Domestic Weekly Update May 25, 2010
New and Urgent in This Week’s Update
Latest from Washington, DC
Organizational Updates
Strengthen Your Advocacy Skills by Finishing May Strong with VITA Outreach (May Action)The work you and the rest of our RESULTS activists do is not just about policy, it’s about people. Take the time to think about the impact you’re making — you’re not only affecting bills and laws, you’re helping people. When you fight to extend the expansion made to EITC to include larger families, you’re supporting real people like this family of five that sought help from their local Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program in Pennsylvania:
A 48% increase in annual income may ensure that the 19 year old daughter will not have to compromise her education by getting a full-time job prematurely to support her family. It may mean the mother can continue staying home with her 6 year old child. It may allow the father to see his family on the weekends instead of picking up a second or third job. Your advocacy efforts are a part of the reason why life-changing opportunities like these are available for low-wage, working families. We urge you to continue making yourself a better advocate by remaining informed about how tax credits are affecting people in your community specifically. Finish May off strong by collecting real life stories and local tax credit data from the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program in your area: you can do this by taking the May Action. Community VITA programs offer free tax help and related financial services to low-income individuals and families. They help 400,000 underserved taxpayers in America claim the potentially life-altering benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC). Remember, there are real people at the heart of every policy and program we fight for. Stay connected, stay informed, and make change. TAKE ACTION: 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. Use the National Community Tax Coalition to get connected to a site near you. The action sheet has a link to the NCTC website, where you can click on a “Find a VITA site” button and it will take you to a quick form to fill out. Once NCTC has your information, they will send you an e-mail with a local VITA contact. You can also try to locate a VITA site through the IRS by calling (800) 906-9887 or checking their website VITA site list (note that this is not a complete list of VITA sites). If you are not finding any local contact information, you can also call 211 from local phone; some communities provide VITA information on their 211 line. In addition, local community action programs may be able to help. Urge Representatives and Senators to Prevent State Cuts to Medicaid by Passing H.R.4213Last week, we reported that the House of Representatives would be voting on H.R. 4213, now called the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010. The vote was delayed and is expected to take place TODAY. This bill is very important as it will provide temporary assistance to workers and states still struggling through this tough economy. Here are some of the highlights of the bill:
This extension of the increased federal match for Medicaid (FMAP) is of urgent importance as many states are already budgeting to cut Medicaid eligibility and benefits beginning as early as July of this year. Meanwhile, millions of jobless Americans have needed to turn to Medicaid during the recession and jobless recovery for their health needs. The bill also contains a number of “tax extenders” (tax provisions Congress typically renews each year). However, it also includes some important provisions that would help raise revenue and improve tax fairness by closing corporate tax loopholes. TAKE ACTION: Please call your representative and senators TODAY toll free at (877) 442-6801 and urge him/her to vote YES on H.R.4213. When calling, you can say:
If you cannot call, you can also use our online e-mail alert to contact members of Congress about the bill. Thanks to the CHN and Jobs for America Now for background and content and to AFSCME for the toll-free number. Ring in June with a Face-to-Face MeetingThe congressional Memorial Day recess is only a week away, May 31-June 4. There is still time to request a face-to-face meeting with your members of Congress (MoC) when they are back home. If appropriate, you could ask your local VITA coordinator to attend your meeting to tell MoCs about the value of low-income tax credits and the VITA program. If you cannot schedule a meeting, contact your congressional offices to see if your MoCs will be holding any public events during the recess. If so, plan to attend and ask a question. Don’t pass up this opportunity to make your voice heard. Also, please make sure to request meetings with your representatives and senators as soon as possible if you are coming to the RESULTS International Conference. Director of Domestic Campaigns Meredith Dodson has already spoken with many of in preparation for your lobby meetings at the conference. If you do not have a conference call meeting with Meredith scheduled, please send her some available dates and times to meet at: dodson@results.org. TAKE ACTION: Contact the schedulers for your representatives and senators to set up a face-to-face meeting while they are back home for the recess and in Washington, DC during the conference. See our Activist Milestone: Meet Face-to-Face with Your Member of Congress for tips on scheduling and planning your meeting. You can also download and edit this sample letter to send to their office or use our online alert to help set up your meetings. Be sure to customize your request to the subjects you plan to cover. Also, when you schedule your Hill meetings for the conference, please let Lisa Marchal know (lmarchal@results.org) the following info: 1) Name of member, and if it is a face-to-face, 2) the name of the staffer that will be attending, 3) date, time, location, and who will be attending (include if this is a global, domestic, or joint meeting), and cell phone for key contact person. This information is to help with tracking all the meetings taking place at the conference. Lisa can also be contacted at (317) 489-9173. International Conference UpdateAttend the Conference. It’s not too late to sign up the 2010 RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference. We are only four weeks away for RESULTS’ biggest event of the year. Join us June 20–22 at the Washington Marriott Hotel at Metro Center in Washington, DC. With this being RESULTS’ 30th Anniversary, this will be an exciting, informative and inspiring event. Go to our International Conference page for registration information and conference details. Please note that after Friday, May 28, the hotel cannot guarantee a room or discounted room rate for the conference, so register today! Help Send Volunteers to Our Conference. Every year, we use the Karen McQuillan Scholarship Fund to help those who need financial assistance in attending the International Conference. While we are proud to say that we have covered the costs for one such deserving individual this year, there remain a few more that are waiting for our help. Right now, we are only $200 away from covering our second volunteer’s costs, and only $1,000 away from covering a third. Whether or not you have registered for the conference, if you can make a donation so that financial constraints don’t keep passionate advocates from coming to our conference, we would appreciate your help. You can donate online or mail a check to our DC office (see address at end of this update) to RESULTS Educational Fund. In the comment box on the online form or the memo line of your check, please write “KMcQ Scholarship.” Furthermore, if you cannot donate money but could help by donating frequent flyer miles toward an airline ticket for a volunteer, please contact Girmay Zahilay (gzahilay@results.org). Every little bit helps and thank you for your support. Invite Your Members of Congress to Capitol Hill Receptions. As part of the conference this year, we are holding both morning and evening receptions for members of Congress on June 22. The morning reception is 8:30–9:15 am ET in Room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The evening reception is 5:00–7:00 pm ET in the Caucus Room of the Cannon House Office Building. Already we have Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the Senate Majority Whip, speaking at the morning reception. We want to have as many members speaking as possible. If you have not already, please invite your members of Congress to speak at either reception. The RESULTS website has resources including invitation templates to invite your members of Congress to speak. RESULTS Fundraising UpdateRESULTS Domestic continues its 2010 fundraising campaign and we have good news to report. Last week, we secured a $10,000 grant from a local foundation in Oklahoma to support our domestic anti-poverty efforts. This is a big step toward our $50,000 goal and we are grateful to the grantor for these resources. This grant money was the direct result of work by our volunteers in Oklahoma and their efforts to develop relationships with local funders. A special thanks goes to long-time Oklahoma RESULTS volunteers Sheila and Scott Swearingen for their help in this process. We could not have done it without them. We want to work with your in identifying and cultivating similar opportunities in your area. If you know of local foundations or large donors in your community who might be interested in funding RESULTS domestic poverty work, please contact Meredith Dodson (dodson@results.org) or Jos Linn (jlinn@results.org) to discuss next steps. If you would like to donate yourself to RESULTS Domestic in support of our U.S. poverty work, you can donate online or mail a check to our DC office (see address at the end of the update). Be sure to write “RESULTS Domestic” in the comment box on the online form or the memo line of your check. Congratulations Chicago! The May 23 fundraising event in Chicago was a great success. As RESULTS Chicago global volunteer and Grassroots Board Member Cindy Changyit put it, “Rep. Schakowsky (D-IL-9) was amazing. We were only expecting her to speak for 10 min, but she spoke for about 20 min, weaving global health and Haiti into a segue for women’s empowerment as a way out of poverty then right into women as a key to international stability and security. She even brought along a burka. The [RESULTS Chicago] domestic group was terrific in how they pitched in. All the Chicago groups have never felt so close!” Congratulations to all our Chicago volunteers and staff who helped plan and attended this event and to all the donors who invested in our success. For New Activists: Learn How to Research Your Members of Congress This WeekThis week on Wednesday, long-time RESULTS volunteer and regional coordinator Allison Gallaher will give her wildly popular and very effective training on researching your members of Congress. Learn how to learn about your members of Congress before you meet with them in Washington, DC or back home. Note that you will want to be in front of a computer with internet access for this conference call. The call is Wednesday, May 26 at 9:00 p.m. ET. To participate, call (712) 432-3100 and enter passcode 761262. If you missed the May 20 “Lobby 101” Training Call designed to provide you the basics of lobbying members of Congress, you can listen to a recording of the call on our International Conference page, as well as our RESULTS Musings page. Quick NewsSign Your Group onto Child Nutrition Funding Letter. To support more resources for child nutrition programs, please be sure to sing your local RESULTS group onto a sign-on letter urging Senate leadership to build on the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (S.3307) by increasing the $4.5 billion in new funding over ten years already allocated for child nutrition to $10. It takes about 30 seconds to complete the form but it will help build momentum for finding the additional funding for these important programs. The deadline to sign on is this Friday, May 28. You can also urge your representative and senators to support child nutrition programs through our online e-mail alert. Also, if you have not yet signed your group onto the Coalition on Human Needs letter urging Congress to preserve and build upon low income tax credits for working families and students, please go CHN sign-on page to add your group. The deadline has been extended. Cuts to Child Care Assistance Hurt Low-income Families. The New York Times reported yesterday that low-income families are facing tough times as states cut back child care assistance. Despite a $2 billion increase in funding to the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) in 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, many states facing budget shortfalls are cutting back on assistance, causing some parents to lose their jobs and turn to more government assistance. With child care costing low-income families up to a third of their annual budget, this assistance is critical to helping parents maintain steady employment. You can help these families by urging Congress to increase funding for CCDBG in the FY2011 budget. Use our online alert to take action. Senate Passes Wall Street Reform. Last week, the Senate finally passed the H.R.4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. The final vote was 59-39. Among other provisions, the bill contains a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau within the Federal Reserve, which is designed to protect consumers from abusive lending practices and confusing financial products. The House and Senate must now resolve their two versions of the bill in conference committee. House and Senate leaders have promised to have a final bill on the president’s desk by July 4. AnnouncementsPlease Submit Your Group Planning Forms. Please complete your Group Planning Form and e-mail, mail or fax a copy to Meredith Dodson at the RESULTS DC office. Upcoming Events(Click to see a complete calendar) May 26: Researching Your Member of Congress Training Call, 9:00 p.m. ET, (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262. May 31: Memorial Day, all RESULTS offices closed. May 31–June 4: Congressional Memorial Day recess. June 12: RESULTS Domestic National Conference Call, 12:30 p.m. ET. June 20–22: RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference, Washington Marriott Hotel, Washington, DC. July 10: Joint Domestic/Global RESULTS National Conference Call, 2:00 p.m. ET. 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. |