The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its version of a Fiscal Year 2006 funding measure on July 12, with the full Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the Subcommittee product two days later, on July 14. Hanging in the balance is funding for Senior Corps programs, including RSVP, for the fiscal year beginning on October 1. 

Over the past several months, Board members and leadership have been active in getting the message out to Committee members about the importance of sustaining (and EXPANDING) funding for RSVP and opportunities for all senior volunteers. 

The House of Representatives has already given its approval to a companion measure, which provides an additional $1.76 million for RSVP over the Fiscal Year 2005 funding level (a total of $60.288 million). The House level embraces the President's proposed increase for RSVP something of an anomaly in a budget which froze, cut, and eliminated scores of Federal domestic programs, including sever cuts in the Community Services Block Grant (the funding source for support of Community Action Agencies, many of which operate Senior Corps programs). Nearly 50 education programs were eliminated in the President's budget and the House Appropriations Bill. Now it's the Senate's turn. 

The House measure also accepted the President's proposals for increases in the Senior Companion Program ($1.534 million to $47.438 million) and Foster Grandparent Program (+0.634 million to $112.058 million). 

Association members are encouraged to keep up the education effort (and pressure) on Senators as they prepare to consider the Labor/HHS Appropriations Bill. We have been very successful in securing letters of support from other Senators to Subcommittee Chair Arlen Specter (PA) and Ranking Democrat Tom Harkin (IA). That is an important way to secure our legislative goals. 

Once the Senate completes action on its version of the Labor/HHS Appropriations Bill (which, for the first time will also include funding for AmeriCorps and the balance of the Corporation for National and Community Service), House and Senate conferees will sit down to resolve their differences, with final action anticipated before the start of the fiscal year on October 1. 

Other Issues 

Also on the agenda for the remaining months of the 1st Session of the 109th Congress is other important budget legislation which can impact the Senior Corps and the people we serve. In September, the House and Senate will consider "reconciliation" legislation, which threatens to cut entitlement and direct spending, programs, including Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Student Loan programs. Also on the docket: major tax legislation (repeal or modification of the Estate Tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)), which threatens to deepen the current and future deficit picture and budget outlook -- potentially draining hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from the Federal budget. Congress has a real potential in the months ahead to tie its hands on finding its way out of the deficit picture absent deep cuts in domestic programming (or defense funding). 

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce (Chairman John Boehner (OH) and Ranking Democrat George Miller (CA)) and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Chairman Mike Enzi (WY) and Ranking Democrat Ted Kennedy (MA)) may also consider legislation to reauthorize the Older Americans Act (including congregate and home-delivered meals and supportive services) in the fall. The rescheduled December convening of the White House Conference on Aging may cause lawmakers to postpone consideration of the Older Americans Act in order to be better informed by the Conference. 

And, finally, there is always the fated Social Security Act reform. House and Senate tax-writers (House Committee on Ways and Means and Senate Committee on Finance) have promised Social Security reform prior to the Election Year of 2006. Only time will tell whether program solvency and fulfillment of the President's pledge for "private accounts" will be enacted.