Despite polls that demonstrate the popularity of most federal government spending, the word of the day in Washington is austerity. The Obama administration's next budget proposes cuts to a host of important federally-funded programs. And on Feb. 19 House Republicans passed a stop-gap spending bill that slashes $61 billion out of the federal government's current-year budget. Senate Democrats were initially rejecting the measure but now have drafted their own set of cuts. A government shutdown -- which would halt distribution of Social Security checks and stall food-safety inspections, among other things -- is possible.

In Chicago, the budget showdown is generating worries about everything from the future of energy assistance for the poor and protecting the Great Lakes to infrastructure spending and affordable housing. And the pushback against austerity is under way. Later this afternoon, the Chicago Housing Initiative will hold a rally and civil disobedience action in the Loop to dramatize the impact of the cuts the GOP put on the table on Feb. 19; the group says that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is set for a 21 percent budget reduction under that bill, a reduction that it says would cause a spike in homelessness. "We will do whatever we need to do to block these budget cuts from moving forward in the Senate," Barbara Campbell, a resident of Lincoln Park Plaza Apartments, said in a prepared statement. "We can’t allow them to be made on the backs of low- and middle-income families."