Obama FY 2012 Budget:
Programs for poor Would Take Big Hit
Targeted Spending Could Add MA Jobs

 

The $3.7 trillion budget that President Obama unveiled in February would deliver pain to many struggling residents of Massachusetts — from inner-city youths to the elderly — while doling out money for clean energy research and road construction that could create jobs in the state.

In Boston, social programs would be severely affected, local officials and advocates said. Fourteen food pantries would get less financial help; so would 6,000 city residents who get vouchers for day care. Fuel assistance for 27,000 Bostonians, including many elderly and disabled, would be reduced.

Cuts would be made in programs that prevent children from getting asthma and lead poisoning in their homes. Pell Grants for students attending college in the summer would be eliminated.

With his budget, Obama is seeking to reduce the federal deficit by $400 billion over 10 years with deep cuts in certain areas even as he proposes to stimulate job growth with greater spending in others, an initiative he calls “winning the future.’’

He would inject tens of billions of dollars into a New Deal-style effort to put people to work building highways and rail lines. He seeks, with new enticements for investment and research, to fuel a fresh spurt in alternative energy production and technology. Such spending has the potential to help retain or create new jobs in Massachusetts.

At the same time, however, the Massachusetts biotechnology industry denounced a planned reduction from 12 years to seven in their market exclusivity for new drugs. The move would save money for Medicare by introducing generic competition faster, but it would hurt the bottom line of biopharmaceutical companies that employ tens of thousands of people in the state.

The president wants to increase the budgets of the departments of Education and Transportation. His plan includes spending $556 billion over six years on construction of highways, transit, and high-speed rail. States would have to compete for the money.

The biggest reductions are in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is slated to take a 15.5 percent cut in its budget under Obama’s proposal, and the Department of Labor, which would face a 27.2 percent decrease.

The president would cut in half an $825 million program that provides job training to low-income seniors.

Nearly $320 million to help train pediatricians and pediatric specialists at children’s hospitals would be eliminated. Children’s Hospital Boston stands to lose $21 million.

General academic medical centers like Massachusetts General Hospital get extra money from Medicare to train residents. But Medicare, geared to seniors, does not reimburse children’s hospitals.

The administration’s budget plan would also cut funding for a Boston Public Health Commission initiative that endeavors to bridge health inequities among racial and ethnic groups. Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the city health agency, said Boston could forfeit more than $1 million in aid that is part of the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health program.

Another significant hit would be the 12- to 15-percent cut in public housing operating subsidies, which would affect roughly 10 percent of residents in Boston Housing Authority developments.

Some industries in Massachusetts stand to gain from the president’s proposal, though. Peter Rothstein, president of the New England Clean Energy Council, an organization that represents the interests of 200 regional clean energy companies, said he was encouraged by a $550 million allocation to benefit a federal grant program for emerging technologies, such as biofuel, energy storage, and wind power.

Since the program’s inception in 2009, Massachusetts universities and companies have received $23.6 million, about 13 percent of the program’s overall funding so far.

Michael Levenson, Andrew Ryan, Theo Emery, Meg Woolhouse, Hiawatha Bray, and Rob Weisman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was used.

-Adapted from “Deep cuts, chance of gains for state in Obama budget; Programs for poor would take big hit Targeted spending could add jobs”, by Donovan Slack and Stephen Smith, Globe Staff, The Boston Globe, February 15, 2011, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/02/15/deep_cuts_some_gains_for_bay_state_in_obama_budget/, retrieved 2/15/11.

 

 

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