The following is excerpted from a letter I sent to AAUW Action Network members. The complete letter including details about AAUW’s role in promoting another form of economic stimulus – pay equity – may be found on the AAUW website.
Dear AAUW Friends:
Today I was honored to attend the national ceremony celebrating President Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. As you can imagine, it was a wonderful event – held in the grandeur of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda but tempered by the real challenges before us. The crisis facing America today is very different from the one that faced President Lincoln, but as President Obama stated this morning, “We are once again debating the critical issues of our time. Let us remember that we are doing so as servants to the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future.” Those words get to the heart of AAUW’s mission, and specifically what AAUW has been doing to get our nation back to work and our economy moving again.
As the recession has deepened, we at AAUW have been stepping up our efforts to fight for working women and their families. I wanted to take this moment to fill you in on our latest work, update you on our progress, and keep you informed on where we stand on these critical issues.
We believe wholeheartedly that the most pressing national economic question is simply this: “Are we – our government, policy makers, and communities – doing everything we can to get the American people back to work?” That has led AAUW to ask a similar question: “Is AAUW doing everything we can to help get the American people back to work and to ensure that the unique concerns of women and girls are factored into policy solutions?” For the last several months, AAUW has been lobbying members of Congress on our top priorities for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – the recovery bill -which include investments in higher education, school construction and modernization, affordable healthcare, targeted tax credits, and direct appropriations to states and localities to support critical services. The recovery package, a version of which has been passed by both chambers, has now been reconciled and is set for a final vote. This week, AAUW sent a letter to conferees urging them to include our most important priorities in the final bill. We are pleased to report that AAUW was successful in maintaining most of our key priorities in the compromise measure, including:
- A valuable tax credit to “Make Work Pay” for American families and an expansion of the Child Tax Credit to target more families in need – especially those in poverty.
- The inclusion of an extension and increase of current unemployment benefits, which will help many hurting workers facing an even tougher job market and also represents funds that will quickly go back into the economy.
- Almost $20 billion in appropriations for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) because, in addition to feeding the hungry, food stamps are dollar for dollar by far the most stimulative provision in the recovery and reinvestment bill.[ii]
- $53.6 billion in State Fiscal Stabilization Funds to help schools maintain their education budgets and initiate critical renovation and construction projects. This education funds will save jobs as well as create them.
- The “American Opportunity Tax Credit,” a $2,500 tax credit for college tuition and other expenses, providing a targeted investment that will encourage individuals to retrain and retool through higher education – which will in turn improve their earning potential and career competitiveness. People without college degrees are much more vulnerable to being laid off than those who have this important credential, providing further evidence that the AAUW priority of investing in education is money well spent, period.
- A vital increase in the maximum Pell grant award of $500 for the 2009-2010 school year, as well as additional funds for work-study programs, helping millions of students go to college – and stay in college.
- Providing meaningful COBRA subsidies, which will allow more American families to be able to maintain their health insurance and afford valuable preventative care after they’ve been laid off, which could help to avoid not only heartache but bankruptcies in the future.[iii]
