Six Questions For Bush After Six Years of Ignoring the NAACP

Now that President Bush has finally agreed to address the NAACP annual convention, he owes it to convention participants and the communities they represent to provide honest, straightforward answers to critical questions about the impact of his failed leadership and misplaced priorities on African Americans and their families. President Bush's remarks today come after he gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first president in 80 years to go a full term without appearing before an NAACP annual convention.

"Today when President Bush addresses the NAACP he'll need more than catchy slogans, hollow promises, and apologies not backed up with action," said DNC Communications Director Karen Finney.

"From the ongoing failures of his Administration in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the failures of his foreign policy and the war in Iraq, to the brutal impact his budget cuts have had on the lives of African Americans, President Bush has a lot to answer for today. He could start by personally standing up to extremists in his party who have worked to dilute the Voting Rights Act and ensure Congress passes the VRA reauthorization before recess. He could further make it clear that he is truly committed to protecting the fundamental right to vote and have that vote counted by putting an end to discriminatory voter ID laws, stopping the movement in his party to improperly purge voter lists, and joining Democrats in calling for the use of voting machines that leave verifiable paper trails."

1. If the President is committed to civil rights, what took the President so long to address one of the nation's preeminent civil rights organizations?

2. Why has President Bush failed to provide real leadership on voting rights issues or use his political capital to get the Republican Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, stopping Republicans across the country from pushing discriminatory voter ID laws, and fully funding Help America Vote Act reforms?

3. Why has President Bush slashed small business loan programs that have been crucial for African American-owned businesses?

4. Why is it that, even though the number of African Americans who lack health insurance has climbed to more than seven million, President Bush has slashed funding for Medicare and Medicaid and forced through a prescription drug plan that raises prices for low income seniors?

5. If average household income for African American families has fallen by more than $2,000 and more African Americans are living in poverty, why have President Bush's budgets shortchanged college opportunities and gutted job training programs?

6. If African American seniors and children rely on Social Security at a rate disproportionately higher than the rest of the population, why is President Bush promoting a Social Security privatization scheme that would slash benefits for African American seniors and make it harder for survivors to receive benefits?

The following is a DNC fact sheet on how President Bush's failed leadership and misplaced priorities have hurt African Americans:

While the Bush Administration and the Republican National Committee has made a show of expanding its rhetoric about reaching out to African Americans, the President's record has been disastrous for African American families. On issue after issue, the President has completely ignored the challenges confronting the African American community.

· Voter Purges And Rejected Ballots In 2000 Disenfranchised African Americans. In 2000, Republican election officials used a flawed felon list to purge voters from the voter roll. This disproportionately affected African Americans, disenfranchising thousands of them. In Miami-Dade County alone, almost 5,000 African Americans were purged from the voter roll as compared to less than 1,300 whites and "over half of the African Americans who appealed from the Florida felon exclusion list were successfully reinstated to the voter rolls." [Miami Herald, 6/5/04; Washington Post, 6/21/02]

· Republicans Across the Country are Forcing Voter ID Laws that Disproportionately Disenfranchise African American Voters. President Bush has failed to stand up to a national Republican effort to promote state voter ID laws that disproportionately disenfranchise minority, senior, rural and student voters.

· Rejected Ballots Disproportionately Impacted African American Voters. According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' report on the 2000 election, "The rate of ballot rejection for votes cast by African Americans was an estimated 14.4 percent, compared with a rate of 1.6 percent for votes cast by non-African Americans." [U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election," 6/01]

Bush's Response:

· President Bush Has Refused To Exert The Leadership Needed To Reauthorize The Voting Rights Act. Despite his rhetoric on the VRA, the President has failed to pressure the Senate into voting to reauthorize the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist has yet to schedule a vote.

· Bush Underfunded HAVA Reform Funding For 2004, Despite Bipartisan Support. The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) authorized $2.4 billion in election grants for FYs 2003 and 2004. Despite the $1 billion remaining in promised funds, Bush requested only $500 million for HAVA's implementation for FY 2004. HAVA's bipartisan sponsors in the Senate and the House called on the Congress to fully fund the bill and had former presidents Carter and Ford write to Bush urging him to fund HAVA. Senators Chris Dodd and Mitch McConnell joined together to add $1 billion dollars to HAVA for the EAC to disburse for FY 2004. [Roll Call, 1/24/04, 11/12/03; Congress Daily, 12/22/03]

· More Than Seven Million African Americans Lack Health Insurance. In 2004, the number of African Americans without health insurance remained at about 7.4 million. This is an increase of almost 770,000 people since 2000. [U.S. Census Bureau, 8/30/05; page 17, Table C-1]

· African Americans Experienced the Sharpest Increase In Numbers of Uninsured. According to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, "racial and ethnic minorities comprised a disproportionate burden of the uninsured population. Though African Americans are only 12 percent of the population, 20.2 percent of African Americans were uninsured in 2002 up 1.2 percent from the previous year-the highest one-year percentage increase of all racial and ethnic groups. Twenty six percent of blacks in poverty were without health insurance year round." [Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Release, 9/29/03]

Bush's Response:

· Slashed Funding For Medicare And Medicaid. The President's budget cuts $105 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years, including significant reductions in payments to hospitals, and increases in Medicare premiums for certain beneficiaries. The budget also includes net cuts in Medicaid of $42 billion over the next 10 years. At the same time, the President's budget protects special interests, leaving intact the $10 billion Medicare slush fund for HMOs and the flawed Medicare prescription drug plan which is failing to meet the needs of the 3.8 million African American Medicare beneficiaries. [2002, KFF, Summer 2005]

· Medicare Bill Worsened Prescription Drug Coverage for Over One Million Low-Income African American Seniors. Under Bush's Medicare legislation, the poorest six million American seniors lost their dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, exposing them to substantially higher drug costs. African-American seniors comprise 20 percent of this group, meaning 1.2 million will be hurt by the plan. [CPBB Fact Sheet, 12/11/03; 9/9/03, 12/8/03; Center for American Progress Medicare Roundtable, 12/4/03, emphasis added]

· Disproportionately High Number of African Americans Live in Poverty. Nearly 25 percent of all African Americans (9 million) lived in poverty in 2004, an increase of over 250,000 over the past two years [U.S. Census Bureau, 8/30/05; Table 3]

· African Americans Household Incomes Have Declined by More Than $2,000 Under Bush. African American households have seen median household incomes drop to $30,134-down $2,273 since Bush took office. [U.S. Census Bureau, 8/30/05; Table A-1]

· Bush's Policies Result in High Unemployment Rate in African Americans. The unemployment rate among African Americans remained over 10.5 percent in 2005 - remaining at levels not seen since 1997. [Democratic Policy Committee report, 3/05]

Bush's Response:

· Bush Halted, Then Gutted Key Small Business Loan Program. In January 2004, Bush halted the Small Business Administration's 7(a) loan program. The most commonly used SBA loan program, each year it backed over $10 billion in loans to small businesses, especially those run by business owners who could not qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2000, the 7(a) loan program helped more than 3,200 African American businesses with over $660 million in loans. After a public outcry, SBA announced that it would reinstate the program, but with a 63 percent cut in the maximum loan. [Chicago Tribune, 1/8/04; Washington Post, 1/8/04; SBA, 1/13/04; emphasis added]

· Bush Budget Slashes Small Business Administration Budget. Even though there are 1.2 million African American-Owned Small Businesses and small businesses create three out of four new jobs, the President's 2007 budget slashes funding for the Small Business Administration by 30 percent and increases fees for every Small Business Administration lending program. [DemocraticLeader.house.gov, 2/17/06]

· Bush Slashes Block Grants, Gutting Job Training Opportunities Programs. The Bush budget cuts job training services by about $280 million and block-grants the adult, youth, and dislocated worker programs and the Employment Service program, jeopardizing critical training resources and particularly harming dislocated workers and at-risk teenagers. The budget cuts other job training and related programs, including trade adjustment assistance, veterans' training, vocational rehabilitation, and adult education by about $300 million. [Democratic Policy Committee report, 3/05]

· Bush Cut Housing Assistance For Katrina Survivors And Slashed Programs For Revitalizing Communities. Nearly 750,000 households remain displaced by Katrina, and thousands of these people have been forced from hotels this week. However, the President's budget cuts HUD's housing programs by $1.15 billion, including elderly housing, disabled housing, public housing and rural housing. The President's budget cuts funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program by $736 million. The CDBG program has been used to help in the recovery of Hurricane Katrina and provides grants to revitalize neighborhoods, expand affordable housing and economic opportunities, and improve community facilities. [DemocraticLeader.house.gov, 2/17/06]

· Pell Grants Are Essential To African American College Students. About 45% of African American and Hispanic students at four-year colleges depend on Pell grants, compared to 23% of all students. Approximately 4.5 million students currently depend on Pell Grants and "over 70% of Pell Grant funds go to students from families with incomes of $20,000 a year or less". [Democratic Education and Workforce Committee, Building a Future for America's Minority-Serving Institutions, 3/22/01; PIRG Higher Education Project]

· Head Start Services Over 300,000 African American Children. Head Start currently serves nearly 1 million children nationwide. In addition to early academic instruction, the program also provides food, medical and dental care, and mental health screenings to low-income families. In 2001, 34% of children serviced by Head Start were African American. [The Chicago Tribune, 7/25/03; Center for Law and Social Policy]

Bush's Response:

· Breaks promise to raise the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100. While campaigning in 2000, George W. Bush pledged to make college more affordable and accessible by increasing the maximum Pell Grant for college freshmen to $5,100. And yet the President breaks his promise once again in this budget, only increasing the maximum Pell Grant by $100 - from $4,050 to $4,150 - falling nearly $1,000 short of his promise to students. President Bush is breaking this promise at a time when college tuition is rising rapidly.

· Eliminates Perkins Loans. The Bush budget completely eliminates the Perkins Loan program. If this proposal is enacted, just in 2006 alone more than 670,000 student borrowers would lose out on loan forgiveness if they became teachers, law enforcement officers or if they serve in the military.

· Forces millions of low and middle-income students to pay thousands more for their college loans. The Bush budget eliminates the current low fixed consolidation rate benefit. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), this change will force the typical student borrower to pay $5,500 more for their college loans.

· Bush Shortchanges College Opportunity. The President's budget undermines programs that make college more affordable, even though only 17 percent of African Americans over 25 have attended college. Despite skyrocketing college costs, the President's budget freezes the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050 for the fifth year in a row, eliminates the GEAR-UP, Upward Bound, and Talent Search programs, which ensure that high-risk students succeed in high school and move on to college, and fails to increase investments for Historically Black Colleges and Graduate Institutions. [DemocraticLeader.house.gov, 2/17/06]

· Bush Betrays The Nearly 8 million African American Children Enrolled in K-12 School. Bush's budget cut overall spending for the Education Department by 3.8 percent, and eliminates key programs including Vocation Education State Grants, Educational Technology State Grants and Safe and Drug-Free School State Grants. The budget provided $15.4 billion less in funding for education than promised by the No Child Left Behind Act - bringing the program's cumulative funding shortfall to $55 billion. It also fails to provide any increase for Head Start which helps 324,000 African American children. [DemocraticLeader.house.gov, 2/17/06]

· African Americans Rely Disproportionately On Social Security For Their Retirement. "Without Social Security, 60 percent of African American seniors would live in poverty." African Americans are less likely to have additional retirement income beyond Social Security and 40 percent of African Americans rely solely on Social Security as their only source of retirement income. [Democratic Policy Committee report, 3/05]

· African Americans Receive Large Amounts of Disability and Survivor Benefits. "While African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, 23% of children receiving Social Security survivor benefits are African American, as are about 17% of disability beneficiaries. On average, a worker who receives disability benefits or a family that receives survivor benefits gets far more in return than the worker paid in FICA taxes, notwithstanding privatizers' attempts to argue that Social Security is a bad deal." [Dollars and Sense, November/December 2004]

Bush's Response:

· Bush's Social Security Plan Would Have Cut Benefits For Seniors. The Washington Post reported, "a former senior administration official who recently discussed Social Security strategy with Bush aides said the change in the indexing formula 'is assumed to be a part of any final solution.'" According to the Social Security Administration's own chief actuary, steep benefit cuts would occur under a plan to change the formula by which Social Security benefits are calculated. By setting first year benefits according to rises in inflation, as opposed to wage growth, benefits would be reduced dramatically, as wages generally rise more rapidly than prices. If you retire in 2022, the Bush recalculation will cut your benefits by almost 10 percent. If you retire in 2042, the Bush benefit cut will total more than 25 percent. By 2075, our children and grandchildren will be facing staggering cuts of 46 percent to their benefits. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 12/21/04; Washington Post, 1/4/05]

· Bush's Plan Makes It Harder For Survivors To Receive Benefits. Bush has claimed his plan will allow seniors to pass on Social Security, saying ".when you pass on, you can pass that money on to whomever you want." However, his plan actually makes it more difficult to do this. "The Bush privatization plan would require retirees whose traditional Social Security benefits are below the poverty line to purchase annuities 'to ensure a stream of monthly income over the worker's life expectancy.' Unless individuals' account balances are in excess of the 'poverty- protection threshold,' retirees may not withdraw their money. Only unused money from the seniors' funds, if there is any, can be passed on to heirs." [Democratic Policy Committee report, 3/05; Bush Speech, 3/4/05]

· Bush's Plan Makes It Harder For Survivors To Receive Benefits. Bush has claimed his plan will allow seniors to pass on Social Security, saying ".when you pass on, you can pass that money on to whomever you want." However, his plan actually makes it more difficult to do this. "The Bush privatization plan would require retirees whose traditional Social Security benefits are below the poverty line to purchase annuities 'to ensure a stream of monthly income over the worker's life expectancy.' Unless individuals' account balances are in excess of the 'poverty- protection threshold,' retirees may not withdraw their money. Only unused money from the seniors' funds, if there is any, can be passed on to heirs." [Democratic Policy Committee report, 3/05; Bush Speech, 3/4/05]