1. United States
2. Ind.
3. Letter

Vote NO on the recision bill. The original funding was crafted with fact-finding and bipartisan support. It reflects on-going needs in highly important areas. The amounts allocated to foreign assistance will save lives and help keep the peace around the world. This will save us from more desparate needs in the future. It will also help preserve what influence we may still have internationally -- something we should not continue to cede to the People's Republic of China. The amounts allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is critical at a time when the public is losing access to news media and being led astray by social media. Even more critical is that many communities around the country are served ONLY by stations funded by CPB. Without the funding, some of them may shut down, thus depriving swaths of the country of not only news but of important community and emergency information. The cuts that have been suggested so far have far-reaching consequences based on partisan, ill-advised considerations. The cuts to NOAA, the NWS, and FEMA have been shown to have been very poor ideas. The cuts at the FAA led to a scramble to staff ATC centers and several crises. Other such cuts are certainly going to have other bad effects in the near future. Congress -- with its oversight role and potential to bring multiple points of view to bear -- should rely on its traditional mechanisms to decide budget, and absent a fiscal crisis, not cut budgets midyear for purely political reasons. Vote NO on the recision legislation.