NWA Needs your help!
There are two ways in which you can be helpful. First, the Cantwell/Collins WIA Dear Colleague letter will be circulated shortly and we will send a copy to you. We will need your help to secure your state's Senators signatures due by the first week of April.
Second, please send the letter at this link to your House Member this week, requesting him or her include WIA funding in their FY 09 "program letter" to the Appropriations Committee. Each Member of Congress submits a program letter to the Committee (Members letters are due to the Appropriations Committee by March 19th) outlining their funding priorities for the upcoming year. The program letters are important tools that Committee Members use to judge the support a program has in Congress. These letters can lead to increased funding if strongly supported. Up until this year, WIA has had few mentions in Members program letters and we are seeking to increase this level of support.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
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3 comments:
Agree that these letters are of huge importance (especially since we now have the reallity of the rescission sitting on our desks) but many of us are running up against the old "gone to the well too many times" scenario. What we did here for partners in our state association as well as WIB members was break this down into very, very simple steps: Use the Cantwell Colins Letter to draft a cover letter to your Senators, include addresses, etc. Send the draft cover letter and the Cantwell Collins letter to everyone with specific instructions to print and send ... we generated more letters this time around than we have in the past and both Senators signed.
SENATE WIA AND EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER DEADLINE EXTENDED
Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have extended the deadline for signatures for their FY 09 WIA and Employment Service Dear Colleague letter to the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee requesting a restoration of the Administration’s proposed cuts to these important programs. The deadline for signatures is now 12:00 pm Thursday, April 3, 2008.
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The following is a list of Senators who have already signed the Dear Colleague letter as of the time of publication today:
Signers (29)
Kennedy
Lieberman
Lautenberg
Menendez
Clinton
Dodd
Reed
Stabenow
Obama
Smith
Boxer
Kohl
Wyden
Rockefeller
Schumer
Leahy
Brown
Levin
Akaka
Mikulski
Bill Nelson
Feinstein
Klobuchar
Coleman
Durbin
Snowe
Casey
Feingold
Webb
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However, several Senators have signed on to our WIA Dear Colleague letters in the past but have yet to sign on this year. Please see the list below. If your Senator is on this list of prior signers, please call him or her and asked them to sign on to the Cantwell/Collins WIA and Employment Service Dear Colleague
letter. Additional target Senators are provided below.
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Additional key targets:
Enzi (R-WY)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Biden (D-DE)
Baucus (D-MT)
Conrad (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Sununu (R-NH)
Roberts (R-KS)
Graham (R-SC)
Salazar (D-CO)
Lugar (R-IN)
Johnson (D-SD)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Murray (D-WA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Bayh (D-IN)
Tester (D-MT)
We are still trying to get people to act on this letter….
I was thinking about many of the concerns we hear from the field and the lack of action on this letter …
What I hear constantly is that folks have been asked to go to the well too many times, it hasn’t resulted in anything positive and therefore they are burnt out and not willing to write the letters and make the phone calls necessary.
My opinion is that some counter intelligence / PR work needs to be done by USA Works! ... (or NWA) To change this mind-set … in my thinking this is a long-term strategy and investment that we are making:
1. We need to remind folks that without their efforts to-date and the efforts of David and John that we would have seen deeper cuts.
2. We need to remind folks that their efforts (letter writing, phone calls, legislator visits, etc.) help to keep workforce on top of mind – instead of at the bottom of the pile
3. We need to remind folks that change doesn’t happen over night – they need to have the fortitude and vision to develop a plan and then stay with it till its fruition.
Keep the faith..... From one the faithful
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