Children's Budget 2012 | First Focus

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Big Ideas: Children in the Southwest First Focus will begin releasing in August papers from Big Ideas: Children in the Southwest. The Southwest is home to more than one-fourth of America's children. This unique set of publications brings some of America's most innovative thinkers together to examine the distinct needs of children in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, and offer game-changing ideas to meet those needs.The complete report will be released in fall. Learn more about Big Ideas: Children in the Southwest here. And sign up below to ensure you receive each Big Ideas paper as it is released, and when the complete book is available for download.                    House Votes to Raise Taxes on Kids A bill passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives would raise taxes on millions of children and families, according to a new analysis by First Focus. About 29 million children and 25 million working families would experience tax increases in 2013 as a result of the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act (H.R. 8). The legislation extends for one year the 2001 and 2003 tax packages without recent improvements to the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and American Opportunity Tax Credit. A separate U.S. Senate tax bill passed in July extends the improved version of all family tax credits. The House and Senate’s separate tax bills extend for one year many - though not all - of the federal tax items currently set to expire on December 31, 2012. The First Focus fact sheet compares side-by-side how children and families fare in each bill.  Download the analysis here. Share this news on Facebook. Advocates Continue to Fight the Families Glitch A coalition of national and state advocates led by First Focus sent a letter to President Obama on July 26 urging the Administration to ensure that final U.S. Treasury Department Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations make health coverage affordable for families. The letter, signed by 74 national and state advocacy organizations, comes on the heels of a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Children's Health Insurance: Opportunities Exist for Improved Access to Affordable Insurance, finding that the first draft of Treasury regulations could leave care out of reach for hundreds of thousands of children and spouces. GAO recommended that the Treasury Department assess wheather the standard proposed is consistent with the ACA's goal to ensure the availability of affordable health coverage. The ACA offers tax credits to make private, employer-sponsored health insurance more affordable for working families. The law bases eligibility determinations on a comparison of the cost of the insurance and the family’s income. But the Treasury Department’s first draft of regulations implementing that provision of the ACA base that assessment on the cost of insuring the employee alone, instead of the cost of family coverage. While individual-only employer-sponsored health insurance costs average around $5,400 a year, annual costs for family coverage average $15,000 – nearly triple.  Download the letter to President Obama here. Read the First Focus press release here. Child Welfare State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center (SPARC) SPARC recently released two papers in a series of upcoming child welfare policy briefs. Sign up below to receive SPARC briefs as they are released. And visit SPARC on Twitter and atChildWelfareSPARC.com for the latest news and resources from the state child welfare advocacy community.Download Court-Based Child Welfare Reforms: Improved Child/Family Outcomes and Potential Cost Savings (8/8/2012) by Liz Thornton here. Download Improving the Economic Security of Children in Foster Care and Young People Who are Transitioning from Foster Care (7/9/2012) by Shawn Fremstad here. In Case You Missed It Deferred Action for Immigrant Youth: First Focus released yesterday a new fact sheet on President Obama’s new policy allowing eligible young people to apply for deferred action for childhood arrivals. Additional information, including FAQs, a flier and a how-to, are available at the USCIS website, or by calling its hotline at (800) 375-5283. Download the fact sheet here. Shortchanging and Failing Our Nation's Children and Our Future: First Focus’s Bruce Lesley published a new Huffington Post blog post last week on how children’s low share of the federal budget reflects that policymakers are not making kids a national priority, and how we can move forward to fix that. “We simply cannot win if we are always playing defense. Child advocates must create a positive policy agenda, such as the creation of a Child Poverty Target, and go on the offensive to demand better outcomes and improvements in child well-being for children and youth from our nation's policymakers.” Kids' Share 2012: Copies of the Urban Institute's sixth annual Kids' Share report are available online. Download the report here.  Children's Budget 2012: Copies of First Focus's Children's Budget 2012 are still available if you were unable to attend this years Children's Budget Summit on Capitol Hill. Download or request a printed copy of Children's Budget 2012 here. We have also updated ChildrensBudget.org to reflect the 2012 budget. For first time users, ChildrensBudget.org is a dynamic, interactive website with tools to explore how the federal government invests taxpayer resources in our children. With ChildrensBudget.org you can discover annual funding information for each federally supported program that aims to help our nation’s children. Search features allow you to find individual programs, compare categories of children’s spending, and even create a custom category of the programs that matter to you.