Earlier this week, President Obama released his budget proposal for 2013. Much of the coverage has focused on deficit reduction. A CNN article critiqued the budget for doing too “little to reform the entitlement programs that pose the biggest long-term threat to the federal budget.” If even the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that the federal debt is “the crucial fiscal goal for the decade ahead,” I’m inclined to believe the deficit hype. But the federal government is about much more than the debt it has racked up thanks to two wars, the Bush tax cuts and the worst recession in nearly a century.
 
The budget is actually a values document; it gives us a glimpse of the President’s vision for the country. My colleague Anton noted that the budget is focused on strengthening the middle class. In his “budget message,” President Obama says that the budget is built “around the idea that our country has always done best when everyone gets a fair shot.” To advance this vision of a fair shot, the budget proposal includes $350 billion for job creation and worker training, a range of spending cuts in other areas, and boosting tax revenues by eliminating the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000.
 
With all the focus on the middle class, I feared that the President had lost sight of the poor. After all, research has shown that the government-funded safety net primarily benefits the middle class; due to the Social Security and Medicare benefits to all elderly, and a decades-long policy shift away from welfare for the poor. The White House though has a number of fact sheets on parts of the budget, including one on “giving a hand up to low-income families” (as well as others for Black and Latino families).
 
So it’s reassuring to know that there is something of a focus on the needs of the 46 million people living in poverty and the millions more living just above the poverty line. However, the fact sheet reads like a maintenance-list, preserving and extending a range of programs that already exist, like tax credits, unemployment insurance and affordable housing. The budget would fund a “Strategic Plan to End Homelessness,” though when the plan was announced homeless advocates were concerned that it was too “general in nature and lack[ed] action steps.” The budget also proposes some universal programs – like education reform and job creation – that would certainly benefit low-income people, but aren’t necessarily targeted to the particular challenges and barriers faced by people in poverty.
 
Sadly, the details of what little the budget has to say about how government can help poor people may not matter much. Given the political gridlock in Washington – last year’s budget debate almost led to a government shut down – many Washington-types predict that Congress won’t even pass a budget, much less pass anything resembling the President’s proposal. Still, if our government is going to set a clear goal of reducing the deficit and organize much of the budget debate around that; then those of us who advocate for poor people and communities of color should demand the same intentionality around combating poverty.