Domestic Weekly Update June 29, 2010
New and Urgent in This Week’s Update
Latest from Washington, DC
Organizational Updates
Use the July 4 Recess to Push for Tax Justice for Low-income Workers and Families (June Action)Last week, RESULTS activists from around the nation and world gathered in Washington, DC, to urge Congress to make tax policy work for low-income families. Those of you who came did an amazing job in your meetings with senators, representatives, and their congressional staff pushing them to protect the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC). Some of you were even able to use components of our monthly actions during your meetings. For example, the RESULTS Columbus (OH) group met with their local VITA site (May Action) and then used their newly acquired data on the impact of the EITC on specific congressional districts to more effectively lobby their members of Congress. Fortunately for us, next week (July 5–9) is another opportune time for us to push lawmakers to take action on this important issue. Next week, Congress is on recess for the Independence Day holiday. They will be back home available for meetings and public appearances. Tax legislation may be moving in July so this is the time to press on with our mission by setting follow-up meetings from the conference, first-time meetings for those who did not come to DC, writing letters, and making phone calls. The more voices we have pushing our requests to expand and extend EITC and CTC, the better. Schedule a face-to-face meeting during the recess so we can ensure that low-income workers and families are not left out in the cold after this year. In addition, look for opportunities to talk to members of Congress at public appearances. And be creative in doing so. For example, several years ago, RESULTS Domestic Outreach Organizer Jos Linn found out that his senator was appearing in a July 4 parade in Iowa. Jos went to the staging area for the parade and was able to talk with him about legislation around U.S. hunger and the Farm Bill. If you get to these types of events early, you never know what kind of opportunities you’ll have to make a difference. If for any reason you are not able to meet with your members of Congress during their trips back home, play your part by calling their offices to discuss these issues as well. Just think how effective we can be if all our legislators are putting pressure on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to end U.S. poverty. TAKE ACTION: Take the June Action. Contact your representatives and senators and schedule a face-to-face meeting with them during the July 4 recess. Urge them to protect low-income workers and their families by making the 2009 changes to the EITC and CTC permanent. Be sure to use any stories or data from your VITA site visits in your conversations. You can find district-level data for EITC on the Brookings Institute’s website and you can find state level data on the CTC on the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ (CBPP) website. In the wake of the RESULTS International Conference, here are our advocacy goals in pushing Congress to protect the EITC and CTC:
Help us meet these goals by contacting members of Congress to set up a meeting today. If you cannot talk to you representatives and senators in person, call their tax aides in Washington, DC, toll-free at (800) 826-3688 to talk about the importance of these credits. You can use our June 2010 and April 2010 Action sheets for talking points for your call. You can find the names of the tax aides on our Elected Officials page of the RESULTS website. Thank you for joining in this important process. The louder and stronger our voice is, the more change we can create. We thank Bread for the World for allowing us to use their toll-free number for calls to Washington. The RESULTS International Conference Was a Great Success But Our Work Continues Until Our Goals Are ReachedThanks to all of you who attended and supported the 2010 RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference. Over 200 activists from around the world, plus RESULTS staff, spent three exciting days in our nation’s capital being informed and inspired. On Tuesday June 22, the conference attendees met with hundreds of congressional offices to talk about domestic and global poverty issues. Let’s take a step back and appreciate the importance of this effort. Most people who lobby on Capitol Hill do so for interests that will personally benefit them or their clients. There is nothing wrong with this as it is an important part of our democratic process. However, knowing that self-interest can play a prominent role in lobbying, it is important to recognize and celebrate those occasions when people go to Washington for purely altruistic reasons. Last week was one of those occasions. You, the volunteers of RESULTS, do this work not for personal gain and public recognition. You do it because you care. You see poverty in your community, in your country, in your world and instead of turning your head in horror or shame, you simply say “No.” You refuse to accept poverty as a condition we are powerless to correct or a choice that others should deal with. This simple act of defiance, compassion, and will has generated 30 years of progress in the fight against poverty through RESULTS’ work. Whether you were at the conference or not, your critical anti-poverty advocacy has saved countless lives and created a hopeful future for people around the world. The RESULTS conference, and particularly Lobby Day, is one of the many symbols of your commitment to this work. An important — but not exclusive — example of what it really means to be an empowered citizen and a caring human being. But our work does not stop when the last meeting at the conference concludes. We know far too well that one meeting, one phone call, one letter will is not enough. We must press on until our immediate and long-term goals are reached. This year, it means making sure working families have enough money to make ends meet, making sure kids have access to healthy food before, during and after school, and making sure that a quality pre-school education is available to as many children as possible. These immediate goals will help fuel and fulfill our long-term goal of seeing that none of these efforts are necessary; to create a world where poverty is something you only read about in history books. TAKE ACTION: Follow up from the RESULTS International Conference by contact House and Senate members about RESULTS’ domestic priorities, particularly protecting the EITC and CTC from cuts scheduled to begin at the end of 2010. Remember, without meaningful and sustained follow-up, it is as if you never met with legislators and their staff. Go to our International Conference page for materials to help you with your contacts with congressional offices, including downloadable versions of our conference request letters and the 2010 Domestic Legislative Handbook. RESULTS International Conference Resources Now OnlineWhether you attended last week’s RESULTS conference or not, we have some valuable resources from the conference available on the RESULTS website. Here are some of the things to highlight from our International Conference page.
We will have more information and shares about the 2010 conference experience on the July RESULTS Joint Domestic/Global national conference call on Saturday, July 10 at 2:00 p.m. ET. We will also have more resources from the conference will be posted in the coming weeks, including pictures from the various events in DC. In the meantime, you can get some flavor for the 2010 conference from RESULTS Global volunteer Bruce Underhill in San Diego. You can see his conference photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/BruceSanDiego/RESULTSCONFERENCE201002#. Thanks again to everyone who came to this year’s conference and those of you back home who support our work that makes things like our annual conference and the results it creates possible. And be sure to mark your calendar — our 2011 RESULTS International Conference will be June 18–21, 2011 at the Four Points Sheraton in Washington DC! House Committee to Begin Hearings on Child Nutrition this WeekAs reported several weeks ago, on June 10, Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA-7), along with committee members Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY-4) and Todd Platts (R-PA-19) introduced the bipartisan Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010. This is the House child nutrition reauthorization bill. The bill:
This week, the House Education and Labor Committee will begin hearings and mark-up of the bill. The first hearing is set for Thursday, July 1, 10:00 a.m. ET in 2175 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing will be webcasted so you can view the hearing from home. While RESULTS is pleased that the House has moved closer to the president’s goal ($10 billion in new funding over the next ten years) than the Senate’s Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, we urge both the House and Senate to meet (and even exceed) the president’s goal for funding of these important programs. TAKE ACTION: Childhood hunger in the U.S. is on the rise. According to the USDA, nearly 1 in 4 in 4 children were food insecure in 2008, up from 1 in 6 in 2007. Help reduce childhood hunger by urging your representatives and senators to include the full $10 billion increase (over ten years) for these important anti-hunger programs by taking our online action. Quick NewsCongress Still Deadlocked on Passing Jobless Benefits and Medicaid Funding to States. The Senate has yet to garner the 60 votes needed to move forward on an important bill to help he unemployed and budget-crunched states. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “[t]he Senate’s failure to pass its version of jobs legislation, which would have extended federal assistance to states, will force the states — which are struggling with an unprecedented drop in revenues due to the recession — to make even deeper spending cuts and raise taxes even more than otherwise in order to balance their budgets. These actions will slow the economic recovery and raise the risk of a double-dip recession as the loss of spending power ripples through the economy.” New Estate Tax Bill Introduced. Last week, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act. The bill would reinstate the 2009 estate tax exemption levels ($3.5 million per individual, $7 million per couple), which would exempt 99.75 of all estates from the tax. Estates worth more than these amounts would be taxes at more progressive rates: between $3.5 million and $10 million, the tax would be 45 percent; between $10 million and $50 million, 50 percent, above $50 million, 55 percent. Also, for estates worth more than $500 million ($1 billion for couples), a 10 percent surcharge would be added. The bill also protects family farmers and closes estate and gift tax loopholes. While not as progressive as the Sensible Estate Tax Act, the Responsible Estate Tax Act is a more than fair compromise, especially considering that the wealthiest 1 percent in the U.S. saw their income grow by 281 percent between 1979 and 2007. Tell Congress to put working families first by taking our online estate tax action. AnnouncementsTake the May Action. If you have not done so, please take the May Action. Contact a VITA site coordinator in your area and see if you can set up a meeting between him/her and your RESULTS group. Listen to Recent Training Calls Online. If you were not able to participate in our recent training calls, just click on the following links to listen: Lobby 101 training call; Researching Your Members of Congress training call. Upcoming Events(Click to see a complete calendar) 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 pm 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, x116 (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. |