Daily Yopp 3.18.17 - Push Back Against Trump's Proposed Budget

There's been lots of freaking out about the budget proposals by the Trump administration. First things first. This is a merely a proposal. Congress has the power to spend money. You can think of the presidential budget as a sort of statement of ideals or wish list rather than an actual spending budget.

That said, it does actually matter, so we should not ignore it. Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of how the United States budget process works, so click on that link if you need some clarification. The Washington Post ran an article listing the 19 federal agencies that would be most affected by the proposed budget and an op-ed which argues that poor people would be hurt the most by Trump's proposed cuts. Our friends across the pond at the Telegraph ran a fairly unbiased analysis of the key points in Trump's proposals.

So what do you need to do?

1. Educate yourself. Read at least one of the above articles and form an opinion based on critical thinking instead of social media memes. Don't get me wrong. I agree with many of the memes that float through my feed, but we need to start showing our members of Congress that we're not just hanging out on Facebook and Twitter as armchair activist. (The irony that I was sitting in an armchair when I typed that last sentence is not lost on me.)

2. Choose one or two items in the budget that you care about and call your member of Congress. There's a lot in there, and I'm not going to tell you whether Meals on Wheels is more important than PBS funding is more important than after school programs. If you care about a lot of issues, then make a list and call about one of them each day. What's important is that your MoC hears that you are knowledgeable about specific items in the budget and that you aren't just asking for a blanket NO on anything Trump does.

The wonderful women at Solidarity Sundays have a slightly different take on how to respond which I'll share below. Feel free to use their ideas if that fits your ethos better.

MARCH 17th 

Subject: This insane freaking budget  

https://www.theatlantic.com/…/president-trumps-hard…/519702/ 

In a nutshell, 45’s proposed budget strips out all of the things that give us faith in humanity and leaves us with guns and barriers. So long Meals on Wheels! Bye bye glaciers! Arts--who needs ‘em? Me Fail English? You betcha with these education cuts! It would almost be comical if the consequences weren’t so bone chillingly horrible. 

NOPE. Not today, Don the Con. 

So, let’s get to work and demand action to stop this. 

1) Contact ALL your MOCs: email/call/write--whatever it takes and let them know that this budget WILL NOT FLY. 

Find your local MOCs here, if you don’t already have them on speed dial: http://whoismyrepresentative.com/ 

Sample Script (parts taking from 5calls.org because when I started typing all that came out was a long list of curse words): 

Please vote NO on Trump's proposed budget's elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The total cost of these programs is a tiny fraction of the federal budget but they deliver a wealth of art, culture, education, and joy to our communities. Military spending already represents half of our discretionary budget, and the EPA programs whose funding Trump would cut are vital to maintaining clean and livable communities. 

2) Donate or volunteer to your favorite non-profit that is in danger of budget cuts. 

[One SolSun member] had a great idea--she signed up to become a driver for Meals on Wheels! How great is that? And guess what?--you can, too! 

http://mowsac.org/volunteer/ 

You can also donate money to climate change focused non profits like these 

• Natural Resources Defense Council: https://www.nrdc.org/
• The Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org/
• Evironmental Defense Fund; https://www.edf.org/
• Union of Concerned Scientists: www.ucsusa.org/ 

Or go to a museum and pay double the entrance fee this weekend. Or go to the ballet! Or listen to NPR! 

Or sign up to volunteer at your closest school. Donate books. Or better yet, go to www.DonorChoose.org and find a school and give it money--even $20 can help! 

Whatever you do, the most important thing is that you do something. And continue to do something. 

Thank you all for your amazing efforts for every call, every dollar, every moment spent helping others--it is a deposit into making a better world.

By the way, some of you checked up on me to see if I was okay since I hadn't sent out the Daily Yopp! for a few days. I was just a bit swamped/overwhelmed with some work stuff. This is a particularly challenging month for a number of reasons, so the Yopps! might be a bit spotty. Don't worry.