So what are you doing this Tuesday, April 12? How about a free meal, good conversation and some concrete suggestions for how you can make this city a better place to live.

As you know, we are deep into budget season. We’ve all been disgusted at the “negotiations” that have been going on at a national level. The effect of last Friday’s deal will have a disproportionate impact on DC residents not only because of the last-minute riders funding the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program and reinstating a ban on abortion funding but also because cuts were made on the backs of the poor and our sizable low-income populations will struggle mightily as subsidized housing and income maintenance programs are starved along with the people that they are meant to serve. Having no national representation in this “Capital of the Free World,” we should not be surprised to take a larger hit. However we do have representation or something like it on the local level. Most long-term residents of DC believe that government should prioritize human rights over property rights, but when you listen to the fiscal conservatives on the city council and in the mayor’s office, it’s pretty clear that they’re not representing that point of view. This is in part down to us. Elected officials must be held to account and no one but their constituents legitimately have that right. It is not enough to vote, we must make demands.

To that end is Tuesday night’s dinner which sponsors are calling:

Winning a Better Budget: Dinner and Action Session Bread for the City, 1525 7th Street NW Tuesday, April 12, 2011 5:30 – 8:00 PM Free! Free! Free!!!

Dinner starts at 5:30 PM. The information and action session starts at 6:00 PM. Bread for the City is 2 blocks from the Shaw/Howard Metro station on the Green Line, between P & Q Streets NW.

Joni Podschun, steady force behind the Save Our Safety Net Campaign, has posted details about the event and why you should be involved on her blog which is cross posted below.

Good News Really Bad News About the DC Budget

Fast Facts • Nearly 1 in 5 DC residents live in poverty. • 1 in 3 children in DC live in poverty – much higher than the national average. • 1 in 5 workers in DC has a job that won’t lift a family

Hello good people,

The Mayor’s budget was released on Friday. It was a moment of reckoning, demonstrating both our power to affect change and the unjust cuts our city leaders are willing to make instead of truly progressive new revenue. Now we need you to tell the Council to make a better choice.

Here’s what happened: Mayor Vince Gray proposed a new tax bracket of 8.9% for household income over $200,000 a year, a modest increase from the current bracket of 8.5%. Save Our Safety Net and coalition partners put on the heat with emails, calls, and visits to City Hall these last few weeks to push for progressive taxes to fund safety net programs, and this effort clearly paid off.

The Mayor also slashed the safety net. Though human services programs make up roughly a quarter of the local budget, they are taking 67% of the Mayor’s proposed cuts. Early analysis suggests that homeless services, affordable housing, help for families in crisis, disability assistance, child care, and health care have all seen drastic cuts. This targeting of safety net programs can not stand.

We need your help to send a strong message to the Council. Join us in asking them for smart, responsible leadership. With even more progressive income tax brackets, we can restore these essential programs. Email the Council now.

For the first time since our campaign began in the summer of 2009, we have a change in our tax system. Please take a minute now to show the Council that DC residents want this change, and we need to bring in enough money to restore funding for these programs.

If you’re interested in learning more about the budget and connecting with SOS and other organizing campaigns, come to Winning the Budget: Dinner and Action Session from 5:30-8:00 pm Tuesday, April 12 at Bread for the City (1525 7th St NW). RSVP on Facebook or email me for more information.

Thank you for your hard work,

Joni

http://breadforthecity.blogspot.com/2011/04/winning-better-budget-education-and.html

http://www.saveoursafetynet.com/

. . . → Read More: A Better Budget is Possible (at least in the District of Colubmia)