slash 911 funds

Lawmakers protest slashing of 9/11 funds

http://www.downtownexpress.com/lawmakers-protest-slashing-of-911-funds/

BY ALINE REYNOLDS | Lawmakers representing Lower Manhattan are strongly protesting a looming national deficit reduction measure poised to cut millions of dollars from the James L. Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

Late last month, the New York delegation sent a letter to President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget urging that it exempt the 9/11 health bill from automatic spending cuts currently slated to begin in 2013. The request comes on the heels of a bill introduced by U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler that would do away with the financial cutbacks altogether.

The sequestering of federal expenditures would put $24 million of the law’s Victim Compensation Fund and $14 million in World Trade Center health program funds on the chopping block. Both programs would be subject to an additional 7.6 percent cut each following year until the law expires in 2016. These cuts would belong to a spending reduction amounting to more than $1 trillion across a variety of defense and domestic programs as a means to pare down the country’s ballooning deficit.

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