Reminder: Write Your Representative Asking Them to Co-sponsor the PACT Act!
The Pathways Advancing Career Training (PACT) Act, recently introduced by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA), would fund programs that help low-income women find, train for, and succeed in high-wage, high-skill jobs with prospects for advancement. Ask your Representative to co-sponsor the PACT Act, HR 5774, TODAY!
What To Do: Email or fax a letter to your Representative THIS WEEK asking her/him to co-sponsor HR 5774, the Pathways Advancing Career Training Act.
Be sure to send a copy of your letter to Women Work! at emohan@womenwork.org so that we can track our joint impact! |
Budget/Appropriations Update
The House and Senate have reached an agreement to take up the FY 2009 budget again, setting the ground for a joint House-Senate Conference Committee negotiation to begin as early as next week. The resulting Budget Resolution would be a non-binding blueprint that sets broad aggregate totals which the Appropriations Committees are then to divvy up between specific programs.
This development means that the House and Senate have agreed on a total for the domestic discretionary budget, the part of the budget that funds programs for unemployed and underemployed women. Although Members of Congress on the Budget Committees would not disclose the exact number, sources say that it is closer to the House's higher number than the Senate's lower one. Both are significantly higher than the total President Bush proposed in February.
Despite this progress, many people on Capitol Hill are predicting that the FY 2009 spending bills may not be passed until after the 2008 Presidential election. While the Budget and Appropriations Committees are expected to finish their work, Democratic leaders are most likely unwilling to engage with Bush in a protracted battle over domestic spending levels, as they did last year. Some sources say that they may be more willing to pass continuing resolutions (which will keep federal funding at constant levels) until they can negotiate with the next President in January.
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