Talking
Points
1. Debt
agreement has been signed.
2. House
Labor HHS bill was to have been marked up before
recess. It would have required cuts of $18 billion
below the FY 2011 funding levels. The only way to
achieve this kind of cut is to eliminate whole
programs and agencies and it was a forgone
conclusion that the House bill would have called for
the elimination of CNCS.
3.
Ironically, the debt agreement could provide a fair
amount of relief but we still don’t know how much.
The agreement largely fixes the Pell shortfall,
which would have cost us 11 billion – now it’s 1
billion or less.
4. It
replaces the Ryan House 18 billion cut with some
portion of a 4 billion “non-security” cut. LHHS is
about half of the non-security budget so it take a
fair portion of that cut.
5.
There are some scoring issues that need to be
resolved about whether programs that last year were
scored as mandatory spending are scored as
discretionary and, therefore, counted against the
total or will continue to be counted as mandatory
spending. It is not yet clear who resolves them or
how. That’s a 7 billion hole.
6. Right
now, the best guess is that the funding level for
the Labor HHS bill, we’ll be around $8 to 10 billion
below
last year.
7. This
means that there will be more cuts. The senior corps
programs compete not only with other Corporation
programs but with programs like Head Start,
Education, NIH and cancer research, that have well
organized constituencies and a lot of support.
8.
Conservative members of the House and Senate are
questioning continued funding for Senior Corps.
9. There
are roughly 100 new members of Congress – many of
them new to politics -- who are not aware of
RSVP
programs in their districts or of their
constituencies.
10. Many
Members of Congress have not heard from RSVP
programs or volunteers about the impact of Senior
Corps volunteers in their districts. Some members
are not aware that they even have RSVP programs in
their districts.
11.
Within the next several months, your Representative
and Senators will vote on the 2012 budget affecting
Senior Corps. All politics is local. Your
Representative or Senator need to hear from you to
vote according to
the will
of those they represent. Without your advocacy,
they will not hear it from those they serve about
the value of RSVP volunteers in their own districts.
12. It
is up to us to mobilize project directors,
volunteers, and especially community partners - to
make sure votes are cast in support of RSVP
Programs.
WHAT
CAN YOU DO?
1.
That is why we need you to join us on August 10 for
District Day, to tell Congress to invest
in the Corporation for National and Community
Service.
Without
cost-effective federal investment in national
service, 90,000 young adults who serve on the front
lines of natural disasters, the education crisis and
more will be without jobs, $1 billion in private
investment will be withdrawn from local communities,
and vital services helping to keep veterans and
seniors independent and reduce their need for
state-funded assistance will be eliminated.
Here’s how to help:
1.
Sign up to join an event
the Save Service website.
2. Recruit a
friend to come with you – the larger the turn out we
have at each of the events, the
more attention we will generate on a local and
national level.
3. Promote that you support Save Service efforts
by changing your social media profile
2. When
you make these visits, be strong and be vocal. Bring
something written with you to leave behind. We have
distributed several templates that you can use.
INCLUDE THE NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS. DESCRIBE WHAT YOU
DO AND WITH WHOM YOU DO IT. EMPHASIZE THAT WITHOUT
RSVP VOLUNTEERS THIS WORK WOULD NOT BE DONE,
VOLUNTEERS WILL CERTAINLY NOT BE REPLACED WITH PAID
WORKERS, AND COMMUNITIES WILL SUFFER. COMPARE THE
COST OF KEEPING ONE OR TWO SENIORS OUT OF NURSING
HOMES WITH YOUR GRANT.
IF
POSSIBLE, PERSONALIZE YOUR WORK: JOHNNY COULDN’T
READ, NOW HE CAN. MRS. SMITH’S FAMILY IGNORED HER,
NOW SHE GETS MEALS DELIVERED BY AN RSVP VOLUNTEER.
3. GO TO
THE GENWORTH FINANCIAL WEBSITE
www.genworth.com/content/products/long_term_care/long_term_care/cost_of_care.html
