John,

Congress has released the text of their full year funding bills, and thanks to your activism there are increases, not cuts, in some critical programs.

But Congress only has until tomorrow at midnight to act or we’ll face a partial government funding lapse.

Send a message to your members of Congress to immediately pass full year 2024 funding without poison pill amendments.

Here are just a few of the victories that we need to get across the finish line:

• Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) will receive a 9% increase over FY2023—which will help more families across the country find and afford the child care they need. This is critical in tackling the child care crisis, though much more is needed.

• $12.27 billion for Head Start, a $275 million increase over FY2023—which will support Head Start teachers and staff as the program faces staffing shortages.

• The 988 Suicide Prevention hotline gets a funding increase of $18 million.

• $850,000 for LGBTQ senior housing services for older adults in Massachusetts―funding sought by Massachusetts Senators Markey and Warren and Representative Pressley (D-MA) that House Republicans succeeded in deleting from the last appropriations package because they opposed LGBTQ program funding; but it’s included here, as was a New Jersey project to help LGBTQ+ youth.

• We beat back efforts in the House to zero out college Work Study (it’s flat-funded at $1.23 billion) and stopped an 80% cut to K-12 education funding for low-income districts (it modestly increases to $18.4 billion, up $20 million). The bill also rejects House proposals to eliminate funding for Job Corps and other youth employment programs.

• While we are disappointed the final bill includes agreed-upon cuts to funding for the IRS that Congress passed as a part of the Inflation Reduction Act, this funding package protects the baseline funding for continued improvements to IRS customer services including the Direct File pilot program, upgraded computer systems, and ensuring the IRS can go after the wealthy and largest corporations to pay what they owe in taxes.

The House must act immediately to pass these full year funding bills. And the Senate must follow suit while rejecting poison pill amendments that attack vulnerable communities.

Send a message to your Senators and Representative today and urge them to pass full year funding bills now, without cuts and without poison pill amendments.

Thank you for taking action, demanding Congress invest in critical human needs services for low-income and working families.

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs