This August Recess, Indivisible KC is teaming up with other progressive groups around Kansas City to uplift Communities Creating Opportunity in their effort to protect the safety net. We will meet in front of Senator McCaskill’s office on Tuesday Aug. 22nd to remind her that as our children go back to school, it's time for her to go back to work on behalf of the people of Missouri! The focus for this office visit is to remind Senator McCaskill that the safety net programs threatened by the current proposed budget directly impact her constituents.

We plan to present Sen. McCaskill's staff with a backpack filled with our stories for her to carry back to Congress. We will also include (1) an apple - to remind her that we see them as “teachers” as well as representatives of the people; (2) an eraser - because we all make mistakes, but they still have time to fix theirs by voting to ensure that children and families are supported in ways that strengthen the communities they live in; (3) a calculator - to tally not only the costs but the financial drain on working families when health care is prohibitively expensive and threatens bankruptcy too often; and (4) a band aid - to remind her that cuts will not fix the hurt felt throughout our economy. We need work that pays living wages. We need to honor public institutions that support communal values. We need to remember what it feels like to be the neighbor in need. Mostly we need to remind Senator McCaskill it's time get back to work!

Suggested Talking Points:

• Children make up about ¼ of the U.S. population, but represent close to half of the Medicaid population. As the single largest eligibility group in the Medicaid system they would be most adversely affected by the proposals to convert Medicaid to a block grant system.

• Schools are reimbursed by Medicaid for certain services, such as speech-language pathology and occupational therapy for students with disabilities; cuts to Medicaid would diminish cash-strapped schools’ overall ability to respond to these needs.

• $1 trillion is now proposed to be cut from Medicaid over the next ten years - that represents 20% of Medicaid spending!

• 22 million children depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the food they eat every day. Proposed budget cuts could slash $150 billion from SNAP, threatening to leave one in five of those children hungry and less ready to learn.

• College students would also be affected by the proposed budget, with $3.3 billion cut from Pell grants—and they’d be harder for students to use.
  
  

Our specific Ask to Sen. McCaskill

The budget resolution passed out of the House Budget Committee in July was terrible. It takes away trillions of dollars in Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP in order to give new tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. It makes massive cuts to basic services like education and transportation in order to give billions more in funding to the Pentagon. Will you commit to me, your constituent, that you will oppose any budget resolution that undermines the safety net?