Black Caucus goes after Obama, GOP for ‘draconian’ cuts

“Draconian” budget cuts proposed by both House Republicans and President Obama will hit minority communities the hardest and should be rolled back, leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) warned this week.

The reductions – targeting programs as diverse as energy subsidies, neighborhood grants and tuition assistance — would only exacerbate the economic troubles of low-income communities at a time when minority unemployment is already much worse than the national average, the lawmakers said.

{mosads}They’re calling on both Congress and the White House to seek cuts where they can be better absorbed. 

“Draconian austerity measures will directly impact and harm our communities,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), the CBC chairman, told reporters in the Capitol this week. “I tend not to think that we ought to be fair. I think that gets us in trouble, because the poorest people should not have to pay the same price as, for example, the Wall Street barons that got us in trouble.”

Another CBC member, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), echoed that sentiment, warning that the proposed cuts would “give a pink slip to hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

“If no one speaks for the least and the last, we will do it,” Fudge said.

Under their plan to fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year, Republicans have proposed a 63 percent cut in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), from $4.5 billion to $1.5 billion. That program offers housing subsidies and other aid to low-income communities.

The GOP proposal also cuts $845 million from Pell Grants, which help low-income students attend college.

“Education is the great equalizer,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said at a separate news conference this week. “Without these investments we will once again leave behind too many communities that have been struggling for decades just to get on an equal footing with the rest of the country.”

While the nation’s unemployment rate stood at 9 percent in January, the number was 15.7 percent for African-Americans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cleaver called the GOP bill “a nervous breakdown on paper.”

Still, while CBC members focused their criticism most intently on the Republicans’ proposal, they also voiced strong opposition to certain provisions of the White House budget. That bill would cut 7.5 percent from the block grant program in 2012, while slashing low-income heating assistance in half.

Cleaver said Obama would oppose his own budget, were he still in Congress.

“If the president was still a member of the CBC, he would be standing next to Barbara Lee [D-Calif.] criticizing the budget that was presented today, and so we have an obligation do that, to oppose things that we think will impact negatively our constituents,” he said.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) had even harsher words, saying the White House budget proposal pulls pages straight from the Republicans’ playbook.

“As the president, he should be the last line of defense for the most vulnerable Americans, instead of the first one to cut,” Jackson said.

Obama has acknowledged that his proposal slashes some programs “that I care deeply about,” including the community development grants and other low-income programs. “But if we’re going to walk the walk when it comes to fiscal discipline,” he said during the budget’s unveiling, “these kinds of cuts will be necessary.”

The House is expected to vote on the GOP’s spending bill this week.