Domestic Weekly Update June 22, 2010
New and Urgent in This Week’s Update
Organizational Updates
Join Lobby Day From Home — Call Your Members of Congress While RESULTS Is on the HillToday is our big day. The RESULTS Lobby Day is our single biggest day of the year for pushing our agenda with Congress. Hundreds of RESULTS volunteers are heading to Capitol Hill right now to urge their members of Congress to make ending poverty a national and international priority. We want you to be a part of this special day too. The more voices we have pushing our requests to expand and extend Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), the better. While RESULTS volunteers are meeting with Members of Congress today, play your part by calling their offices to discuss these issues as well. Just think how effective we can be if our legislators’ day is filled with meetings, phone calls, letters and e-mails about ending U.S. poverty. TAKE ACTION: Call your representatives and senators TODAY toll free at (800) 826-3688 and urge them to make the 2009 expansions of the EITC and CTC permanent. Tell them that our government should be working to make it easier, not more difficult, for low-income workers to earn a living and support their families. Call and request to speak to the tax aide. You can use our June 2010 and April 2010 Action sheets for talking points for your call. And remember, you don’t need to be an expert to call; if you don’t know something, just tell them that you don’t know and that you will follow up with an answer. The RESULTS staff will help you with whatever you need to follow up. You can find the names of the tax aides on our Elected Officials page of the RESULTS website. Once you find your representative or senator, just click on the “Staff” tab. Thank you for joining in this important process. The louder and stronger our voice is, the more change we can create. If you cannot call, consider writing a quick letter and faxing it to your congressional offices. The April Action sheet has all the information you’ll need. You can also send an e-mail using our online action alert. Many thanks also to Bread for the World for allowing us to use their toll free number. The RESULTS International Conference Is Underway — Follow Us OnlineThe 2010 RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference (IC) got underway on Sunday and it again proving to be quite an event. We will have a full recap of the conference next week but in the meantime, follow all the excitement from back home. Throughout the conference, we have been doing updates on the RESULTS blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Check out these online resources so you can be part of the experience. Also, be sure to share these postings to your own networks so others can see the important work you and others around the world are doing to eliminate poverty! There’s No Place Like Home — Set Up Face-to-Face Meetings in Your Home State (June Action)Even thought Lobby Day is a big day for us at RESULTS, our work does not end when the last meeting has been finished. Far from it. Meeting with our members of Congress back home, either to follow up from DC visits or having your first meeting this year, is critical to build support for our domestic poverty work. As we have mentioned, Congress has deficit hysteria right now, whether justified or not, making the investments we seek for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) more difficult to achieve. But these credits are critical to both our short-term and long-term health as a society, as an economic power, and as a people. Let’s leave nothing to chance. TAKE ACTION: Take the June Action. Contact your local offices for your representatives and senators to set up a face-to-face meeting to discuss low-income tax credits during their next visit back to your home state. Don’t be afraid to be persistent about getting a meeting; sometimes it takes several requests to get a face-to-face meeting at home. Use our 2010 Domestic Campaigns Handbook to help prepare you on the issues. Also, contact the local offices of your members of Congress will be making any public appearances this summer and plan to attend to ask a question. You can find local contact information for members of Congress on the Elected Officials page of the RESULTS website. Once you have a meeting set up, please contact Meredith Dodson (dodson@results.org) to help you plan. Join Training Tomorrow on How to Talk About PolicyThe day after our Lobby Day on the Hill, our friends at the National Community Tax Coalition are hosting an online training called “How to Talk About Policy.” Many times we get caught in talking about our issues from a defensive standpoint or within a frame that is negative about public policy and services. This training will provide you with effective ways for discussing taxes, the EITC, and social services as important bedrocks that are not controversial but rather public structures in our society. The training will be facilitated by Policy Matters Ohio and Demos. Policy Matters Ohio is a non-profit policy research organization that has successfully broadened the debate about economic policy in Ohio. Demos is a public policy research and advocacy organization that combines research, policy development, and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change. TAKE ACTION: The training is tomorrow, June 23 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Go to the NCTC Trainings page and register for the training. Urge others you know to know sign up as well. Upcoming Events(Click to see a complete calendar) June 20–22: RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference, Washington Marriott Hotel, Washington, DC. July 5: All RESULTS offices closed for the Independence Day holiday. July 5–9: Congressional recess (Independence Day holiday). July 10: Joint Domestic/Global RESULTS National Conference Call, 2:00 p.m. ET. August 9–September 10: Congressional summer recess. RESULTS Contact InformationMain 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, x.116 (dodson@results.org); Jos Linn, (515) 288-3622 (jlinn@results.org). 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. This is an abbreviated weekly update because of the RESULTS International Conference. We will return to our normal update format next week. |