Congressional Support for CAPs

Congress is out again this week. I like this time of year. People are still working but meetings on the Hill are different during these breaks. I had a meeting last week with key Senate staff. We talked about CSBG and the state of Community Action. We normally would be scheduled for thirty minutes. Our meeting last week lasted slightly over 2 hours. These breaks allow us to spend more quality time with congressional staff.

Congress is back on Monday of next week. The Senate Budget Committee will attempt to produce a budget. I don’t think it will pass out of the committee though. I don’t think it will ever make it to the Senate floor. 

Each minute without a budget passed gets us closer to the election and less likely to achieve a bipartisanship agreement. For Community Action, we are swimming upstream right now and we need bipartisan support for our programs. On Weatherization, we need Republicans to embrace the program, especially when Secretary Chu doesn’t think our program should be in the business of energy efficiency. We need Republicans and Democrats to engage in CSBG at a time when the Administration does not support the program. We need both parties to engage on LIHEAP. We are fortunate that we have bipartisan support for Head Start. We don’t have strong bipartisan support for workforce. We are swimming upstream and the tides are moving against us.

I am hopeful there will be big news in the next week on Community Action news. It has taken longer than I expected, but I hope we will see some significant news this upcoming week. I want to work this thing to get us positioned for 2013.