The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry
     
 
 
Action Alert Updates


Assess the President's 2004 Budget Proposal!

02/11/2003

 

  • The President's FY 2004 Budget Proposal Was Released on February 3, 2003.
  • Please, Review the National Grange's Position on the President's Budget Proposal and Make Our Voice Heard by Contacting the President, Government Agencies, and Your Representatives. .

. Tax reform is at the top of the agenda for the National Grange. We support you call for accelerating income tax reductions that are already scheduled to take place, creating flatter and fairer income tax brackets. We support your proposals to eliminate the "marriage penalty" and accelerate the $1000 per child federal income tax credit. We strongly support your proposal to increase capital expensing for small businesses and farms from a current maximum of $25,000.00 per year to $75,000.00. We would like you to consider also making the elimination of the "death" tax permanent as part of your tax proposal that is sent to the Congress. If the marriage penalty and the child credit should be eliminated now, then so should the death tax.

. Rural seniors need an affordable prescription drug coverage plan.

. The National Grange strongly supports your efforts to secure our nation's energy future and provide future generations with a healthy environment. We support enactment of your Clean Skies Initiative as well as your Healthy Forests Initiatives as prudent first steps in our goal of improving our economy and our environment. Additional steps along this line should include reform of the Endangered Species Act, reform of regulations governing the use of wetlands, and proactive measures to protect the rights to own and use private property that are protected under the US Constitution, state constitutions and the common law.

. We support your call for increased technological innovation to help provide clean sources of energy in the 21st Century. As your Administration works to develop clean sources of fuel from hydrogen, I urge you to not neglect development of the proven clean energy resources that already exist on our nations farms, such as ethanol, biodiesel, biomass and wind energy. While hydrogen may be the fuel of the future, clean energy derived from our farms is cost effective, and environmentally effective energy that we can use today. We also need to utilize domestic reserves of traditional energy resources, such as the petroleum reserves of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as a bridge from our current fossil fuel based economy to a more sustainable energy economy in the 21st Century.

- On January 31, 2003, by Kermit W. Richardson, National Master, to
President Bush responding to the State of the Union address

National Grange's Position on the President Bush's 2004 Budget Proposal

Support:

1. The President's budget proposes to continue implementation of farm program safety net, with 10-year cost of $174 billion, and proposes reforms to efficiently deliver crop insurance.

2. President Bush wants to spend $196 million of the Agriculture Department's 2004 budget on loans to telecommunications companies to improve Internet access in rural towns and communities. Read more

3. The President's budget proposes to invest $400 billion over 10 years to strengthen and improve Medicare with prescription drug coverage.

4. The President's budget proposes to add 230 new and expanded health centers to serve an additional one million people in rural and underserved urban areas. ($1.6 billion (+$169 million) to fund 3,685 health center sites serving 14 million people)

5. The President's budget proposes to continue America's progress on clean air, clean water, and natural resource protection. ($4.3 billion (+seven percent) for the Environmental Protection Agency's operating budget)

6. The President's budget proposes to reduce risk to the 73 million acres of federal forest vulnerable to catastrophic fire. ($415 million for the Forest Service and Interior Department to implement the President's Healthy Forests Initiative)

7. The President's budget provides $41 billion for total homeland security spending. Excluding Department of Defense spending, the budget includes $35 billion for homeland security, a $2.5 billion or 7.6% increase that more than doubles funding over the past two years.

8. The President's budget proposes to spend $1.7 billion over the next five years for the hydrogen fuel initiative and FreedomCAR programs for hydrogen fuel cell research and development to enable the next generation of automobiles to be pollution free. Read more

9. The President's budget proposes a $2.5 million increase for the AMBER Alert initiative, which alerts the public about child abductions in their area.

10. The President's budget provides new incentives for small businesses to grow and invest. Under his plan, small businesses that purchase equipment to expand will get assistance through an increase in the expensing limits from $25,000 to $75,000.

11. The President's budget accelerates income tax rate reductions, the elimination of the marriage penalty, and the increase in the child tax credit from $600 to $1000. A family of 4 with income of $40,000 would see their federal income taxes fall from $1,178 to $45.

12. The President's budget proposes making the elimination of the estate tax permanent.

Oppose:

1. The President's budget provides $129 million for the FWS endangered species program. The budget also provides a $5 million increase for restoring and recovering salmon in the Columbia River Basin.

2. The President's budget does not include funding for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), which authorized $300 million a year for six years for small rural schools and poor rural schools.

3. The President's budget proposes to charge meat and poultry packing plants fees of $122 million for inspection.

4. The President's budget proposes to make EPA a cabinet-level agency.

For more information,
Fact Sheet: President Bush's 2004 Budget
President's 2004 Budget Released

Action Plan --- Please send a letter/email/fax and make a phone call to President, Bush, Government agencies, and your Senators and Representatives and express your assessment on the President's FY 2004 Budget Proposal!

If you have any questions or comments please contact Legislative Research Analyst Chil-Sook Hwang by fax: 202-347-1091 or by phone: 1-888-4GRANGE, ext 109. Thank you for your grassroots participation in the National Grange Legislative program.

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