democratic women in the House and Senate know that with a focus on women's health, especially in the areas of prevention and education, with improved economic security through support for microenterprise that allows women to lift themselves out of poverty and the creation of higher wage work, and by the elimination of all forms of violence against women, America's women can make strides for women everywhere.