Domestic Weekly Update August 24, 2010

You don’t end hunger by taking food away from the hungry.
— RESULTS volunteer Kathleen Duncan in last Friday’s Houston Chronicle

Being Strategic in Our Work to Secure Tax Credits for Low-Income Working Families (Take Action)

The House and Senate are now on the summer recess and will not return to Washington DC until September 13. We want Congress to make the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) provisions from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) permanent — specifically, the $3,000 income threshold for the CTC and the EITC expansion for married couples and larger families. To bolster your argument, use the EITC and CTC data in this online chart to show how many children and workers will be affected in your state if these provisions expire. Our advocacy goals for this campaign:

HOUSE GOAL: At least ten confirmed direct conversations between representatives and House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-MI-12) and/or Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI-4) and at least twenty letters sent to Reps. Levin and Camp or staff to staff contacts between your Member of Congress (MoC)’s tax staff and House Ways and Means Committee staff.

SENATE GOAL: At least six confirmed direct conversations between senators and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and/or Ranking Members Charles Grassley (R-IA) and at last fifteen letters sent to Sens. Baucus and Grassley or staff to staff contacts between your MoC’s tax staff and Senate Finance Committee staff.

If those writing tax legislation hear from enough colleagues that the ARRA provisions for the EITC and CTC must be included, chances are they will be.

TAKE ACTION: Request face-to-face meetings now so you can get on your representative’s and senators’ agenda before the recess ends, focusing first on members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees and then members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, or Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Use the July Action for talking points and continue following up with the staff until you’ve gotten confirmation they have spoken or at least written to key committee members about making the 2009 improvements to the EITC and CTC permanent. If you cannot get a meeting, contact their local offices about public appearances you can attend and ask a question. If you cannot get a meeting or attend an event, 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 prepare for meetings and town halls. Also, once you’ve had a meeting or conversation, please use our online lobby report form to let us know what happened.

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

Expand Your Media Options on Tax Credits with Help from CHN (August Action)

Our August Action focuses on generating media that supports working families through the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. Getting op-eds and letters to the editor published this month will help us build the momentum for making permanent recent improvements to the EITC and CTC. When members of Congress return to Washington in September, we want them to know that working families must come first in tax legislation this year. After your group has been in direct communication with congressional offices (see above), focus your energies on generating media coverage.

Feeling swamped with the start of school or last bit of vacation, and unable to submit that letter or op-ed? Don’t despair — our friends at the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) are helping groups get the word out in the local media about tax credits for low-income working families in September. CHN is looking to partner with local advocates to get op-ed’s placed in local papers in response to the release of the Census 2009 poverty data — set to be released on September 16. The op-eds are intended to bring attention to the danger that high levels of poverty pose for our communities and economy, and the need for action on proven poverty-alleviation measures, such as the ARRA expansions of the EITC and CTC.

To make it easy, CHN will provide a template op-ed and communications assistance to work with ‘authors’ to customize the op-ed’s. The priority states for this op-ed drive are: Arkansas, California (Los Angeles area), Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wisconsin. However, CHN is also willing to work with advocates outside of these states if there is interest (capacity permitting).

This is a great opportunity to create more momentum for low-income families while also working closely with one of our invaluable partners.

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 information and stories from your VITA outreach to paint a picture of these families for readers, as well as data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities about the cost of doing nothing. Be sure to call on members of Congress by name to take action to support families.

In addition, if you are willing to work with RESULTS and CHN on an op-ed in your local paper, contact Meredith Dodson (dodson@results.org) or CHN’s Maricela Donahue directly at mdonahue@chn.org or (202) 223-2532 x112. Please make contact this week as time is of the essence.

Finally, listen to a recording of the August 2010 RESULTS Domestic conference call on the RESULTS website with guest speaker Mike Owen of the Iowa Policy Project with messaging tips for the media.

Advocates Argue Against SNAP (Food Stamp) Cuts in Child Nutrition Reauthorization

RESULTS advocates and coalition colleagues have been pressuring the House to pass a Child Nutrition Bill that does not use future SNAP benefits as an offset to pay for it. There is momentum for the House to simply pass the Senate child nutrition bill, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, S.3307. While the bill invests $4.5 billion in new money to reduce childhood hunger and obesity, the Senate chose to use money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a.k.a. food stamps, to pay for part of the bill. RESULTS is very disappointed in that decision.

Because the House child nutrition bill — the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 (H.R.5504) — has yet to pass, RESULTS advocates are joining with our coalition partners in the Food Working Policy Group to keep the pressure on — we believe that the House can do better both in funding more programs to improve access and not raiding SNAP benefits to do it. More than 50 Hill visits are planned, and RESULTS has already joined in coalition meetings with staff from the offices of Majority Leader Hoyer (D-MD), Majority Whip Clyburn (D-SC), Republican Leader Boehner (R-OH), and Representatives Castle (D-DE), Thompson (D-CA), Chu (D-CA), Matheson (D-UT), and Larson (D-CT) who serve on the House Education and Labor or the Ways and Means Committees.

Meanwhile in the field, Houston group members succeeded in getting published not one, but two, letters to the editor in the Houston Chronicle. You can read Carolyn Heinz’s letter at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7156162.html and Kathleen Duncan’s letter at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7160754.html. As Kathleen directly and succinctly put it, “You don’t end hunger by taking food away from the hungry.”

TAKE ACTION: Tell 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 stop the raid on food benefits to pay for child nutrition. Pass a robust child nutrition bill without taking precious resources from other anti-poverty programs. You can contact Congress using our online e-mail alert and get others involved using our Outreach Action Sheet: Help Feed Children through a Strong Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

Sign Your RESULTS Group onto Deficit Commission Letter: Consider the Impact on Low-Income Americans

Send a strong message to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, :

a commission created by President Obama to examine ways to reduce the federal deficit. There is a real risk that they could come up with recommendations that could hurt low-income Americans. RESULTS has already signed on a national letter from our friends at the Coalition on Human Needs urging the commission not to undermine programs and services designed to help America’s most vulnerable. 119 national organizations signed on and the letter was sent to the Commission on June 30. Now CHN is circulating the letter for state and local groups to show support as well.

TAKE ACTION: Show your support for maintaining programs like Medicaid, Head Start, SNAP (food stamps), etc. by signing your local RESULTS group onto the letter (ex. “RESULTS Twin Cities”). The deadline to sign is September 8. The more groups we get, the stronger our voice will be. It only takes a few minutes but it could make a big difference. Note: Where the questionnaire says Are you authorized to sign on behalf of your organization?, please choose YES.

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 Faith in Action Insert Available. Visit our What’s New in Faith in Action page to download our latest action insert for outreach, bulletins and newsletters.

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 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.

June 18–21, 2011: RESULTS International Conference at the Four Points Sheraton in Washington, DC (Note: start date subject to change)

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 August 23–27. 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.

RESULTS - The Power to End Poverty