FACT SHEET: House Republican Budget Resolution: Same Failed Top-Down Economics

With more than 12 million private-sector jobs created over the last 60 months, it is clear that the President’s middle class economic agenda is working.  But instead of taking the steps we need to strengthen the standing of working families, the House Republican budget for fiscal year (FY) 2016 would return our economy to the same top-down economics that has failed us before. The Republican budget cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing investments in the middle class that we need to grow the economy, like education, job training, and manufacturing.  The Republican proposal stands in stark contrast to the President’s FY 2016 Budget, which would bring middle class economics into the 21st Century.

The President’s Budget builds off the progress we’ve made and shows what we can do if we invest in America's future and commit to an economy that rewards hard work, generates rising incomes, and allows everyone to share in the prosperity of a growing America. It lays out a strategy to strengthen our middle class and help America's hard-working families get ahead in a time of relentless economic and technological change. And it makes the critical investments needed to accelerate and sustain economic growth in the long run, including in research, education, training, and infrastructure.

House Republicans have chosen different priorities. Yet again, they are seeking to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class, while cutting taxes for the wealthy and well-connected. House Republicans still won’t say where close to $1 trillion of their spending cuts come from. But they are clear that their budget would continue the harmful cuts known as sequestration in 2016, threatening economic growth, cutting programs middle-class families count on, and attempting to fund national security through irresponsible budget gimmicks.  Their budget slashes domestic investments that support middle-class even more significantly after 2016, along with programs that serve the most vulnerable Americans.  It would end Medicare as we know it, transforming it from a guarantee seniors can count on into a voucher program. And, despite the more than 16 million Americans who have health insurance today as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it yet again proposes to repeal the law’s coverage expansions.

The choice could not be more clear and the consequences more stark. Thanks to President Obama and the resilience of the American people, the economy is growing again. The Republican budget would put that growth at risk and limit opportunity for the middle-class and those seeking to join it.

In a budget that claims to be fiscally responsible, House Republicans start by promising large tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. Among the few specific tax proposals in the House Republican budget is a promise to spend hundreds of billions on high-income and business tax cuts, with up to trillions more in unspecified high-income and corporate rate reductions.  The proposals they specify would cut the tax bill of the average millionaire by more than $50,000, before even adding the proposed cuts to tax rates.  Meanwhile, the House Republican budget does nothing to prevent a tax increase on 26 million working families and students. And in the past, they have made clear they would let this tax increase happen – raising taxes by an average of $900 apiece for 16 million working families and by $1,100 for 12 million families and students paying for college.

Because House Republicans refuse to ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share or to raise a single dollar of revenue, their budget relies on the same, failed top-down economics as in previous years. Specifically, it would:

• Cut investments in the middle class by maintaining sequestration funding levels. Under the House Republican budget, both non-defense and base defense discretionary funding in 2016 would be at the lowest real levels in a decade. Investments in the middle class would be heavily impacted: real preK-12 per pupil education funding would fall to its lowest levels since 2000, and real R&D funding would fall to its lowest level since 2002, except when large sequestration cuts also took effect in 2013. Compared to the President’s Budget, the Republican budget would result in: ^[1] 

  • 35,000 fewer children on Head Start.
  • $1.2 billion less in Title I education funding, enough to fund 4,500 schools, 17,000 teachers and aides, and 1.9 million students.
  • $347 million less in IDEA funding, an amount that could support up to 6,000 special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and other related staff.
  • More than 2 million fewer workers receiving job training and employment services.
  • Elimination of the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships, which serve 30,000 small manufacturers that contribute to the creation of middle-class jobs and economic growth.
  • 1,300 fewer medical research grants at NIH.
  • 950 fewer competitive science research awards at the NSF, affecting 11,600 researchers, technicians and students.
  • 133,000 fewer families receiving Housing Choice Vouchers, and another 20,000 fewer rural families receiving help for affordable rental housing.
  • Fewer community-based services for seniors, including approximately 500,000 fewer rides to doctors and grocery stores, approximately 200,000 fewer hours of assistance for seniors unable to perform activities of daily living, and approximately 100,000 fewer hours of care for dependent adults.
  • 3,500 fewer low-income homes achieving annual energy cost savings through residential energy retrofits.

Meanwhile, as a wide range of national security experts ranging from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Ambassador John Bolton have pointed out, locking in sequestration for defense would undermine our readiness and efforts to secure technological superiority for U.S. forces in future conflicts.  Instead of providing a plan to appropriately fund our national security, House Republicans try to have it both ways on defense funding – maintaining sequestration and then using overseas contingency operations funds intended for wars and not subject to budget caps to fund the day-to-day operations of the Pentagon.  This is both bad budgeting and harmful to military planning -- Senator John McCain has called it a “gimmick” and former House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan referred to it as treating overseas contingency funding as a “slush fund.” 

• More than doubles cuts to middle class investments starting in 2017.  In 2017, the House Republican budget more than doubles its cuts to these investments, and the cuts grow even deeper after that. The budget hides these deep cuts in later years to mask their effects. But if non-defense discretionary funding were cut 12 percent below sequestration levels in 2016 – the cut the Republican budget would make in 2018 – it would mean the following compared to the President’s Budget: ^[2]
  • More than 157,000 children would lose out on access to Head Start services.
  • More than 4 million workers would lose out on job training and employment services.
  • Title I education funding would be $2.7 billion lower, enough to fund about 10,000 schools, 38,000 teachers, and aides, and 4.2 million students.
  • IDEA funding would be nearly $1.6 billion lower, an amount that could support up to 26,800 special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and other related staff.

• Take away health insurance from more than 16 million people who have gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is working. Thanks to its coverage provisions, the share of Americans without health insurance is at or near historic lows – and these provisions are costing almost one third less than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) initially projected. Almost exactly five years after the ACA was enacted into law, Republicans will be voting for the more than 50^th time to repeal these provisions. Beyond the effect on the millions who have gained health insurance coverage through the ACA Marketplaces or through Medicaid, the House Republican Budget would:

  • Deprive up to 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions of the security of knowing they will still be able to buy affordable health coverage if they lose their jobs or otherwise lose their health insurance;
  • Deny millions of young adults of the option to stay on their parents’ plans if they re-enroll in school or get a job without health coverage; and;
  • Increase prescription drug costs for more than 4 million seniors and people with disabilities.

• Reaches its fiscal targets through unspecified cuts and gimmicks, plus deep cuts to programs that serve the most vulnerable. On top of its cuts to middle-class investments and the ACA, the Republican budget calls for an additional nearly $2 trillion in cuts to health, safety net, and other mandatory programs. For the fifth year in a row, the budget declines to specify where almost $1 trillion of these savings would come from. But the budget does single out a few programs as the first places it would look to reduce the deficit:

  • It eliminates mandatory funding for Pell Grants and freezes the maximum grant at its current level, instead of allowing it to increase to keep pace with inflation, and makes other unspecified cuts to the program. Over time, this would reduce financial aid for almost all of the more than 8 million students who rely on Pell Grants to afford college.
  • It block grants Medicaid, cutting resources for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by more than $900 billion, on top of the impact of repealing the ACA coverage provisions. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of a similar proposal in previous Republican Budgets found that as many as 20 million people would be denied the coverage they would have gotten under pre-ACA Medicaid.
  • It cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by about $140 billion over 10 years and in 2021 would block grant the program, jeopardizing the more than 46 million Americans who depend on it, the majority of them children, the elderly, or people with disabilities.  Research has shown that SNAP not only helps families put food on the table, but it also has a positive long-term impact on children’s health and education outcomes.

Since even these cuts leave the Republican budget short of its fiscal goals, House Republicans get the rest of the way there by policies such as:

• Declining to implement their own policies in their budget. While claiming to “fully repeal Obamacare” and stripping away health coverage from millions, the House Budget retains the ACA’s savings, claiming they will replace the revenues through unspecified tax reforms.  And while House Republicans have voted to extend hundreds of billions in business tax cuts without offsets, their budget adds up only by assuming those measures would be paid for.
• Counting about $150 billion in deficit reduction from highly uncertain “dynamic scoring.” Not only is dynamic scoring uncertain in general, but the dynamic estimates of the Republican budget take into account only its deficit reduction, not the long-term economic costs of its cuts to research, education, and other investments.
• Terminating the FDIC’s Orderly Liquidation Authority. This authority was enacted to ensure taxpayer funds are never again used to bail out ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions.  And though the House budget says it does “not rely on gimmicks or creative accounting tricks”, the ‘savings’ from this termination are both, because, by law, any costs of the program must be recouped from the financial industry.

The Republican budget also proposes other policy changes that would have severe consequences for seniors and the middle class. It would:

• End Medicare as we know it. For new beneficiaries starting in 2024, the House Republican budget would end Medicare as we know it by substituting guaranteed access to the traditional Medicare program with a voucher program, increasing costs for millions of seniors and forcing millions out of traditional Medicare, risking a death spiral as private plans siphon off healthier and less expensive beneficiaries.  Beneficiaries would receive a premium-support payment that may not completely offset the premium for the Medicare plan of their choice (either a private plan or the traditional Medicare program).  As CBO and numerous outside analysts have found, under a voucher system healthier, lower-cost Medicare beneficiaries would be more likely to enroll in private plans.  Meanwhile, traditional Medicare would increasingly be left with sicker, more expensive beneficiaries. 

• Undercut important consumer protections.  In addition to cutting services and aid for the most vulnerable, the House Republican budget calls for rolling back key aspects of Wall Street Reform, while underfunding the agencies working to implement it. It terminates mandatory funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), greatly limiting the independence of this watchdog for the rights of consumers.  In the process, the House budget gains ‘creative accounting’ savings by shifting CFPB funding to appropriations.  In addition, it risks returning us to the days of “too big to fail,” protecting Wall Street firms from important regulatory safeguards and putting ordinary citizens and the economy at risk.

• Do nothing to address our Nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The President has put forth a detailed plan to make significant investments in repairing and modernizing our infrastructure, paid for by closing specific loopholes that allow U.S. companies to shift profits and jobs to tax havens as part of pro-growth business tax reform.  Not only does the House Republican budget lack a real plan to address the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund by establishing an unspecified reserve fund “to provide for innovative thinking,” but House Republicans’ extreme sequestration cuts put funding for successful infrastructure programs like TIGER grants at risk.

The consequences of the Republican budget approach for the economy and the middle-class are stark. The budget’s own numbers show that its deep near-term spending cuts would reduce the size of the economy by an average of 0.5 percent over the next three years, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Its cuts to investments in education, training, research, and manufacturing would have compounding effects on the economy over time.

Instead of the same top-down economics that led to the financial crisis, the President’s Budget invests in an economy that puts the middle class first and cuts the deficit in a balanced way by closing tax loopholes to ensure millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. Now is the time to strengthen the standing of working and middle class families, not go back to the same failed Republican top-down economics.

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^[1] Because the House Republican budget does not provide specific discretionary program levels, this analysis assumes an overall nominal percentage reduction in available non-defense discretionary funds of 1.5 percent below currently enacted 2015 levels, in order to account for both sequestration and unavoidable cost growth in certain areas (such as veterans’ medical care). This reduction is applied mechanically across-the-board to all discretionary programs. To prevent cuts of this magnitude in any specific program would require deeper cuts than described in other programs.

^[2] Similar to the analysis of House Republican budget cuts in 2016, the analysis of the 12 percent cut relative to sequestration levels assumes an across-the-board reduction to the enacted 2015 levels and compares to the President’s 2016 proposals.  

First Lady Michelle Obama to Travel to Japan and Cambodia March 18-22

Tokyo, Japan; Kyoto, Japan; Siem Reap, Cambodia

*Updated with additional event information for the First Lady’s visit to Tokyo.

In case you missed it: Read the First Lady’s Op-Ed “Let’s Ensure That Every Girl Can Learn” HERE.

On the heels of the President and First Lady’s launch of the Let Girls Learn international girls education initiative, Mrs. Obama will travel to Japan and Cambodia from March 18-22, 2015. She will visit Tokyo on March 18-20, Kyoto on March 20, and Siem Reap on March 20-22.  She will be joined by Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet.

For more information on the Let Girls Learn Initiative, please click HERE.

While in Tokyo, the First Lady will meet with Mrs. Akie Abe, the Spouse of the Prime Minister of Japan, and deliver remarks on the importance both countries place on international girls education. The First Lady will also announce plans to deepen our partnership on this issue, including through a collaboration between the Peace Corps and Japan’s Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Following their remarks, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Abe will meet with Japanese university students and share stories from their own educational backgrounds.

* Also in Tokyo, the First Lady will meet with the Emperor and Empress of Japan and will participate in a meet and greet with embassy employees.

The First Lady will travel to Kyoto on March 20 and visit the Kiyomizu-Dera Buddhist Temple and the Fushimi Inari Shinto Shrine. She will also greet staff from the U.S. Consulate in Osaka.

On the evening of March 20, the First Lady will travel to Cambodia, one of the first 11 countries to be included in the Let Girls Learn Peace Corps initiative.  In Cambodia, Mrs. Obama and Peace Corps Director Hessler-Radelet will see up close how community-driven solutions – which are key components of the Let Girls Learn Peace Corps program – are changing girls’ lives.

While in Cambodia, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bun Rany, the First Lady of Cambodia, will meet with high school students and hear directly how they benefit from community-led programs like Room to Read and the Peace Corps. Room to Read is a non-profit organization that focuses on literacy and gender equality in education, specifically working in Asia and Africa.

Following the First Lady’s meeting with Cambodian students, she will deliver remarks to Peace Corps Volunteers participating in a girls education training event that is part of Let Girls Learn. Community leaders and educators who serve as local partners for the Peace Corps volunteers will also be at the event, working together with their respective volunteers to affect change. The training – representative of others happening around the world – equips Peace Corps Volunteers with the necessary resources to break down barriers to girls’ education in their communities.

The First Lady will also host a roundtable with Peace Corps Volunteers, local community leaders, and civil society members who are implementing projects to support girls’ education in Cambodia. While in Siem Reap, the First Lady will also visit Angkor Wat and participate in a meet and greet with embassy employees in Cambodia.

In both Japan and Cambodia, the First Lady will share her trip with students through daily online diary entries and a collaboration with PBS LearningMedia. PBS LearningMedia will offer opportunities for young people to connect to, and learn from, Mrs. Obama’s trip, and will provide resources for U.S. classrooms that explore the culture, geography and current events in Japan and Cambodia.

On-The-Record Press Call To Discuss The First Lady's Trip To Japan and Cambodia

Via Conference Call

3:32 P.M. EDT

MS. GONZALEZ:  Thank you, everyone, for joining this on-the-record conference call to discuss the First Lady’s upcoming trip to Japan and Cambodia.  We are here today with Tina Tchen, the Chief of Staff to the First Lady, and Evan Medeiros, the Senior Director for Asian Affairs on the national security staff.  I’m going to hand it over to them for some brief opening remarks, and then we’ll take some questions. 

Tina.

MS. TCHEN:  Thanks, MC.  And we’re delighted to be here to talk about the First Lady’s trip this week to Japan and Cambodia. 

Two weeks ago, the President and the First Lady launched Let Girls Learn, which is a whole-of-government effort across the U.S. government to address the barriers that keep over 62 million girls around the world out of school, especially adolescent girls.  As the President and the First Lady spoke about that day, we know that adolescent girls face particular challenges of culture and attitude, as well as access to completing their education to the detriment of themselves, their families, and ultimately, their countries.

Japan shares in that concern, and they’re going to be working with us to address these issues on areas including increasing their support as we are increasing our support for funding girls’ education efforts and efforts to address the barriers, and to work on community-based solutions.  One part of this trip will be to highlight a piece of the Let Girls Learn initiative that the First Lady will champion, and that is to support community-level and community-led-based solutions to the barriers.  Because, as the President and the First Lady know from their experience as community organizers, it’s at that community level where hearts and minds change, where attitudes can really change, and we can address the issue confronting girls who want an education and can’t get it.

So Mrs. Obama in her travels will go to Japan and Cambodia.  She’ll be joined on this trip by the Peace Corps Director, Carrie Hessler-Radelet.  Our community-based solutions will be led through the efforts of Peace Corps volunteers around the globe who are already in communities doing this -- those Peace Corps volunteers will be trained -- and I’ll have more about that in a moment -- but they will received gender-based training together with local activists in order to have these community-based conversations.  And then we will be supporting the solutions that communities come up with -- whether it’s school access, uniforms, water access -- to try to address these barriers.

Japan and Cambodia represent two key components of our approach to tackling this problem.  Japan, as I mentioned, is a donor country that shares our concerns and can lead the way in promoting girls’ education in the region.  And the First Lady will be highlighting the commitment that Japan has to this issue.

On the other hand, Cambodia is a developing country where the Peace Corps is already active on the ground and community-led solutions can really impact girls’ education.  Cambodia will be one of the first 11 countries to be included in the Let Girls Learn Peace Corps program.

Let me talk a little bit more about Japan and turn it over to Evan, who can address Japan.  And then the two of us will both talk about Cambodia. 

I mean, Japan -- this will be the first time Mrs. Obama is visiting Japan.  While in Tokyo, Mrs. Obama will meet with Mrs. Akie Abe, the spouse of the Prime Minister of Japan.  She will also deliver remarks on the importance both countries place on international girls’ education, including, as I mentioned, plans to deepen our partnership on this issue, and including a collaboration between the Peace Corps and Japan’s version of the Peace Corps, their Overseas Cooperation Volunteers.  Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Abe will also meet with Japanese university students and share stories from their own educational backgrounds.  While in Tokyo, Mrs. Obama will also meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  She’ll also travel to Kyoto and visit a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine.

And let me turn the call over to Evan to speak a little bit more about the overall Asia focus of this trip, and Japan in particular.

MR. MEDEIROS:  Thank you, Tina.  And thank you, everybody, for joining us today.  This is Evan Medeiros.  I’m the Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. 

As many of you know, the U.S. strategy of rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific is one of the President’s top foreign policy priorities.  Since the earliest days of the administration in 2009, the United States has sought to expand its economic, political, diplomatic, and military involvement in the Asia-Pacific region because we believe that the Asia-Pacific is increasingly and inexplicably linked to America’s economic and security interests. 

As part of the strategy, we have adopted numerous policies to expand the U.S. engagement with the region.  At the same time, we have sought to partner with countries in the region to ensure that not only is the U.S. more present and active in the region, but we’re working with our key partners in the region to build a security environment, an economic environment, a political environment, and a diplomatic environment that serves American interests.  In other words, it's not just about the U.S. doing more in Asia, it's about the U.S. working with our partners in Asia to do more in the region and globally. 

There are few countries more important to the success of this strategy than Japan.  The U.S.-Japan alliance is one of the centerpieces of our rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region.  As the third largest economy in the world and as a long-standing U.S. ally, Japan is at the heart of so many of our initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region.

The President visited Japan in April of last year, and during that time we outlined a series of initiatives in which we are going to be working together to advance U.S. and Japanese economic and security interests in the Asia-Pacific.  One area in which we decided that we were going to expand our cooperation was in terms of international development assistance. 

The U.S. and Japan are two of the most significant contributors to official development assistance throughout the world, so it's a natural area of cooperation between the United States and Japan.  To draw on this strength of our two countries, we decided to choose Japan as one of our key partners in implementing the Let Girls Learn initiative.  Girls’ education is an important addition to the already robust U.S.-Japan agenda and it speaks to the breadth and the depth of our relationship.

So when the First Lady is in Japan, she’s going to be announcing some robust new commitments that demonstrate our ability to partner with Japan in implementing the Let Girls Learn initiative.  Thank you very much.

MS. TCHEN:  Thanks, Evan.  And then after Japan, the First Lady will travel to Cambodia.  While in Cambodia, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bun Rany, the First Lady of Cambodia, will meet with high school students and hear directly about how they benefit from community-led programs like Room to Read and the Peace Corps.  This really is an opportunity to just be on the ground, how community-based and community-led solutions are addressing the issues confronting girls seeking an education. 

The First Lady will also deliver remarks to Peace Corp volunteers in Cambodia who are participating in the girls’ education training event that’s part of Let Girls Learn.  This is a training representative of others that are happening around the world that will equip Peace Corp volunteers and their in-country community leaders.  So it will be a training of both Peace Corp volunteers and community activists together.  They’ll both learn about the necessary resources to break down the barriers to girls’ education in their communities.

The First Lady will also host a roundtable with Peace Corp volunteers.  These will involve community leaders and also civil society members who are implementing projects to support girls’ education in Cambodia.

Finally, while in Siem Reap, the First Lady will also visit Angkor Wat, the UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Evan.

MR. MEDEIROS:  Thank you, Tina.  As Tina mentioned, we wanted to include -- there was a theory behind the trip that we include one partner and donor country -- that’s Japan -- and one country in which we’re actively implementing Let Girls Learn.  And so Cambodia is one of the 11 countries in which we are going to implement Let Girls Learn.  So a donor country and a partner country in implementing it. 

Mrs. Obama will be the first sitting First Lady to ever visit Cambodia.  Both Hillary Clinton and Jackie Kennedy Onassis visited previously but not while they were the First Ladies.  When the First Lady is visiting Cambodia for the Let Girls Learn initiative, it will further aim to reinforce the importance of Southeast Asia in the President’s broader Asia-Pacific rebalancing initiative.  During the President two trips to Asia last year in April and November, Southeast Asia featured prominently, and the Frist Lady’s trip to Cambodia is meant to underscore the breadth of our interactions with Southeast Asia.

In particular, Cambodia has created the space needed for community-led programs, and so it's a natural country in which we want to work with to bring about progress under the Let Girls Learn initiative.  And from our perspective, we believe that Cambodia and our partners on the ground will be able to use this initiative to continue shining a light on girls’ education. 

Thank you.

MS. TCHEN:  And finally, before we go to questions, the other part of Let Girls Learn is to also remind the young people here in the United States of the hunger that girls and boys around the world feel for education, and to draw inspiration from it, to also learn about the world and be engaged with the world.  So a big part of Let Girls Learn, as with our other education initiative, Reach Higher, is to speak to a U.S. domestic audience.  And so the First Lady is once again on this trip, as she has on previous trips, using social media and online tools to share her visit with young people across the country.

She’ll be doing video diaries.  She’ll be doing a travel journal.  She’ll have Q&A online and more.  For example, we are partnering with PBS LearningMedia to engage with 1.6 million educators and users to inform students in the United States about the power and possibilities that an education bring to girls in the U.S. and globally.  And during the trip, the First Lady will answer questions from classrooms around the country about Let Girls Learn.  We can also encourage folks to ask the First Lady questions right now on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #LetGirlsLearnQA, altogether, and send those questions in.

Finally, Michelle Phan, a Youtube star that many of you may be familiar with, will be joining the trip in Tokyo and asking Mrs. Obama the questions that come through on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  So we hope you’ll follow the trip and encourage your readers to follow the trip.  And you can get the latest on the trip throughout our journey this week at WhiteHouse.gov/LetGirlsLearn, and, again, using the hashtag #LetGirlsLearn.

MS. GONZALEZ:  Great.  Thank you very much, Tina and Evan.  Any questions?

Q    Hi, I appreciate you doing the call.  I wanted to ask about the decision to send the First Lady to Cambodia.  I recall two years or so ago when the President went, at the time, White House officials sort of stressed that he was only going because there was a summit there, the implication being that he wouldn’t go otherwise because of the country’s human rights record, so on and so forth.  So I’m just wondering about the decision to send her there.  I know Tina said there were 11 countries that are participating in the Peace Corps part of Let Girls Learn.  Was there not another country that you all could send her to besides Cambodia?

MS. TCHEN:  Well, I think to start with the education -- you point out, Darlene, Cambodia is one of the 11 countries where the Peace Corps is working.  I think as Evan mentioned in his remarks, Cambodia actually has done a great deal of work in this space and created a space for community-based and led solutions and has been working with the Peace Corps.  The Peace Corps has been on the ground doing a lot of this work, which is what the First Lady will be able to see firsthand.

So that’s the specific context for the trip, and Evan can address any broader issues.

MR. MEDEIROS:  Sure.  What I would add is that when the First Lady is in Cambodia, she is going to have ample opportunity to reinforce the progress that’s been made at the community level.  She is going to have the opportunity to meet with civil society to reinforce our view of the importance of having an open and inclusive political system to allow civil society to have a role in good governance, and she is also going to be giving a speech in which she is going to be able to highlight basic values and principles that are important to the United States, in particular the importance of access to education for all -- for both men and women as well as the importance of having access -- equal access to economic opportunity.

So I think there’s ample opportunity for the First Lady when she visits Siem Reap to share American perspectives about education and good governance.

Q    Hi, good afternoon.  Thanks so much for doing this.  I just have two questions.  How many trips has the First Lady done like this, where she’s gone along without the President?  And my next question is, will her daughters be traveling with her?  I know last year when she went to China her daughters and her mother traveled as well.  So if you can answer those, I’d appreciate it.

MS. TCHEN:  Her daughters will not be traveling with her, nor will Mrs. Robinson.  It will just be the First Lady.  And you’re testing my memory here on the prior trips -- well, there was the China trip last year, as you noted.  She did a solo trip to Africa the year before.  She did another trip to Mexico and Haiti the year before that.  And I think those are the prior official trips she’s taken on her own.

Q    Hi, good afternoon.  Thanks for the call.  This is basically a logistics question.  Do you know if there are any local pools that are being established on the ground for coverage of these events, or is every -- or are all these events just open coverage?

MS. GONZALEZ:  So it’s a combination.  We have some that are open press, and we also have pools on the ground.  So I’m happy to follow up after the call with you. 

Q    Thank you very much.

Q    Hi.  For the Let Girls Learn initiative, is there going to be direct cooperation between JICA and the Peace Corps?  Or is it more that each country is doing its own separate programming?

MS. TCHEN:  So JICA and the Peace Corps have had a cooperative relationship -- they’ll be renewing a memorandum of understanding between Peace Corps and JICA to work broadly together, and including on girls’ education.  I think that’s still -- on what specific areas and efforts that we’ll have that will take shape is still a work in progress between Peace Corps and JICA.

Q    Thanks.  Two questions; Evan, one for you.  You mentioned one of the focuses is ODA and aid cooperation writ large.  And we’ve been reading the last few days about what seems to be a confused message on the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and since you’re going to be in Japan, they obviously have a major interest in that also.  Is there any chance that you could give us a definitive Obama administration position on the AIIB?  Are we discouraging people from joining until China can answer the questions, or are we not? 

And for Ms. Tchen -- thanks very much -- when the First Lady is in Japan, she’ll be meeting with both the Prime Minister and others.  Will she talk to the Prime Minister about how some of the historical issues -- especially issues affecting the women -- such as the comfort women and other issues that have become controversial throughout Asia, but particularly for Japan and Korea relations, and the great concern of the administration?  Will she take this opportunity to express to the Prime Minister the administration’s views on how to talk about these things with the 70th anniversary?

So two questions.  Thanks very much.

MS. TCHEN:  I mean, I think I can answer this pretty simply.  The focus of the trip is the Let Girls Learn initiative, so I expect that her conversations with the Prime Minister, which is a courtesy call with him, will be on that.  I’d note that this trip comes in advance of the Prime Minister’s visit to the United States a month later.  The First Lady is not going as an emissary on other issues beyond Let Girls Learn.  And I will say, the subject of this call is specific to Let Girls Learn, as to your first question.  So this isn’t the forum, nor do we have the right personnel on here to address the issues regarding the Infrastructure Bank.

Q    Okay.  Thanks.

Q    Hi.  Thank you so much for the call.  I have actually a question for Evan and one question for Tina. 

Evan, we know the First Lady’s visit to Japan is an important part of our preparation for Japan Prime Minister Abe’s later state visit to the U.S., and we believe Japan’s relation with its neighbor is important -- will be an important topic.  And actually, China recently said if Japan can face history squarely, there will be opportunity for improvement of Japan and its neighbor’s relationship.  And just today, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a similar comment.  So will the First Lady or the President call for reconcile when they meet with their counterparts?  

And also, the question to Tina is that -- the First Lady just revealed that recently, the First Family’s favorite meal is sushi, sashimi and tempura.  So I believe she must be very excited about the coming trip.  We know cuisine is an important part of diplomacy, so have you and Japan started to arrange that?

MS. TCHEN:  Well, thank you.  And I do think -- in the context I think there have been discussions about -- but some of the favorite meals among others, and, yes, sushi is one of them.  But no, we have not yet worked on the details of the -- those are in the works for the menu for the state dinner, if that was the question.  And the First Lady does enjoy, as I think you’ve seen on some of her other trips, partaking of the local cuisine, and she’s looking forward to doing that with respect to Japan as well.

MR. MEDEIROS:  On the first part of your question, I would reiterate what Tina said, which is the focus of this trip is on our partnership with Japan on Let Girls Learn and international education.  So that’s going to be -- so that’s what she will be talking about with her Japanese counterparts. 

Q    Thanks a lot for the call.  Just two really quick ones.  One, do you have any logistical information as far as when she departs, when she arrives, that kind of thing?  And then as far as the deepening partnership and the collaboration between the Peace Corps and Japan’s side, do you have any other additional details?  You don’t want to get ahead of her announcement, but anything else that you can give us as far as what that’s going to look like or what they might announce?  Thanks.

MS. GONZALEZ:  So on the arrivals and departures, we’re happy to follow up offline with that. 

MS. TCHEN:  And you’re absolutely right, we don’t want to get ahead of the news that will happen on Wednesday, so I don’t have more to give you on the Japan and Peace Corps work.

MS. GONZALEZ:  Great.  Thank you, everyone, for joining us.

END  
3:53 P.M. EDT 

FACT SHEET: Investments to Reduce the National Rape Kit Backlog and Combat Violence Against Women

“It’s the single-most significant and direct way to measure the character of a nation -- when violence against women is no longer societally accepted, no longer kept secret, when everyone understands that even one case is too many.  That’s when it will change.”

-Vice President Joe Biden, September 2014

Today, Vice President Biden will deliver remarks in Maryland to highlight the Administration’s new Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which is investing $41 million this year to help communities accelerate testing of the estimated 400,000 rape kits that have been backlogged in law enforcement storage rooms and crime labs across the country. This is a problem which prevents or delays the prosecution of sexual assault crimes. In addition to this initiative to address the backlog, the Administration invested an unprecedented $430 million in violence against women programs in Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2015.

The President’s FY 2016 Budget proposes an additional $41 million to continue the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative as well as $20 million for research under the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice.  This funding aims to identify more effective and efficient strategies to reduce the backlog of sexual assault kits and to prevent future backlogs from occurring.

Audio of the Vice President’s remarks at 12:30 PM ET will be available at www.whitehouse.gov/live. 

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative

A sexual assault kit, or “rape kit,” is a medical kit used to collect evidence from the body and clothing of a victim of rape or sexual assault. The rape kit generally contains tools such as swabs, tubes, glass slides, containers, and plastic bags.  These items are used to collect and preserve fibers from clothing, hair, and bodily fluids, which can help identify DNA and other forensic evidence left by a perpetrator. Rape kits, when tested by crime labs, have proven vital to successful investigations and prosecutions of sexual assault crimes, and thus to holding perpetrators accountable. Testing rape kits can lead to new DNA matches in the criminal database, identification of serial rapists, and increased rates of arrest and prosecution of perpetrators, leading to improved public safety.

The number of kits backlogged in crime labs—meaning those that have been submitted for testing over 90 days ago—is thought to be around several hundred thousand. But over the past decade, law enforcement agencies around the nation have discovered scores of kits in storage facilities, and it isn’t known how many other jurisdictions have similar problems. Some of these kits have been booked into evidence in police evidence storage facilities but the detective and/or prosecutor has not requested DNA analysis. Other kits have been submitted for testing in crime lab facilities, but are awaiting DNA analysis and have not been tested in a timely manner.

To better understand the factors causing the backlog and assess strategies for accelerating the submission of rape kits to crime labs, in 2011, the Administration, in conjunction with businesses and foundations, funded pilot projects in Detroit, Michigan and Houston, Texas. The results of these pilots demonstrate that progress can be made to reduce the backlog and identify and convict perpetrators, though challenges still remain. In Detroit in 2009, 11,000 untested rape kits were found in an abandoned police storage unit. As of January 2015, a team of law enforcement officers, prosecutors, researchers and advocates had tested 2,000 kits as part of the pilot project. The testing resulted in approximately 760 DNA matches and led to the identification of 188 serial offenders and 15 convictions.

To implement the successful strategies identified in the pilots in more communities across the country, the President’s FY2015 budget proposed the creation of the new Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. The Administration secured $41 million for this Initiative to help state, local, and tribal law enforcement and prosecutors’ offices take action to reduce the rape kit backlog. The Department of Justice is accepting applications for this competitive grant through May 7, 2015.

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative complements past legislation to address DNA backlogs, including the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting (SAFER) Act, passed by Congress as part of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). SAFER focuses on ending the rape kit backlog. The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative also builds upon the Debbie Smith Act of 2004, which amended the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 to include DNA testing of sexual assault kits.

Additional Investments in the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Proposal to Combat Violence Against Women

The President’s FY 2016 Budget requests an unprecedented $473.5 million for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women to combat and respond to violent crimes against women. This request includes $41 million to continue the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative and $20 million for research under the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice in order to identify more effective and efficient strategies for reducing the backlog of sexual assault kits. It also includes $193 million for STOP Grants to Combat Violence Against Women, $27 million for the Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP), and $26 million to reduce violent crimes against women on campus, and funds two new initiatives in the Office on Violence Against Women:

• $21 million for the Violence Against Women 20/20 Initiative, which aims to implement substantial, targeted projects that can be utilized in diverse communities across the country and serve as models that can be replicated across the nation, and
• $5 million for a new Tribal Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction grant program to support tribes in strengthening their criminal justice systems, providing indigent defense counsel, developing appropriate jury pools, and assisting victims.

Highlights of the Administration’s Record Fighting Violence Against Women

From their first day in the White House, the President and Vice President have been committed to addressing violence against women and have taken action. For example:

• In 2015,
  • VAWA 2013’s “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” (SDVCJ) took effect. This Act recognizes tribes’ inherent power to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indian perpetrators who commit acts of domestic or dating violence or violate certain protection orders in Indian country.
• In 2014,
  • The President established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.  After 27 listening sessions with stakeholders across the country, the Task Force released its first report – Not Alone – with new recommendations for schools to prevent and respond to sexual assault and new steps by federal agencies to improve enforcement of federal laws.  The work of the Task Force is ongoing.
  • The Task Force launched the 1is2many PSA aimed at spreading the word that one victim is too many.  The campaign launched on the 20th Anniversary of VAWA.
  • The President and Vice President unveiled a new public awareness and education campaign: “It’s On Us.” The campaign seeks to engage college students and all members of campus communities in a dialogue around effectively responding to and preventing sexual assault in the first place.
  • The Vice President celebrated the 20^th anniversary of VAWA at the National Archives and called for a renewed focus on civil rights and equal protection of women. 
  • The Affordable Care Act of 2010 began prohibiting insurance companies, healthcare providers, and health programs that receive federal financial assistance from denying coverage to women based on many factors, including being a survivor of domestic or sexual violence.
• In 2013,
  • The President signed the third reauthorization of VAWA, creating new protections for LGBT victims, immigrant women, and Native American women. The legislation also expands housing protections for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and directs resources towards improving the criminal justice response to sexual assault.
  • The Vice President and the Attorney General announced a new initiative to prevent domestic violence homicides.  Using evidence-based lethality assessment tools, the initiative identifies victims at high risk and links them with immediate services.
• In 2012,
  • The President issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to develop policies to address domestic violence in the federal workforce and to assist survivors.
  • The Affordable Care Act began requiring all new and non-grandfathered health plans to cover screening and brief counseling for domestic violence, and made it unlawful for plans to require cost sharing or deductibles for these services.
• In 2011,
  • The Vice President kicked off the “1 is 2 Many” campaign, focusing on the high rates of dating violence and sexual assault experienced by teens and young adults.  Through “1 is 2 Many,” the National Dating Abuse Helpline expanded to digital services, and new mobile apps were created to help prevent sexual assault and support survivors.
  • The Department of Education sent new guidance to schools, colleges, and universities about their obligations under federal civil rights law to respond to and prevent sexual assault.
• In 2010,
  • The President signed the Affordable Care Act, which provides individuals who have experienced domestic, sexual, and dating violence with the economic security of affordable health insurance. Because of the law, most health plans must now cover preventive services, including screening and counseling for domestic or intimate partner violence, at no cost to the consumer. And insurers can no longer deny health coverage or charge a higher premium because a woman is a domestic violence survivor.
• In 2009,
  • The President appointed the first-ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women.