Tag: sequestration

The attack on low-income families in the Section 8 voucher program (Housing Choice Voucher Program) in Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco and across the nation intensified Sept. 27 when the U.S. Senate voted to continue with the catastrophic across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration with their vote for the Reid-Mikulski Amendment No. 1974 to House Joint Resolution 59.

Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning March 1. “This will be the first significant Tea Party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas. Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government.

Massive spending cuts to the nation’s federal housing programs are scheduled to go into effect on March 1, 2013, threatening thousands of low-income families in Oakland and other Bay Area cities with higher rent than they can pay. Additionally, several hundred thousand or more low-income families all across the nation could lose their vouchers.