April 9, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
The House of Representatives last week passed an emergency spending measure that would strip $250-million from the AmeriCorps national-service budget to help pay for disaster assistance and military missions in Bosnia and the Middle East.
The cut would amount to about 60 per cent of AmeriCorps’ $425-million budget for the current fiscal year. Other federal programs that would be cut to offset spending in the bill are those that provide subsidies for low-cost housing and bilingual education grants.
Rep. Robert L. Livingston, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, argued that the cuts were difficult but necessary. He said that, for the most part, they represented “excess funds” allocated during this fiscal year for later use and would “have no impact during this fiscal year.”
But Harris Wofford, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, said the proposed $250-million cut would “devastate” the program.
“If the cut were to take effect, approximately 85 per cent of all AmeriCorps programs would be shut down by September 1,” Mr. Wofford said, “and there would be no new programs starting in the summer and fall of 1998.”
The Clinton Administration, in a statement, said the President would probably veto the House bill, in part because of the proposed cuts to AmeriCorps and other domestic programs.
The Senate’s version of the legislation does not contain the AmeriCorps provision or other similar cuts. The two chambers will meet after the Congressional spring recess, which ends April 20, to work out a compromise.
