This year’s District budget is $600 million less than three years ago, adjusting for inflation.
True or false?
True.
This year’s human services budget is 10 percent less than three years ago, and of the largest areas of our budget, it has been cut the most.
True or false?
True again.
These statements are important to keep in mind as our leaders wrestle with how to close a $175 million shortfall for the current fiscal year. The mayor’s plan for closing the gap is expected any day now, and a first vote by the DC Council could come as early as December 7.
Those who say budget cutting is the only way to solve our fiscal crisis imply that the District government is simply spending too much. Yet the fact is that DC’like nearly every other city and state’is in a budget crisis because it has collected less revenue than expected due to the recession (more on that tomorrow). The right response is to make sensible revenue additions as well as sensible cuts.
In fact, spending cuts already have been a large part of the effort to close DC’s budget shortfalls. The FY 2011 budget passed this past spring is $600 million lower than the budget for FY 2008, after adjusting for inflation.
Since the beginning of the recession, DC’s budget for human services has fallen despite the fact that more and more residents are unemployed and can’t provide for themselves and their families as they wish they could. In fact, in three years human services has seen a 10 percent cut, far larger than public safety which has seen a six percent cut and education which has seen no net decrease.
But the needs of many DC residents haven’t fallen amidst one of the worst recessions on record. Unemployment jumped to record levels, and remains far higher than pre-recession levels at 9.8 percent. The number of people receiving food stamps has increased by nearly 37 percent rising to over 124,000 people in July 2010. The number of people enrolled in Medicaid and DC’s Health Care Alliance programs were just over 188,000 in March of 2008. When the FY 2011 budget was passed, it was estimated that over 237,000 people would be enrolled by the end of FY 2011, an estimated 23 percent increase in just two and half years.
Tough choices have to be made in the upcoming months. DCFPI has argued for a balanced approach to closing the budget gap that involves a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases. However, the brunt of the cuts have been placed on human services, the one area many residents are forced to turn to when times get tough. Times are still tough; we can’t continue to place the greatest burden on those who are already hurting the most.
