Domestic Weekly Update November 17, 2009

How wonderful it is to work with RESULTS. We couldn’t have a better partner in trying to pass a health care bill and in trying to make things better, particularly for low-income people.

— Cathy Hurwit, Chief of Staff for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), on the November 2009 RESULTS National Conference Call

New and Urgent in This Week’s Update

• Call Senators and Tell Them to Vote YES on the Motion to Proceed (November Action)
• Ensuring a Strong Medicaid Program in Health Reform

Latest from Washington, DC, and Beyond

• New Paper Argues for Streamlined, More Progressive Low-Income Tax Credits
• Fundraising Update
• Quick News

Organizational Reminders and Updates

• Announcements
• Upcoming Events
• RESULTS Contact Information

Call Senators and Tell Them To Vote Yes on the Motion to Proceed (November Action)

Since the House health reform bill has passed (see below), all attention is now on the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is still awaiting the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate for his merged Senate health care bill. The CBO is expected to finish its work as early as today, at which time Majority Leader Reid will release his bill. His bill will be a merged version of both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) and Senate Finance Committee bills passed in July and October respectively.

Once the bill is released, Majority Leader Reid will ask for a vote on a motion to proceed with debate. This is the first procedural hurdle reform proponents must meet in the Senate. For background, let’s do a quick Senate Procedure 101. Remember that in the Senate, most motions and bills allow time for unlimited debate. While debate can be ended, it takes only one senator to demand continuing debate ad infinitum, which is called a filibuster. If senators want to end the filibuster, they can do so by filing a motion for cloture. If 3/5 of current senators (60 votes) vote for cloture, the filibuster is broken and debate ends (or has a set time to end). This is why you hear most people talking about needing 60 votes in the Senate. 60 votes are not needed to pass a bill — bills pass by majority vote — but 60 votes are needed to get there, i.e. end debate on the procedural motions that lead to a final vote.

Because opponents of health reform have vowed to delay as much as possible, it is expected that 60 votes will be needed at key points in the process. This includes the vote on the motion to proceed with debate, votes on specific amendments during debate, vote on the motion for cloture to move onto the final Senate vote, and vote on the final conference committee report. The motion to proceed will be the first of these votes and is likely to take place this week. If Majority Leader Reid fails to get 60 votes for this motion, the bill will stall before debate even begins.

For the last several weeks, we have been urging you to mobilize your networks, neighbors, friends, and families, in anticipation of the Senate debate. Our November Action has details on how to mobilize your network, as well as points we want to focus on in the Senate. Now it’s time to act. The motion to proceed is our first opportunity to activate our networks.

TAKE ACTION: Take the November Action. Call your senators and urge them to vote YES on the “motion to proceed” with debate. Remember, this is not a vote to pass health reform; this is a vote simply to allow the Senate to start talking about it. Call toll free at (888) 797-8717 and say:

I urge Senator ___________ to vote YES on the motion to proceed with the Senate health care bill. Health reform is too important to get stalled by delay tactics and partisan politics. The American people deserve a debate on health reform.

Please make calls yourself and then send out a quick notice to the networks you have been mobilizing, urging them to call as well. This is an easy call to make and could very well sway a few wavering senators, and maybe even some opponents, to support moving forward with debate. More opportunities to call will follow after Thanksgiving, which could include amendments concerning Medicaid, community health centers, the public health insurance option, and a state single-payer option. We will keep you up-to-date as to when calls are needed.

If you don’t have a formal community action network, you probably do already have a personal network to tap into. Personal e-mail lists, Facebook friends, Twitter buddies, friends and family are all potential advocates for health care for all. Don’t hesitate to contact them about such an important issue, which affects all of us. See our Activist Milestone, Create, Manage, and Activate a Community Action Network for more information about creating and managing a community action network.

Ensuring a Strong Medicaid Program in Health Reform

The House has passed its version of health care reform, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R.3962), and action is soon to begin in the Senate. Despite not knowing as of yet what the Senate bill includes, it is expected that the Senate bill will not be as strong as the House bill in terms of investments in coverage and access for low-income Americans.

See the grid below for a comparison between the House-passed bill and the Senate Finance Committee bill with respect to Medicaid:

On our monthly conference call this past Saturday, Cathy Hurwit, Chief of Staff for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), reviewed many of the provisions of the House bill, including some of the ones listed above. She also discussed what to expect next and the things RESULTS volunteers can do to get meaningful health reform passed. If you were not on the call, we urge you to listen to it for Cathy’s section as well as speaking points on recruiting others to make calls to the Senate. You can find listen to a recording of the call at http://www.resultsmusings.blogspot.com/.

Once Majority Leader Reid releases his bill, the Senate process will officially begin. First, there will be a vote to move forward with debate (see above). Assuming it passes, the next step will be a reading of the bill. Normally this formality is waived but opponents of reform are demanding a full reading, which is their right. Because the bill will likely be in excess of 1,000 pages, this reading will take time. Therefore, it is unlikely that actual debate on the bill will start before the Thanksgiving recess next week. Most people assume actual debate will begin on November 30.

While these procedural delays can be frustrating, they do give us the opportunity to make weigh in with House and Senate aides on reform.

TAKE ACTION: Use the time delay in the Senate to set up conference calls with House and Senate aides to talk about health reform. See the grid above and our September and October actions for details on how to set up and conduct these calls.

• When talking to Senate aides, urge senators to support amendments that strengthen and expand the Medicaid program as in House’s Affordable Health Care for America Act, including:
  • Medicaid coverage for everyone at or below 150 percent FPL
  • 100 percent federal financing for the expansion for as long as possible
  • Medicaid doctor reimbursement rates at Medicare levels or higher with full federal financing for those rates
  • Existing Medicaid benefits for new enrollees
• When talking to House aides, be sure to thank those representatives who voted in favor of H.R.3962 and urge all representatives to urge House leadership to ensure that the Medicaid improvements made in H.R.3962 are preserved and strengthened in the final health reform bill. Go to our Key Votes page to see how your representative voted (just click on your state on that map).

See our Recent Developments on Health Reform page for up-to-date comparisons of the House and Senate bills. You can also read details about other parts of the House bill at http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml.

New Paper Argues for Streamlined, More Progressive Low-Income Tax Credits

A new research paper from the Tax Policy Center advocates for the simplification and updating of current tax credits that benefit low-income workers and families. The paper, “Considerations in Efforts to Restructure Refundable Work-Based Credits” by Steve Holt and Elaine Maag, argues that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the new Make Work Pay Credit (MWP) have done a great deal to help low-income individuals and families supplement their income. Despite this success, the authors argue, because these credits operate separately from each other in the tax code and sometimes have different eligibility rules, improving and updating them would make them more effective and help even more people living in poverty.

Holt and Maag propose combining the EITC, CTC and MWP credits into two simplified credits: the Worker Credit and the Child Credit. The Worker Credit would be available for all non-dependent persons between 18 and 65 years old. The credit would amount to 20 percent of all earnings up to $10,875 (full-time, minimum wage job for 50 weeks) for a maximum credit of $2,175. The credit would begin to phase out at 130 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL) and hit a floor of $400 for middle income earners and drop to $0 for high income earners. Both spouses in a marriage could claim their own Worker Credit.

The Child Credit would apply for all children under age 19 (and totally and permanently disabled adult children). The maximum credit would be $2,350 for one child, $5,250 for two children, and $5,900 for three or more children. The credit amount would also begin to phase out at 130 percent of FPL stopping at $1,000 for each child, while phasing out completely for higher income earners, just like the current CTC.

Both credits would be fully refundable and available from the first dollar of earnings. In other words, there are no minimum income thresholds that must be met to become eligible.

As part of our Economic Opportunity for All campaign, RESULTS advocates for a higher EITC for single workers without children, the elimination of marriage penalties, and a CTC that is eligible to all low-income persons. While RESULTS takes no position on these specific proposals at this time, we applaud the efforts of the Tax Policy Center in highlighting the importance and success of low-income tax credits, and proposing constructive ways to improve on their effectiveness. We urge Congress to make tax reform for low-income persons a priority in 2010.

TAKE ACTION: Contact members of Congress about expanding tax credits for the poor to support low-income savings and asset building. Use our online alert to send a message to your members of Congress.

See our Recent Development on Economic Opportunity page for more details about the paper and its proposals.

Fundraising Update

Howdy Partners! I wanted to give a super shout out to Ginnie Vogts, RESULTS partner and Grassroots Board Member extraordinaire who just held a small fundraising house party on Sunday to benefit RESULTS Educational Fund and take advantage of our $30,000 matching grant! In a few short hours, in the company of good friends, good food, and definitely some good times her group raised $3,500! Thanks so much Columbus for all you doing to ensure that every family has a healthy start, access to vital resources, and clear pathways out of poverty.

Fall Fundraising Campaign — $30,000 Challenge Grant Throwdown! Yep, that’s right. A very generous new donor to RESULTS Educational Fund has thrown out a $30,000 challenge grant to inspire our groups and donors to jump on board the fundraising bandwagon! This is a dollar-for-dollar match. The two requirements are that donations have to be made to RESULTS Educational Fund in November or December and it needs to be new money. “New money” means it must be over and above the amount that you gave last year, or brand new donors.

If you’ve already made your gift for this year, but want to take advantage of this match, you can. If you’re a monthly sponsor and you want to make an additional one-time gift now, we can apply it to this matching challenge. If you haven’t made a gift in 2009, it will apply as long as it is above last year’s gift. As long as it’s more than what you gave last year and it’s done between now and the end of the December, it qualifies!

For your friends, family, and colleagues — the same rules apply. So if you’ve never sent out a fundraising letter to your friends and family, this is a great time to offer them an amazing opportunity to make their money go farther and engage a whole new crop of donors into the exciting work of RESULTS and REF.

Remember, this challenge only applies to new donations made in November and December 2009. Therefore, your Friends and Family letters should go out no later than December 4 so as to give people time to return them by December 31!

PLEASE REMEMBER: If you make a donation for the challenge or ask your friends and family, please write or ask them to write “Matching Challenge Donation” in the memo line of the check or in the comments box on our online donation form.

Resources To Help Your Fundraising Activities. Use our House Party Toolkit and Letter Writing Toolkit to plan your fundraising activities. Also, you can include Mini annual reports in your letters and at your events (see our full Annual Report for 2008 as well). We also have RESULTS/REF thank you cards available for follow-up to your activities. If you would like us to send you copies, please email Cynthia Stancil at cstancil@results.org.

Other Opportunities. Make the most of the fundraising opportunities offered with the Combined Federal Campaign. Each year from September through December federal government employees are encouraged to make charitable contributions through a workplace giving program called the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). Do you know anyone working for the government? Let them know they can support RESULTS Educational Fund through the Combined Federal Campaign — our CFC #10683 is all they need to find us.

Fundraising Support. In need of some support? Please contact Stacy Carkonen to commiserate, cajole, plan, scheme, yell, scream, or sing about your fundraising needs. scarkonen@results.org.

Quick News

Calls Needed on Immigrant Provisions in Health Care Bill. The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) points out that while the House-passed health care bill, H.R.3962, has some advantages for immigrants, it also has some critical negative effects. The bill does NOT remove the five year waiting period that prevents lawfully residing, otherwise eligible immigrants for enrolling in Medicaid and Medicare. NILC points out that these persons will be required to obtain health insurance like everyone else, and will be eligible to purchase health insurance through the Exchange with tax credits. However, the higher out of pocket costs and limited benefits in many private insurance plans will make health care unaffordable and still inaccessible to many low-income immigrants unless the five year waiting period is eliminated. Contact House and Senate members, urging them make sure the Senate bill and the final health reform bill eliminate the 5 year waiting period for low-income legal immigrant adults in Medicaid and Medicare and remove the restriction prohibiting undocumented immigrants from purchasing unsubsidized health insurance currently (H.R.3962 already removes this restriction).

USDA Reports that 1 in 6 Americans Are Struggling with Hunger. From our friends at the Food Research and Action Center: “More than 49.1 million Americans lived in households struggling against hunger in 2008, according to new data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Previously, in 2007, 36.2 million Americans were in food insecure households. The 2008 number is the highest since USDA first started the survey in 1995. The number of people in the worst-off category (living in “very low food secure” households) — the hungriest Americans — experienced the fastest pace of growth, rising from 11.9 million to 17.3 million In fact, in many categories, the numbers are double what they were in 2000.” FRAC President Jim Weill said in response to the report, “President Obama has made it a goal to end childhood hunger by 2015, and these numbers highlight the urgency of dramatic action to achieve this goal. A strong economy, better wages, better income supports, and stronger SNAP/Food Stamp and child nutrition programs are the key steps.”

Unemployment Compensation Extended after Long Delay. On November 5, Congress approved H.R.3548, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009. The Act extends UI benefits for 14 weeks. This extension is sorely needed. The Coalition on Human Needs (of which RESULTS is a member, www.chn.org) notes that the average duration of unemployment is at a record of nearly 27 weeks and over 35 percent are unemployed for even longer.

H1N1 Brings New Calls for Paid Sick Leave. Last week the Obama administration endorsed the Healthy Families Act (H.R.2460/S.1152), which would guarantee seven sick days a year to workers in companies with 15 or more employees. New attention is being drawn to paid sick leave as the swine flu leaves many workers forced to choose whether to go to work sick or stay home and lose wages. Center for American Progress reports, “The U.S. is currently the only developed nation that does not require some paid sick leave for workers. Nearly 40 percent of private sector workers have no paid sick leave, including 78 percent of hotel workers and 85 percent of food service workers.”

Child Nutrition Webinar Next Monday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) holding webinar listening sessions in November and December to get comments and suggestions to be considered “as FNS creates comprehensive work plans to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015.” One of these webinars takes palace next Monday at 2:30 pm ET. Go to http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/17fb9g40b44 to register. Also on Monday, leaders of the National Anti-Hunger Organizations (NAHO) are meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Senior Advisor Alan Gold will represent RESULTS.

Announcements

Invite Miami Friends to RESULTS Miami Meeting This Weekend. On November 21, Domestic Outreach Organizer Jos Linn will be returning to Miami to revisit the RESULT Domestic Miami group. The group is hosting a potluck dinner and RESULTS presentation, where Jos will provide an update on our health care work and how involvement in RESULTS can make a difference on issues like hunger and poverty. If you know persons in the Miami area, please invite them to attend. The meeting is Saturday, November 21 at 5:00 pm ET at home of RESULTS volunteer Helene Dudley, 2151 SW 17th St, Miami, FL. RSVP to Helene at helenedudley@yahoo.com for directions and details on what to bring.

Check out the RESULTS blog! Did you know that RESULTS has blog on our new website? Check it out here. If you find something you like, please be sure to post a comment.

Online Activist Resources. See the newest edition of the RESULTS Advocate online. Also, check out our new and improved Activist Milestones, Outreach Action Sheets to engage others in your community in action around health reform, and updated Faith in Action Newsletter Action Inserts.

Upcoming Events

(Click to see a complete calendar)

November 21: RESULTS Miami Revisit Meeting, 5:00 pm ET. 2151 SW 17th St, Miami, FL. RSVP to Helene at helenedudley@yahoo.com for details.

December 12: RESULTS Combined Global and Domestic Monthly Conference Call, 2:00 pm ET.

December 15 (NOTE: This call was originally scheduled for November 17): 2010 Domestic Campaigns Conference Call. Plan to join us for a discussion of possible 2010 Domestic legislative campaigns. We want your input on what issues we should work on next year. Save the date! Tuesday, December 15, at 7:30 pm ET, (218) 486-1611, passcode 2883622#. Also, if you already have ideas that just can’t wait about possible 2010 domestic campaigns, please e-mail Meredith Dodson (dodson@results.org) with your ideas.

June 20–22, 2010: RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund International Conference, Washington Marriott Hotel, Washington, DC.

RESULTS Contact Information

Main Office: (p) (202) 783-7100, (f) (202) 783-2818, 750 First Street NE, Suite 1040, Washington DC 20002.

Domestic Legislative and Grassroots Support Staff: Meredith Dodson, x116 (dodson@results.org); Alan Gold, x106 (gold@results.org); Jos Linn, (515) 288-3622 (jlinn@results.org).

Grassroots Fundraising Support: Stacy Carkonen, (206) 715-4986 (scarkonen@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.