http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/blacks-have-a-lot-to-lose-with-trumps-new-budget/
http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/civil-rights-leaders-meet-with-attorney-general-jeff-sessions/
TRUMP’S BUDGET CUTS
PROMISE TO HBCU’S
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Have black
colleges and universities (HBCUs) in North Carolina been double-crossed by
President Trump’S budget?
It was over
a month ago when over 80 presidents and chancellors from HBCUs across the
country flew to Washington, DC to meet President Trump and members of Congress
to discuss more federal funding for their institutions.
Leaders
came away from those meetings feeling welcomed and cautiously optimistic that they
would be seeing greater support from a Republican president and GOP-led
Congress than even from Pres. Obama in the past eight-years.
But while
Congress has yet to put forward its proposed budget, there are already concrete
signs from Pres. Trump that his promise, codified with an executive order
vowing that HBCUs will be “an absolute priority for this White House,” is
really not as “absolute” as first promised.
Indeed, at the same time the HBCU
fly-in conference was proceeding, with GOP leaders such as Rep. Mark Walker
(R-Guiford-6), South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and even House Speaker Paul Ryan
in attendance to reach out to HBCU leaders, the
Associated Press was reporting “GOP lawmakers said there were currently no
concrete plans for increased funding” beyond what the Obama Administration
supported.
According to a March 24, 2017 story
in The Atlantic titled, How Will Historically Black Colleges Fare
Under Trump? “…the
Trump administration’s “America
First” budget proposal…slices federal education spending by 13.5
percent but claims to “maintain” minority institutions and HBCUs at around $492
million, the same amount the previous administration initially budgeted. But
the previous administration added discretionary spending to that figure, and
the New America Foundation estimates
last year’s sum to be around $577 million—about 15 percent more than $492
million.”
The Atlantic article continued, “According
to the budget proposal, in addition to significantly reducing federal
work-study programs, the Trump administration plans on eliminating Supplemental
Educational Opportunity Grants, which offer need-based aid to around 1.6
million low-income undergraduates each year.”
A March 16th Washington Post article titled “After White House Courts HBCUs,
Budget Disappoints School Leaders” reported, “There is no mention in the budget
of any federal investment in scholarships, technology or campus infrastructure
for HBCUs that leaders requested. And instead of expanding Pell grants for
low-income students to cover summer courses as they had asked, the budget raids
nearly $4 billion from the program’s reserves.”
Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC-12), co-chair
of the congressional Bi-partisan HBCU Caucus, was leery of the Republican
outreach then, and clearly felt redeemed about the lackluster results thus far.
“…[T]his administration
claimed it is a priority to advocate for HBCUs but, after viewing this budget
proposal, those calls ring hollow,” Rep. Adams said in a March 16th
statement, also citing “no specific increases for HBCUs.”
“This budget
slashes critical funding for institutions, students, and their families, “ she
added.
“I know, first hand, the impact that
HBCUs make in students’ lives because of the impact they’ve made in mine,”
Adams continued. “We must support a plan that allows our schools to not only
survive but thrive. Instead of wasting billions on a useless border wall,
Congress should support a budget that includes restoration of year-round Pell
Grants and the substantial increase of their purchasing power, resources
for HBCU infrastructure improvements, and robust funding for TRIO,
Gear UP, federal work-study, and other essential financial aid programs that
enhance opportunities for students.”
While it seems clear to Rep. Adams
that HBCUs will not be, as promised, a priority of this Republican president or
Congress, some HBCU presidents, like Chancellor Elwood Robinson of
Winston-Salem State University, are still cautiously holding out hope.
“The president’s budget request is just the
first stage of the federal budgeting process,” WSSU’s Chancellor Robinson said
in a statement. “As the budget is more fully refined in the House and Senate,
we will continue to work with our lawmakers to ensure that they continue to
invest in America’s future by keeping higher education a priority.”
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SEVERAL BLACK
LAWMAKERS CO-SPONSOR
POVERTY TASK FORCE
BILL
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Several
black state House members are co-sponsoring a bill to create a statewide
poverty task. That measure has been currently referred to House Appropriations
Committee for review.
HB 410 –
“Root Out Poverty/Task Force Funds” is listed as “an act creating a statewide
poverty task force, establishing two new personnel positions in the Department
of Health and Human Services dedicated to poverty reduction and economic
recovery, and appropriating funds for those purposes.”
In
establishing the poverty task force, the bill reads in part that “…poverty in
this state is widespread, especially among minorities and in rural areas and
other parts of the state that have lost significant numbers of jobs.”
The bill continues that, “a
statewide coordinated effort is required to maximize the State's resources to
reduce and potentially eradicate poverty among citizens able and willing to
work.”
Among the 15 members of the task
force the measure is recommending be appointed are three members of the general
public, one member recommended by the NC NAACP, and one member recommended by
the NC Latino Coalition. Once convened, the bill states, “ The task force shall
Identify long- and short-range goals for
eliminating poverty in North Carolina and Develop a coordinated, integrated,
ongoing approach among State agencies, departments, and institutions to reduce
poverty in the State by establishing and implementing poverty reduction
targets.”
Rep.
Evelyn Terry (D-District 72) said, “Evidence-based facts now prove
permanent spirals of poverty. “There's also a correlation between the two
PICs---Poverty Industrial Complex and Prison Industrial Complex.”
Several
Republican representatives did not respond to request for comments for this
story.
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CASH IN THE APPLE
FOR APRIL 6, 2017
BUT FOR THE
GRACE OF GOD… - It is hard for me to escape the fact that exactly one year ago,
I was flat on my back on the fourth floor of UNC Cancer Center in Chapel Hill,
undergoing aggressive chemotherapy treatment to battle acute leukemia, which
was ravaging my blood cells at an alarming rate.
I felt like
an old rug at the time, and as anyone else who has gone through the same cancer
experience will tell you, nothing else mattered except protecting my family,
even if it meant sacrificing my own.
So now it’s
one year later, and I look back and thank GOD for bringing me through. I’m in
remission now, and am working to stay that way for as long as possible. I feel
muck better, stronger, and am thinking and functioning much better. I still
have a limp from the stroke I had in my left leg in November 2014, and I do get
tired more easily now (I chalk that up to being 61), otherwise, beyond being
overweight, I feel good.
So it is
with some irony, a year later, that I find myself here in Princeton, NJ with my
wife and daughter, visiting my sister-in-law in the hospital. Without going
into specifics, she is not doing well, and the matter concerned us so much we
decided to come and lend out support to her adult children.
It was so
strange to be in another hospital, this time as a visitor to someone close who
was suffering from a debilitating disease. To be with family as they shoulder
the strain, and cry the tears, wanting so badly to do something, anything to
relieve the pain and suffering of their loved one.
And to have
to don rubber gloves and covering just to walk into the hospital room to
protect myself because of my previous condition.
And then
there is the wait….the wait for news, any news, some indication that all of the
work, care and prayers are some how making a difference. It seems like slow
torture for my sister-in-law’s two adult children.
It’s times
like these now, and what happened to me a year ago, that I also have to wonder
exactly what is going on in the minds and hearts of our congresspeople who are
fiddling with the future of health insurance.
Forget
what’s happened to me or members of my family. I’ve met several other families
who are having to put their lives on hold because of a catastrophic illness affecting
someone close. The multitude of issues that buildup for families to deal with
when it comes health care should be addressed sensitively once and for all, not
treated as some ugly political game between a crazy president and Congress.
There is no
question that the longer we make health care a political football in this
nation, the more likely it is that more and more people will die….especially
the poor.
That may be
one of the reasons many people have completely lost faith, AND hope in
government. They don’t see the people who are supposed to represent them,
actually fighting for their interests.
Trust me,
if a catastrophic illness hasn’t hurt someone in your family yet, and I pray that
it doesn’t, don’t be surprised if and when it does. You’ll need all of the
comfort and assurance due you and yours. I hope that you and your family get
ever bit that is due all of you, because you’ll need it.
But for the
grace of GOD…go all of us!
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS
FOR 4-06-17
KALVIN MICHAEL SMITH
SHOT, IN CRITICAL CONDITION, AFTER PRISON RELEASE
[WINSTON-SALEM]
A man who supporters say was falsely arrested, tried and convicted for a crime
in 1997 he didn’t commit, was shot Friday night on the street by an unknown
assailant. Kalvin Michael Smith, 45, is
was listed in critical but stable condition at press time. He was released from
prison last November after serving 20 years in prison based on a technicality,
and was in the process of proving his innocence when he was struck down.
Smith’s case has been covered in the press and on MTV. At press time, Smith’s
family said he is improving after several surgeries.
PAULI MURRAY HOME NOW
A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK
[DURHAM]
Citizens gathered Saturday to celebrate the designation of the childhood home
of civil rights attorney Pauli Murray on Carroll Streetr as a national historic
landmark. Ms. Murray, who died in 1985, was known as a champion for women’s
rights, as well as an attorney, poet and priest. The Murray home is the state’s
39th historic landmark. The site will be the home to the Pauli
Murray Center for History and Social Justice, scheduled for opening in 2020.
HB 2 IS REPEALED, BUT
MANY ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE SUBSTITUTE
[RALEIGH]
The controversial “bathroom law” which has cost North Carolina hundreds of
millions of dollars in canceled or boycotting business, was finally repealed
last week under threat by the NCAA, which promised not to schedule any more
collegiate events in the state until 2022. HB2 was finally repealed by the
Republican-led NC General Assembly, but the repeal was not clean. In substitute
legislation, municipalities are still prohibited from passing nondiscrimination
ordinances for gay and transgender citizens. Liberal groups blasted Gov. Cooper
and state Democrats for compromising, while conservative groups were angry that
their legislative leaders capitulated to the NCAA.
MISSING CHARLOTTE
GIRL FOUND IN WASH., D.C.. AFTER PARENTS MURDERED
[WASH.,
D.C.] Authorities have found a missing eleven-year East Charlotte girl whose
parents were murdered in their home Sunday. Arieyana Forney was found in a white
Chevy Impala in DC after someone called
police and telling them that she had been kidnapped. A suspect in the murder of
the young girl’s parents was also captured, published reports say. Charlotte
police have not released a motive for the murders or the kidnapping.
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