| For Immediate Release: April 3, 2009 |
  |
For More Information: Bob Cohen, 518.465.4600 x 104 518.265.6183 (c) Ron Deutsch, NYFF 518-469-6769 |
Organizations Announce New York’s Participation in Historic National Coalition to Pass the President’s Budget
Obama Budget Passes Round One This Week
Health Care Reform is on the Line
Albany – The day President Obama’s historic budget is expected to pass its first hurdle, Citizen Action of New York, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness and Health Care for America Now joined together to announce New York’s participation in a major national campaign to pass President Barack Obama’s historic budget plan.
“We are mobilizing together to support the President’s budget because it’s a substantial step in reviving the New York economy, providing jobs and finally moving the state and nation forward in a wide range of issues, like health care reform, climate change, and education,” said Karen Scharff, Executive Director of Citizen Action of New York. “We are hopeful that both of New York’s Senators and the overwhelming majority of the state’s Congressional delegation will actively work to pass the Obama budget plan, and to ensure that right-wing Republicans don’t continue to undermine the President’s efforts to rescue the economy.” Citizen Action is a membership organization that fights for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
“While President Obama inherited the nation’s worst economic crisis in generations, his budget resets America’s priorities in historic fashion to rebuild and renew America,” said Ron Deutsch, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness. “From returning fairness to our tax code, to making significant down payments on health care reform, to creating green jobs to address global climate change, President Obama’s budget is the blueprint for transformational change which Americans voted for in November.”
More than 100 leading national progressive organizations — many of which led the fight to pass President Obama’s jobs and economic recovery package — have in one month signed up for a multi-million dollar national campaign called “Rebuild and Renew America Now.” The campaign will ratchet up all the same tools and strategies behind the successful campaign to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The New York organizations that are supporting Rebuild and Renew America are asking tens of thousands of their members and leaders of hundreds of organizations and elected officials, statewide and local, to contact the New York Congressional delegation to support the plan. Over 60 New York organizations have already signed onto the national coalition. (A list of the signers thus far appears at https://citizenactionny.org/federalissues.)
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed its budget resolution 233-196. The Senate passed its budget resolution last night 55-43. No Republicans in either house of the Congress voted with the majority. Both New York Senators and all of the New York Democratic House members voted in favor.
The organizations said the budget resolutions in both houses are giant steps forward for working families in New York and nationwide. Both budgets contain provisions to set aside funding as a “down payment” on establishing affordable health care for all, and to slow climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Modest increases are also proposed for domestic programs, permitting increases for a wide range of priorities like child nutrition and low-income energy assistance.
“It is encouraging that both houses of Congress took the first step this week, by including President Obama’s health care reform plan in their budget resolutions,” said Mary Clark, Citizen Action Southern Tier regional director, who coordinates the national Health Care for America Now campaign efforts in New York State. “We’re going to mobilize both organizations and average working New Yorkers in the coming weeks to make sure that our Senators and House members fight for health care for all this year.”
A national survey by the Greenberg Quinlan Rosier firm for National Public Radio done last month found that voters favor the President’s budget plan by a 53 to 38 percent margin. And voters overwhelmingly side with the President on the critical arguments underlying his budget; for example, by 57 to 36 percent, voters reject the Republican argument that Obama’s budget will damage the economy by raising taxes on entrepreneurs in the middle of the recession. The survey is available at:
http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2009/03/obama-democrats-well-positioned-for-budget-debate/.
“Passing the Obama budget is critical to continuing to jump-start the New York economy, and protect basic services from schools to nutrition aid to low-income energy assistance that are vital to our communities,” said Jon Greenbaum, an organizer for Metro Justice, a Rochester-based social justice organization.
“We are mounting this effort because, while its clear that the overwhelming majority of Americans are on our side, we have no doubt that powerful vested interests — from insurance companies who benefit from the current broken health care system, to corporations who benefit from tax loopholes that help their industries — will fight this budget tooth and nail,” said Lisa Tyson, Director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition. “We are confident that just as we were successful in getting the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act passed, we will be successful in convincing Congress to pass the Obama budget plan.”
###