Policy Focus
Bread’s 2013 Offering of Letters, “A Place at the Table,”
is in full swing and your letters and phone calls are influencing Congress. Below is a list of current proposed legislation
affecting programs for hungry and poor people.
Budget
In April, the House and the Senate passed their fiscal year
2014 budget resolutions and the White House released its
budget. Both the Senate’s and president’s budgets would replace the sequester, the automatic across-the-board cuts that
started to take effect in March. For more on sequestration
basics, see the graphic on the back page of this newsletter
and download our fact sheet “The Consequences of Sequestration” from the Bread website: www.bread.org/sequester.
President Obama’s proposal is mostly based on his last
offer to House Speaker John Boehner during the fiscal cliff
negotiations. It raises revenue while cutting some entitlements. The president’s budget also includes a proposal for
reforming food aid, which could enable up to 4 million more
people to be reached with comparable resources while saving approximately $500 million over the next 10 years.
The House and Senate are now negotiating a process
whereby a single compromised version of the budget would
be agreed upon by both chambers. This could provide a path
for the grand bargain and a replacement of the sequester.
Taxes
The Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and
Means Committee are both moving on tax reform. House
Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has issued
a series of overhaul proposals over the past two years and
has promised legislation for a comprehensive rewrite by the
end of the year. And Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus (DMont.) has been holding meetings with Camp and other Republicans.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax
Todd Post/ Bread for the World Institute
Make Sure that Hungry People Have
a Place at the Negotiating Table
A grandfather and his grandson pose for a picture in Corredor Seco,
Guatemala, an area that suffered a severe drought and received U.S.
food aid administered by Save the Children. The farm bill administers
food aid to places around the world experiencing food shortages.
Credit (CTC) have been topics of discussion within both
committees. Bread for the World has sent a letter to the
Ways and Means Committee, stressing the importance of
these refundable tax credits.
Bread members who have senators and representatives
on those committees will need to be especially persistent in
contacting their members as we continue to urge Congress
to increase revenue so we can adequately fund programs
that help people who are hungry or living in poverty.
Farm Bill/SNAP
The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are busy
drafting their respective farm bills. Both committees are
aiming to mark up their bills by mid-May. It is very likely
both committees will include cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps).
Last year, the Senate proposed to cut SNAP by $4.5 billion
over ten years and the House proposed cutting it by $16 billion over ten years. International food aid programs are also
at risk. Last year, the Senate included much-needed reforms
to the programs while the House cut food aid quality programs by over 95 percent. Now is the time to reach out to
members of Congress on the Agriculture Committees and
voice our support for these vital programs.
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) recently reintroduced a resolution in support of SNAP, H. Res. 90. This resolution is very similar to H. Res. 760, which was introduced
last year and had more than 100 cosponsors. Currently, H.
Res. 90 has 102 cosponsors and we are urging more members to sign on to show strong support for SNAP as the Agriculture Committees work on their farm bills.
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