Congress must reject any and all funding cuts to essential nutrition programs
If the Farm Bill to be considered in the House Committee on Agriculture on May 23 becomes law, it will mean a cut of nearly $30 billion in future SNAP benefits over a decade.
Such cuts are unconscionable. For many children, they will make learning more difficult and lead to negative health outcomes. They will force families and older adults to choose between putting food on the table and paying for other expenses such as rent, utility bills, or prescription drugs. They will also harm our economy, removing the stimulative benefits of SNAP and even hurting farmers and ranchers along the way.
SNAP is the most effective anti-hunger program in the U.S. It reduces hunger by 30% and provides nutritious meals to one-quarter of America’s children.
The House bill makes these cuts by limiting the USDA’s ability to update the Thrifty Food Plan, which determines SNAP benefit levels, to reflect the real costs of a nutritious diet, based on science, along with reflecting food prices that remain stubbornly high. This will make it tougher for families experiencing food insecurity as well as the food banks that aid them. These would be the largest cuts to SNAP benefits in almost 30 years if enacted. In addition, these changes will trigger more than $500 million in cuts to Summer EBT, which provides grocery benefits to children in low-income families during the summer when schools are closed, along with $100 million in cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which provides food for food banks and food pantries to distribute to individuals and families.
The House bill also would allow states to let private corporations take over determining eligibility for SNAP. Where this has been tried, replacing merit-based staff resulted in corporate skimping on careful help to people applying for or renewing benefits in order to maximize profits. It would also reverse previously enacted steps to reduce agriculture-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
During this time when many families grapple with the cost of housing and food, Congress must do everything in its power to provide relief to those who need it most.
Click “Start Writing” to send a message to Congress urging them to reject any and all cuts to nutrition programs in the FY2025 Farm Bill.
The twin threats edition. We could be less than two weeks away from defaulting on our national debt. By now, you’ve probably heard what happens if we default – read on for more details. But there is more than one threat to our nation. Even as you read this, the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are negotiating what some in the human needs community fear will be cuts to programs Americans rely on for their very survival. Already, the House GOP has passed legislation that would cut trillions in domestic spending over the next decade.
It is the law in the United States to provide opportunities for people fleeing from desperate and violent conditions to seek asylum. U.S. law is grounded in international law and the basic moral values of human rights. The Coalition on Human Needs strongly opposes all efforts to deny these basic rights to asylum-seekers.
Human needs programs have lost ground for more than a decade, and the high inflation rates of the past two years have continued this harm. In the 178 programs tracked annually by the Coalition on Human Needs, 123 (more than two-thirds, or 69 percent) saw cuts from FY 2010 through FY 2023, adjusted for inflation. More than two-fifths (74 programs; 42 percent) lost 20 percent or more over this period. These losses were caused by a decade of capped spending.
The House GOP proposal to slash domestic spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling would cost the economy 790,000 jobs and $141 billion over the next year and a half, the Senate Budget Committee heard this week. That prognosis came from Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics. Zandi testified about the probable effects of either defaulting on the national debt or not defaulting on the debt, but passing severe cuts. His testimony came after the House last week passed the “Limit, Save, and Grow Act,” largely along a party-line vote.
On June 12, 2016, the city of Orlando experienced one of the worst tragedies in recent memory when a gunman entered a safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community and took the lives of 49 people. This was the second deadliest mass shooting in the United States but obviously not the last. It is not up for debate that guns have made this country increasingly unsafe. But right-wing leaders take every opportunity to allow weapons of mass destruction to proliferate. Just last month in the state of Florida, where the Pulse, Parkland, and countless other tragedies have taken place, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that would allow for permitless carry in the state.
The debt ceiling hostage edition. America is being held hostage. House Republicans this week passed a measure that would cause permanent, lasting damage to a wide array of critical human needs programs – everything from health care to child care to housing to nutrition assistance to climate change. In passing this legislation, which will not advance in the Senate in its current form, House Republicans are teetering on the precipice of default on the national debt, which would cost millions of jobs and almost immediately plunge the nation – and perhaps the world – into a recession.
Human needs advocates, including people of faith, rallied this week against a House measure that would severely cut spending for critical domestic programs in exchange for raising the nation’s debt ceiling. The bill passed narrowly (217-215), but it is strongly opposed in the Senate and by President Biden. The advocates at Wednesday’s event were well aware that their fight must continue.
More Americans are behind on their utility bills than at any point since the 2009 Great Recession, a new report has found. Fueled by dramatic spikes in the cost of energy and by the expiration of pandemic aid programs, Americans owed $17.8 billion on their utility bills as of the end of January 2023. That’s up from $15.9 billion in January 2022, according to the report, released this week by the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association (NEADA).
The biggest threat to Americans today isn’t from a foreign power. It’s from a long-running war on the poor by out of touch politicians and their Wall Street backers. The latest attack on working Americans even has a name: “The Unwinding.” If that sounds like the title of a horror movie to you, you’re not far off. Starting this April, state governments and welfare offices began cutting off Medicaid coverage from some 15 million people.
Most of us rely on some cash assistance to get by at some point, whether we realize it or not. For wealthy people, that might include a family trust or any number of elaborate tax breaks. For middle-income people, it might come in the form of a mortgage interest deduction on their taxes, an inheritance, or a grandparent’s contribution to a college fund. But for many working people, that kind of help can only come from public programs — the kind that are now under threat from conservatives in Congress.
The Tax Day edition. Tuesday is Tax Day, and the human needs community has activities planned. The message behind the activities is that we need to raise revenues reasonably and responsibly in order to invest in a care economy. A care economy will mean hope, opportunity, and prosperity for millions of Americans.
The Biden Administration has announced it will appeal a Texas judge’s ruling striking down a key part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows tens of millions of Americans free access to cancer screenings and other forms of preventive health care. Last week, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor struck down provisions of the ACA that require insurers to provide certain preventive health care services free of charge. If allowed to stand, the ruling could affect all Americans who receive their health care through employer-based insurance or through the ACA marketplace.
