Sanders hears worries about budget cuts

And he said he will press President Obama to veto the budget if it proposes changing Medicare or Social Security benefits.

The Morrisville dinner was one in a series of meetings Sanders scheduled this week to focus on how the proposed federal budget would affect families and children. 

The budget for fiscal 2012, which begins Oct. 1 of this year, was drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee. Among many other spending reductions, it proposes restructuring Medicare into a voucher system, slashing Medicaid benefits, and cutting funding for social services. Meantime, it would reduce income-tax rates for corporations and high-income households.

Sanders, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, has proposed a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires to raise up to $50 billion a year in new revenue. He has also called for eliminating tax breaks for oil and gas companies and loopholes that corporations use to shelter income overseas.

“While we have to move toward a balanced budget, we have to do it in a responsible way,” Sanders said. “We need shared sacrifice, not just cuts that balance the budget on the backs of the sick, children, the poor and the elderly.”

Representatives from two local social-service organizations spoke at the meeting, as did an in-home day-care provider. They offered heart-wrenching accounts of clients who struggle to make ends meet and depend on the jeopardized programs just to get by.

Sandy Neely, crisis care coordinator for the Central Vermont Community Action Council, said her staff will likely be cut in half this summer, while requests for fuel, housing and food assistance are rising.

“I’ve never gone through a worse year than this year,” Neely said. “I just go day to day. We work with what we have.”

Scott Johnson, executive director of the Lamoille Family Center, worries that proposed cuts to Medicaid, child care and heating-fuel assistance will stress low-income families beyond what they can bear.

“These cuts come at a time when, in Vermont, there’s a report of child abuse every 34 minutes,” Johnson said.

Theresa Stevens, an in-home child-care provider from St. Johnsbury, talked about clients who must work day and evening jobs to support their families as child-care programs around Lamoille County are closing, or unaffordable without subsidies.

“I see parents struggle day to day to find care for their children,” Johnson said. “Parents work double jobs just to get by.”

People commented mostly about the federal budget, but also expressed concern about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the political impact of corporate lobbyists. An Eden woman who identified herself as Andrea asked, “What will they (Congress) do after they cut the programs? Won’t they have more hungry and homeless people to deal with?”

“Maybe they think that poor people will magically be able to afford health care and child care,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, some people could care less.”