Children's Budget 2015
Author: Kyle, Sarah, Ed.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Books
Subjects: Budgets,Federal Aid,Federal Government,Federal Legislation,Child Welfare,Early Childhood Education,Education,Military Personnel,Health,Housing,Income,Nutrition,Safety,Training,Children,Veterans Education,Taxes

The federal government makes more than 200 distinct investments in children. These include traditional children's initiatives like education and child abuse and neglect prevention. They also include other investments that improve the lives of kids, like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps). Following a message from Bruce Lesley, the President of First Focus, &quot;Children's Budget 2015&quot; offers a detailed guide to federal spending on children and is an invaluable resource for those seeking to improve the lives of America's youth. The majority of budget numbers in this book for fiscal year (FY) 2015 can be found in the appropriations bills considered by Congress, including the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015. For the purpose of this book, children are defined as persons age 18 and under. To determine the amount of money spent on children, this book draws on the work of the Urban Institute in their First Focus-commissioned report, &quot;Kids' Share 2014: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children Through 2013.&quot; Some programs included in this book are not included in &quot;Kids' Share.&quot; These programs include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Poison Control, and the Corporation for National and Community Service, among others. For each program listed in this book, &quot;Children's Budget 2015&quot; reports the nominal funding level and the nominal percent change from the previous year, as well as the real percent change. This book primarily focuses on the budget authority and outlays of each program through the yearly budget process. However, starting in FY 2009, some of these programs received additional resources to spend through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a package of tax cuts and investments intended to help stimulate economic growth and stem losses from a deepening recession. Mindful of the enormous impact that ARRA had on the overall federal investment in children and on individual programs, this book incorporates the effects of ARRA where relevant. A brief separate analysis of resources from ARRA is included within the basic overview of spending that precedes certain policy areas where it is relevant. Individual programs that received investments from ARRA are marked with the Recovery.gov logo. In addition, this book relies on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) &quot;Budget and Economic Outlook Fiscal Years 2013-2023&quot; and the work of Julia Isaacs, et al. in &quot;Kids' Share 2014: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children Through 2013&quot; for projections as to the timing of the flow of ARRA money. For those children's programs that are not broken out separately, analyses in this book assume that money in those programs will be spent along the same time frame as the larger categories into which they fall. It is important to reiterate that the levels contained in the program tables do not include ARRA funding, and therefore neither do the resulting percentage change values. This book provides details regarding the following programs: Child Welfare; Early Childhood; Education; Education: Military; Health; Housing; Income Support; Nutrition; Safety; and Training. Contains the following indices: (1) Alphabetical Index of Programs; and (2) Index of Programs by Department and Bureau.