Nonprofits began mobilizing supporters immediately Tuesday to push back against the deep spending cuts detailed in the White House budget proposal officially released earlier that day, with more action to come in the weeks ahead.
Members of Leadership 18, a coalition of some of the nation’s largest nonprofits, were scheduled to meet Tuesday with Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, to discuss the White House proposal.
Meanwhile, charities nationwide urged supporters to make their voices heard to their members of Congress.
The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network sent an “action alert” Tuesday warning of deep federal spending cuts to health research and pushed similar messages on social media.
The organization has an “advocacy day” set for June 20, when people from across the country will travel to Capitol Hill to “insist to their congressperson that this budget not be accepted,” said Michael Rosen, the group’s chief communications officer.
Nonprofits should “link arms” with state nonprofit associations and charities related to their causes to advocate against the proposed cuts, said Tim Delaney, president of the National Council of Nonprofits. “An individual organization or an individual person can use their voice, but it’s not heard as clearly through the cacophony of noise on Capitol Hill or elsewhere unless it’s unified,” Mr. Delaney said.
The budget did not provide any new details about Mr. Trump’s tax plan, which is also much on the mind of nonprofit leaders. So far, the White House has provided only a broad outline of what the president hopes to change in terms of tax policy.
Cuts Detailed
Charities have known the broad outlines of the federal spending cuts President Trump would propose since he released his “skinny budget” in March. However, Tuesday’s version of the budget provided specifics for nonprofits on the depth of proposed cuts that would hit human-service agencies, health-care providers, arts institutions, and international aid organizations, among others.
The budget — considered by many to be a Trump administration wish list rather than a realistic proposal that can pass Congress — would also make drastic cuts to entitlement services that aid the poor. Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income people, would be cut $800 billion over 10 years. The cut would force 10 million people from the program over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, would be cut $193 billion over 10 years, while Social Security’s program that aids disabled people would be slashed $72 billion over that period.
The budget calls for eliminating the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds affordable-housing projects and anti-poverty services like Meals on Wheels. It would also start to phase out the Corporation for National and Community Service, which funds the AmeriCorps program that provides low-cost workers to nonprofits.
Double Hit
Such deep program cuts would increase demand for help from charities, while also hitting nonprofits’ bottom lines with cuts to government funding for their services, said Steve Taylor, counsel for public policy at United Way Worldwide. “Nonprofits should be sure their federal representatives are aware of the impact” of the budget proposal, he said.
The budget does not touch Social Security or Medicare, the retirement and health-care programs for the elderly. Although that’s “smart politics,” said Jim Firman, president of the National Council on Aging, the sweeping cuts in other programs, coupled with tax breaks and a proposed $43 billion increase in military spending will be a tough sell in Congress. “I don’t think it will get a warm reception on the Hill,” he said. “Congress will not go along with many of these cuts because it will cost them their seats.”
Long Process
The proposal is the first step in a process that will take months. The House and Senate will now draft their own budgets for fiscal 2018 and try to move spending bills through their respective appropriations committees.
Earlier this month, Congress passed a spending measure that funds the government through September; that bill mostly kept intact programs that fund nonprofits and aid the people they serve — which may signal a reluctance by Congress to make big cuts.
Still, many nonprofit experts say charities should brace for some reductions to programs as GOP leaders seem set on cutting taxes and will need to make up revenue with spending cuts.
Here are specific causes that would be affected by proposed cuts:
Children and families. President Trump’s proposal would eliminate many programs that aid low- and middle-income communities, including the Legal Services Corporation, which funds legal help for low-income people, and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which in part supports after-school programs run by local Ys and Boys & Girls Clubs. “That’s devastating,” said John Monsif, vice president for government relations for First Focus, an advocacy group for children’s programs.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition is concerned about the proposed $7.4 billion cut to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which it said in a statement could lead “to more than 250,000 of the lowest income people losing their housing vouchers” and impose other measures that might increase rents and utility costs for low-income people.
Health-care research. The National Institutes of Health, which conducts and supports research on medical conditions, would see its budget reduced by $5.8 billion. The largest chunk of that would come through a $1 billion cut to the National Cancer Institute.
Those reductions would mean that some medical institutions at universities and elsewhere “won’t be able to turn on the lights,” said Mr. Rosen of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, which advocates for cancer research. “Some medical institutions will go out of the business of medical research and cancer research.”
Spending on health-care research has traditionally received bipartisan support, Mr. Rosen noted. NIH received a $2 billion increase in funding in the fiscal 2017 budget bill enacted in early May. Still, nonprofits should not believe that the threat has passed, he said.
International aid. The budget proposal would eliminate the $1.7 billion Title II food-aid program, the $2.5 billion development-assistance account, and $786 million in support for international organizations.
It would cut spending on global health programs by about $2 billion, including eliminating money for family planning, and reduce support for combating AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases. In total, the cuts amount to a nearly one-third reduction in spending on global development and diplomacy, said Bill O’Keefe, vice president for government relations and advocacy at Catholic Relief Services.
“This is the most dramatic cut I can recall, and I’ve been doing this for 15 years, more or less,” he said.
Catholic Relief Services, which had an operating budget of nearly $900 million last year, sometimes gets as much as 60 percent of its revenue from government sources. The international charity is currently aiding 800,000 people in South Sudan with money that comes out of the Title II food-aid budget, for example.
Cuts to food aid would harm efforts to assist the world’s 65 million displaced people and combat famine in countries including Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, Mr. O’Keefe said.
“These four countries all are unstable, and if we don’t help people, then they will flee,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “They will migrate, and they will cause greater instability and insecurity in the area. That is just the way it works, unfortunately.”
Arts and culture. The National Endowment for the Arts would receive $29 million next year — just enough for a skeleton staff to wind down and close up shop, according to Nina Ozlu Tunceli, executive director of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund.
Other cultural agencies would also be shuttered, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute for Museums and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Ms. Tunceli said the loss of government money from a program like the NEA might also impact private support, because many arts organizations use the grants “like a magnet” to attract private donations and other government grants. “It’s one of their best fundraising tools,” she said.
The elimination of the NEA, she said, would mean that arts organizations would likely have to cut staff, raise ticket prices, and reduce free programs, which are often offered for children, the elderly, and military families.
Ms. Ozlu Tunceli said the White House push to eliminate funding was a new challenge but that conversations she’s had with Republican appropriations committee members have left her confident that the programs will survive.
Still, she said “there is a serious threat of a budget cut that could be harmful.”
