Domestic Weekly Update August 10, 2010

I do not believe you understand just how much RESULTS changed my outlook as a socially conscious and active individual. RESULTS showed me the power . . . of well, me!

— Jasmine Porter, a former Spelman College student who attended a RESULTS training earlier this year

Join Us for the August National Conference Call This Saturday at 12:30 pm ET

Join us this Saturday, August 14, for the RESULTS National Conference Call. On this month’s call, we’ll focus on our actions during the summer recess as members of Congress are back home. We’ll also be talking about messaging our priorities for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in the context of working families. Please plan to join us for this important call.

TAKE ACTION: Coordinate and gather with your group this Saturday, August 14, for the national conference call at 12:30 pm ET. The call-in number is (888) 409-6709. Once connected to the operator, ask for the RESULTS National Conference call. Plan to call in no later than 12:27 pm ET to give time to the operator to connect you with the call.

Note: We are still confirming the guest speaker for the call. Check our online version of this update later this week, which we will update with our guest speaker information.

Set the Stage for a Successful September with Media Coverage Now (August Action)

The countdown has begun. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that the Senate will begin debate on expiring tax cuts in the month of September. With the election only three months away and House Republicans working to prevent a lame duck session after the election, September is gearing up to be a pivotal month. And while we know all too well that congressional calendar predictions are as solid as water, we will still be ready.

Already there is a debate raging on the cable news shows about the expiring Bush tax cuts. However, for most Americans this issue has yet to dominate the radar. Let’s use this lull in attention to help shape the public debate in our favor. The media can be an excellent way to do this. It not only gets members’ of Congress attention, it also builds public support for our goals. This month’s action focuses on generating op-eds and letters to the editor in your local papers about the importance of supporting working families. Working families are an important part of our economic and cultural identity and policies that help support them should be protected and strengthened. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) have proven to be very successful at helping working families by encouraging work, promoting responsibility, and lifting families out of poverty. Americans should laud these values and do all we can to further them. Let’s do our part and help set the stage for a very successful September.

TAKE ACTION: Take the August Action. Draft and submit an op-ed or letter to the editor (LTE) to your local paper highlighting the importance of working families in our society. Use the messaging form the action to link the value we want to strengthen (supporting the family) to the public structures that help do that (tax credits for low-income workers). Call on members of Congress by name to take action to support families. Once you get a letter published, be sure to send it to the offices of your members of Congress so they know that your group got it published.

You can use our Media page on the RESULTS website to find media outlets in your city and state. For a summary of RESULTS’ 2010 U.S. poverty campaigns, see our Campaigns Summary page on the RESULTS website.

House and Senate Now on Recess: Use This Time to Talk about Our Priorities (July Action)

The House and Senate are now on the summer recess (although the House is back in session for today only, see below). The Senate was expected to be in session this week but the Elena Kagan nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court took less time than expected. Therefore, senators headed home at the end of last week. Both the House and Senate will be out of session until September 13.

With members of Congress back in their home districts for a month, this is a great opportunity to get some face time with them to talk about our policy goals. Our primary policy priority and current request is ensuring that Congress makes permanent the 2009 improvements to the EITC and CTC (made in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Specifically:

Making permanent the expansion of the EITC for married couples and larger families
Making permanent the $3,000 income threshold for the CTC

See our Campaigns Summary page for information about all our 2010 campaign priorities.

Request face-to-face meetings now so you can get on your representative’s and senators’ agenda before the recess ends. If you cannot get a meeting, contact their local offices about public appearances you can attend and ask a question.

Also, be strategic in your work. Use various congressional caucuses to magnify your influence with House and Senate tax writing committee members. Generally, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus are supportive of poverty reduction programs like the EITC and CTC. If your member of Congress is on one of these caucuses, urge him/her to ask caucus leadership to weigh in with the tax committee leaders in support of extending the 2009 EITC and CTC provisions. Their support will carry a lot of weight with leadership.

TAKE ACTION: Use the July Action for meetings with members of Congress back home and ask if they have spoken or written to key committee members about making the 2009 improvements to the EITC and CTC permanent. If you cannot get a meeting, please call their tax aides in Washington DC and politely push them until you get confirmation that your representative or senator has weighed in his or her support with the key committee members. You can find the names of aides on our Elected Officials page.

If you get a face-to-face scheduled or plan to attend a town hall, please contact Meredith Dodson ((202) 783-7100 x116, dodson@results.org) or Jos Linn ((515) 288-3622, jlinn@results.org). We are here to help you decide what priorities and specific requests you’ll want to make with your specific member of Congress. Also, once you’ve had a meeting or conversation, please use our online lobby report form to let us know how it went.

Senate Passes Child Nutrition Reauthorization by Cutting Food Stamps

On August 5, the Senate passed its child nutrition bill by a voice vote (no recorded vote), the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, S.3307. Normally, RESULTS would be pleased that the process is moving forward but that fact is overshadowed by the flawed manner in which the Senate passed its bill. A last minute substitute amendment on the floor changed the funding source for part of the bill to include money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 temporarily increased SNAP benefits as a response to the economic downturn. Congress designed these benefit increases to phase-out over time so that families receiving SNAP benefits wouldn’t see their benefits drop dramatically all at once. This change will now move up that phase-out to a date earlier than intended, up to 2013 from 2014. This short-changes hungry children not once, but twice — once with a lower funding level than the House ($4.5 billion in new funds in the Senate v. $8.0 billion in the House) and twice by cutting SNAP funding to pay for it (80 percent of SNAP households are households with children).

Unfortunately, because the funding change and vote came up so quickly, we could not stop it in the Senate. However, we can still stop SNAP benefits from being used to fund child nutrition in the final bill, and already members of the House and Senate have vowed to restore the SNAP funding.

The House child nutrition bill – the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 (H.R.5504) – has yet to pass. In addition to investing more resources for these important programs than the Senate bill, the House bill has yet to determine its offsets. By pushing House members to keep their hands off SNAP when the House bill comes up for a vote this fall, we can help prevent the Senate’s mistake from repeating. If successful, we can then urge House and Senate negotiators to include the House’s larger investment and more appropriate offsets in the final bill.

TAKE ACTION: Urge members of Congress to get child nutrition right. If you are meeting with members of Congress during the recess or attending a town hall event, tell them to invest $10 billion in new funding for these vital programs and to pay for it without taking precious resources from other anti-poverty programs. You can contact Congress using our online e-mail alert.

House Expected to Pass Medicaid Funding for States Today

Last week, after months of trying, the Senate passed a bill that would provide temporary funding to states to help with Medicaid and teachers’ salaries. The vote was 61-39. The House has come back in session for one day to vote on the Senate bill. It is expected to pass this afternoon.

As you know in 2009, Congress passed a temporary funding increase for Medicaid to help states maintain the program during the economic downturn; that funding runs out in December. However, states are still facing severe budget challenges and have requested an extension of this funding while the economy continues to recover. This bill would extend this funding another 6 months. Without it, states will be forced to cut vital services and lay off thousands of workers. Economist Mark Zandi estimates that the money will help save 150,000 jobs. A new paper from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows just how much each state stands to gain from passage of this bill.

RESULTS is pleased that Congress is poised to pass this important aid to states. This funding is essential in making sure states maintain important basic services. It also helps temporarily prevent a destabilization of Medicaid, which will be critical in reducing the number of uninsured when it is expanded in 2014 as part of health reform. But the news is not all good. First, the amount is one-third less than what was sought back in the spring meaning that if the economy does not recover soon, states will be facing the same problem in 2011. Zandi estimates that states will have to cut 250,000 over the next year without more stimulus spending. Also, part of the money used to pay for the funding comes from future benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). As with the child nutrition bill, RESULTS rejects the practice of taking needed money from critical anti-poverty programs to pay for other anti-poverty programs. We should not be using the poor to fund the poor. We cannot change the funding in the Medicaid but we can still change the SNAP funding used in the Senate child nutrition bill (see above). Note: using SNAP money to fund the aid to states was passed before the Senate decided to also use SNAP money for child nutrition.

These are the tough choices we sometimes have to make. But it demonstrates the vital importance of people who advocate for America’s poor. It is only strong grassroots advocates like you who can shape the debate in a way that these tradeoffs are never considered. Thank you for all you do.

Child Care Help Needed to Maintain Healthy Kids and Working Parents

For low-income and other families, child care is often the highest or second highest cost in family budgets. More parents now spend large portions of their income on child care; some are forced to quit their jobs and turn to welfare when child care assistance is not available. Despite the importance of high-quality child care to school readiness and later success, only about one in six children eligible for federal child care assistance receives help. This unmet need continues to grow as the eligible population has increased and the number of children receiving assistance has declined.

A new report from the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) report, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care — 2010 Update, reveals that child care prices continue to rise, despite the nation’s economic downturn. NACCRRA found that since 2000, the cost of child care has increased twice as fast as the median income of families with children and the cost of care for an infant in a child care center is more than the cost of college tuition and related expenses in 40 states. As child care costs rise, parents are shifting their children from licensed programs to informal care that potentially compromises their safety, health, and school readiness.

RESULTS supports annual funding increases for Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG), so that both programs are able to serve a greater number of eligible children. Federal child care assistance only reaches one out of every seven eligible children, and we continue to advocate for funding increases so that more children and their families can be served. See our Current Campaigns Summary for the latest on Congress’ action on these important programs. You can take action by sending e-mails to Congress using our Head Start and child care funding action alert. In addition, RESULTS strongly supports the Children First Act of 2010 (S. 3667/H.R. 5938), new legislation which expands funding and improves quality for child care for low-income families by increasing mandatory child care funding by $800 million in FY 2011, with provisions for inflation adjustments until FY 2014.

Quick News

Community Health Centers Seen As Key to Economic Growth. In its August 9 “Idea of the Day”, the Center for American Progress touts community health centers (CHCs) as a key driver of economic growth. As reported on the blog, “Case in point: the $1.8 billion investment that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act made in these centers in 2009 yielded $3.2 billion in total economic activity in those areas of the nation that needed it most. New jobs and in some cases brand new businesses that did not previously exist were created.” RESULTS and our allies pushed strongly for additional resources for CHCs in the health reform debate, and were successful; the final bill allocated $11 billion over five years (2011–2015) in new funding for CHCs which will help them serve an addition 20 million patients.

Report Shows Fiscal Strength of Social Security and Medicare. Last week, the government trustees who oversee the financial condition of Social Security and Medicare issued a good report. Because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health reform bill passed in March, the Medicare Trust Fund will have enough money to cover Medicare benefits until 2029, twelve years longer than previous projections. In addition, while suffering some short-term challenges because of the recession, the Social Security Trust Fund is also in good shape. If Congress does nothing, it will still have enough resources to cover benefits until 2037. After that, it will still be able to cover 75 percent of all benefits. Keep these facts in mind amid the rancor about deficits — challenges exist but there is no cause for panic.

Social Security Turns Seventy-five This Week. On August 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. Thus was created the largest social insurance program in U.S. history. In addition to providing retirement benefits to senior citizens, the program also pays out disability, survivor, and death benefits. Unemployment insurance was also created as part of the original law. As a result of Social Security, the elderly poverty rate has dropped from around 40 percent in the 1930s to around 10 percent today. Just to see how the program has grown over the years, in 1937, Social Security served 52,000 people and paid out $1.2 million in benefits; in 2008, it served over 50 million people and paid out $615 billion in benefits. We’ll have a chance on this Saturday’s national conference call to wish Social Security a very Happy Birthday!

Announcements

Vote for Grassroots Board Positions. We have three persons running for the open seat on the RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund Board. All current RESULTS volunteers are eligible to vote. Cast your vote by using our online voting ballot on the RESULTS website. The voting period will end on September 1.

New Outreach Action Sheet Available. Use our August 2010 Outreach Action Sheet to urge your members of Congress to pass a strong child nutrition reauthorization bill.

Campaigns Summary Page Available. For a summary of RESULTS’ 2010 U.S. poverty campaigns, see our Campaigns Summary page on the RESULTS website.

Upcoming Events

(Click to see a complete calendar)

August 2–September 10: House on summer recess.

August 14: RESULTS Domestic National Conference Call, 12:30 pm ET, (888) 409-6709.

August 14: Social Security’s 75th Birthday.

August 16–September 10: Senate on summer recess.

September 1: End of voting period for open RESULTS grassroots Board member position.

September 6: Labor Day holiday. All RESULTS offices closed.

RESULTS Contact Information

Main Office: (p) (202) 783-7100, (f) (202) 783-2818, 750 First Street NE, Suite 1040, Washington DC 20002. If mailing a donation to our DC office, please address the envelope to the attention of Cynthia Stancil.

Domestic Legislative and Grassroots Support Staff: Meredith Dodson, (202) 783-7100, x116 (dodson@results.org); Jos Linn, (515) 288-3622 (jlinn@results.org). Note: Jos will be on vacation July 19–25, and Meredith will be on vacation July 22–August 2. We apologize for any delay in returning calls and e-mails.

The RESULTS Domestic Update is sent out every Tuesday over e-mail to RESULTS volunteers and allies all over the country. The purpose of these updates is to inform and activate RESULTS activists to take action on our domestic campaigns.

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