Senate to Vote on Unemployment Insurance Extension TODAY!

The Senate will vote tonight (Monday) on final passage of the bill to restore unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless - finally! 

Please don't leave anything to chance:  tell your Senators to vote yes. And tell the House to take a vote.

Click here to send emails to your Senators and Representative.

As of April 5th, more than 2 million unemployed workers have lost jobless benefits because Congress hasn’t acted.
The Senate seems ready to help - you can make sure they do.
But House Speaker John Boehner is using every excuse he can think of to prevent UI from coming up for a vote.

Where things stand:
The Senate has taken all the procedural votes.  Now the vote on final passage in the Senate is scheduled for Monday, April 7, at about 5:30 p.m.  
But Speaker Boehner and his leadership team are preventing UI from being voted on in the House.  First they said it needed to be paid for.  It is paid for in the Senate bill.  Then they said the expiration has gone on for so long, it would be too hard to provide retroactive benefits.  But Jeff Frischmann, head of Nevada state unemployment insurance operations, says "We would stand ready and do it...We'll get through it, just like we have in thepast."

What to do:  click here to send emails to your Senators and Representative.
TODAY - Monday, April 7:  Contact your Senators and tell them to vote to restore Emergency Unemployment Compensation.
Contact your Rep. and tell him/her to urge Speaker John Boehner to bring up the Senate bill to restore Unemployment Compensation for a House vote ASAP. 

Background:
 The Senate has gotten through all the procedural votes; now comes the vote on final passage, which only requires a simple majority.  The Senate bill to restore Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) is a bipartisan agreement on a 5-month restoration of long-term unemployment benefits (the last resort after all other federal and state support has been exhausted). Those who were denied assistance after the program expired on December 28th will get retroactive help.  The bill is an important step forward, made possible because you and many thousands of constituents held their Senators accountable.  But it still needs the final vote.  So please send this email to your senators so they know you’re still paying attention, because jobless workers desperately need this help.

Your representative needs a different message.  Speaker Boehner has refused so far to bring a bill to the floor to restore unemployment insurance.  So every House member must be urged to tell the Speaker to bring the Senate bill to the floor and to vote for its passage.    

Each week since EUC was allowed to expire, another 72,000 workers and their families have been cut off.  As of April 5th, more than 2.3 million people have been denied assistance.  More than $5 billion in benefits have been lost to families and communities.  There are still not enough jobs and too many out of work for more than six months. 

Faith Community Criticizes House Budget

July 25, 2013


United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515


Dear Members of Congress:

Across the nation, Head Start programs ended their school years early, canceled summer programs, cut staff pay and benefits, and have announced reductions in the number of children who will be served in the fall. Programs serving meals to seniors have started to reduce days of home delivery and have closed or reduced hours for dining rooms. The long-term unemployed have lost federal jobless benefits, while job-training programs that might have helped them are cut back. Federal funds for education have been cut, with particularly harsh results for schools most reliant on these resources: those on Indian reservations or near military bases. Students counting on college work-study jobs are learning that they will not get them. Poor families or people with disabilities perilously close to homelessness after waiting years for a rental voucher have been told they will have to wait longer.

These are just some of the impacts of sequestration. At a time when we need to invest in education, rebuild infrastructure, protect people from hardship, and jumpstart economic growth that finally reaches most of us, sequestration is taking us backwards.

While many are already hurting from the sequestration cuts, the appropriations levels set by the House of Representatives for FY 2014 will make their hardships even more unbearable in the future. The House of Representatives’ plan not only assumes that next year’s budget will continue the devastating sequestration reductions, but it defies the Budget Control Act’s requirement that half of the $110 billion in additional annual cuts must be imposed on military programs and half imposed on the other areas of government. Instead, the defense budget is increased by 5.4 percent, or $26 billion, over this year’s spending. In marked contrast, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education are slashed 18.6 percent below this year’s funding, including sequestration. The Department of Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development is losing 9.6 percent of its funds. Other important domestic areas are also cut deeply: energy, conservation, and environmental protection programs are cut between 11 – 14 percent. That same $26 billion defense budget increase could cover many of the cuts to these vital departments.

As a faith community, we cannot simply stand aside and allow these cuts to happen. We heed the words of Isaiah 58:10-12: “If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday…you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

We support a Faithful Budget - www.faithfulbudget.org - that helps lift the burden on the poor, rather than increasing it while shielding the wealthiest from any additional sacrifice or using those funds to expand our defense department.

We urge you to oppose appropriations based on the House-passed levels. Congress should enact a budget that can advance fiscal responsibility while increasing support for the poor and vulnerable, by focusing on job creation and economic revitalization, an equitable tax system based on fairness, and true human security over disproportionate military spending. Together, we must be the repairers and restorers of a Faithful Budget.

Sincerely,

American Friends Service Committee
Bread for the World
Disciples Justice Action Network
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Council of Churches USA
National Council of Jewish Women
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Institute Justice Team
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries
Union for Reform Judaism
United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society

House Decimates Farm Bill

Last week the House of Representatives voted to enact a Farm Bill that did not include a Nutrition title.  In other words, the bill they passed does not include SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – formerly Food Stamps), our nation’s widest-reaching, most effective anti-hunger program.  A Farm Bill with no Nutrition title divorces the obvious marriage of food production from feeding hungry people.  This is an appalling effort to weaken programs that serve those in need and it is unacceptable. 

What is the Farm Bill?

The Farm Bill should better be called our Food Security bill, even though many of its programs are imperfect, because it has traditionally coupled the interests of food producers with food eaters.  Further, these interests have served to protect each other and made the Farm Bill one of the most historically bipartisan bills over time.  This new House bill destroys that security and partnership.  

The Farm bill came together originally out of a coalition of rural and urban policy-makers looking to assure food security for all.  Traditionally, Farm Bill debates have not been partisan, but rather have fallen along lines of rural and urban representation. But now, this collaboration of rural and urban interests is falling apart as a result of the excessive partisanship of this Congress.  Members of Congress seem to be forgetting the key protections offered through this bill to 

the people they are elected to represent.

What Happened Last Week:

After the House failed to pass a Farm Bill before the July 4^th recess, the Leadership had to reconsider its strategy.  The bill had failed, primarily, because it cut $20 billion from SNAP and placed onerous restrictions on beneficiaries.  In an unusually partisan battle, the Democrats voted against the bill because of the cuts and restrictions to SNAP and some Republicans also opposed it for not cutting enough spending overall. 

For Leadership, the choice should have been obvious: bring a bill to the floor that looked more like the Senate bill, with its much smaller cut to SNAP and bipartisan support (66 Senators voted in favor of the Senate Farm Bill).  Such a bill likely would have passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support, but instead, the Leadership chose to leave behind poor and hungry people.  The new bill, with no Nutrition title, was introduced late last Wednesday and then brought up for debate Thursday morning for discussion then stalled throughout the day while there was a massive dash to count up votes.

  

During this time of floor debate, we heard important voices in support of a more holistic Farm Bill that must include robust support for nutrition and anti-hunger programs. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), former Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said “We are the Congress of the United States of America, of the most powerful nation in this planet, and we must take care of our people.” As a Methodist pastor himself, he recognizes the importance of caring for God’s people.  Then groups as far ranging as the Environmental Working Group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Club for Growth all opposed this legislation.

The PC(USA) Office of Public Witness strongly opposes the separation of Nutrition from the Farm Bill and urges the House, instead, to take up the Senate-passed bill.

To read our action alert from last Thursday, visit our blog.

And for the interfaith letter opposing the separation of hunger from food production, click here.

Attacking the Process:

On top of the devastating attack on SNAP, this bill is horrible for the political process.  It takes what has traditionally been a widely supported piece of bipartisan legislation and instead, divides it up as a partisan bargaining tool.  Also of concern is the lack of transparency in the process. The decision to move the farm-only bill was made behind closed doors and the contents of the bill were not publically available until late in the evening the night before debate began at 9:30am.  This left no time for Members to review the bill thoroughly, nor did it allow time for constituents to weigh in with their elected officials.  And last, though a separate nutrition bill was implicit in the decision to move a farm-only bill, no member of Leadership provided any guarantee that the House would actually take up the Nutrition title as a stand-alone bill.

This separation of the Farm Bill’s farm and nutrition programs fails to consider all aspects of caring for God’s people.  This political spectacle is a step in the wrong direction.  If Congress chooses to send the Senate-passed Farm Bill and this House-passed farm-only bill to a conference committee, where members from both Chambers will be tasked with coming up with a compromise on a final farm bill, we will urge that the final compromise be far more just.

More information about the Farm-only bill:

In reviewing the House farm-only bill, we were surprised to find that the bill makes the new commodity programs permanent.  This would be in stark comparison to the rest of the bill that will still require reauthorization every five years, and will therefore be in danger of reverting to the 1949 version of the bill, if Congress allows the bill to expire again, as it did in 2012.  This would eliminate the need for big agribusinesses to support a new farm bill, but it would leave pieces the PC(USA) is very concerned about, such as conservation, rural development, and renewable energy, vulnerable to these kinds of political maelstroms.  This House bill secures big agribusiness profits, while neglecting the future of hungry people, our environment, and rural farmers and communities.

This legislation does have some of the pieces that we originally supported, including:

•   the Fortenberry Amendment, which caps commodity payments at $250,000 per year for any one farm. This payment limit is important for ensuring that federal farm supports are more targeted to smaller farms that need more support, while the corporate farms are allowed to bear some more of their own risk.
•  closing loopholes in current law to ensure payments reach working farmers, their intended recipients. 
• important conservation efforts such as the wetland reserve program and the grassland reserve program are protected

But despite these positive pieces, the bill places these important pieces in peril in 2018 and beyond, while also completely severing and federal policy partnership between and hunger and food.  Without the wide swath of bipartisan support this historically important legislation will be torn apart.

            

Faith Community Opposing House Splitting up the Farm Bill

July 11, 2013

Dear Representative:

As people of faith working to reduce hunger and poverty and urging sustainable stewardship of our resources, we urge you to oppose proposals to dismantle the farm bill. Proposals to “split” the farm bill will put critical programs, particularly SNAP (formerly food stamps), at risk of deep cuts and harmful policy changes.

Passing a farm bill that contains only the farm policies and commodity provisions would almost certainly lead to a nutrition bill with SNAP cuts that far exceed even the $20 billion proposed in the earlier version of the farm bill. Thus, we view a vote in favor of a separate farm policy bill as a vote in favor of uncertainty and possibly catastrophic cuts to SNAP.

Our nation’s food and farm policies as embodied in the farm bill impact people and communities from rural America to developing countries.  Historically, there have been good reasons to connect good nutrition policy with good farm policy, and this partnership is essential to the long-term health of all of the programs involved.  Splitting the farm bill and making SNAP vulnerable to deep cuts will not only hamper the ability of low-income Americans to put meals on the table, but will also have negative consequences for food producers as well. According to USDA, 16 cents of every dollar spent on food goes back to farmers.

We urge the House to work on a comprehensive farm bill that protects and strengthens nutrition programs and encourages sustainable stewardship of our resources.

Sincerely,

American Friends Service Committee

Bread for the World

Church World Service

Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach

Disciples Justice Action Network

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Jewish Council for Public Affairs 

MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

National Catholic Rural Life Conference

National Council of Jewish Women

Office of Social Justice, Christian Reformed Church in North America

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)

Union for Reform Judaism

United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries
The United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society

House Moves to Split Farm Bill

“The Farm Bill’s future remained in serious doubt in the House Tuesday even after a reluctant Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas said he would support splitting the measure to allow separate votes on the nutrition title.” Politico.  This split is a dismantling of the original purpose of the Farm Bill and will be devastating to the impoverished.

Historically, the Presbyterian Church has supported  “agriculture and food supply in accordance with the following principles and goals: renewability, sustainability, resilience, minimized carbon emissions, participatory research and decision-making, revitalized rural communities, strong local food economies, security of food supply, ethical treatment of animals, and fair and dignified treatment of persons working throughout the food chain.]”  This idea of connected agriculture and food supply is necessary for proper stewardship and protection of the marginalized.

The Farm bill came together originally as a coalition of rural and urban representatives looking to help assure food security for all.  This coalition is now being pulled apart in a partisan squabble.  Forgetting the key protections offered for the people they represent, instead focus has shifted to what team their allegiance lies with.    

Chairman Lucas under pressures from partisan efforts has decided to move towards a farm bill in which we split the nutrition piece from other titles.  For those of you who have followed us you know that there are many different titles that make up the Farm Bill.  These pieces include commodities, conservation, trade, rural development, energy, and of course nutrition.  This will leave SNAP (formerly Food Stamps stranded and probably prone to cuts far more severe than the already unbearable $20 billion likely to come.

All of these pieces are a part of an “agricultural and food supply” as the general assembly overture states.  This keeps in mind that “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Ps. 24: 1). 

Write your House Members today – tell them to oppose a split farm bill that forgets the connection of agriculture to food supply!

House Immigration Strategy Meeting - Call your Representative Today!

Call the House of Representatives this Tuesday, July 9th!

And don't just call - drop in and visit your Representative's local office!

On Wednesday, July 10th, House majority will convene a special meeting to determine their position and strategy on immigration reform, which will have a profound influence on the future of legislative process.

The Senate recently passed immigration reform with a robustly bipartisan 68-32 vote, and despite some serious concerns with the Senate bill, or perhaps because of them, the big question now is what the House will do. So far, House Committees have approved five bills, none of which create a path to citizenship, and all of which contain provisions that would negatively impact communities and our immigrant sisters and brothers.

On the eve of this meeting, ALL Representatives need to hear from people of faith. Raise your voices and tell your Representative to focus on legislation that creates a pathway to citizenship and reunites families. Make your call, and ask your friends, neighbors, congregation members, etc. to join you in calling and visiting your Representative's local office, which should be close to where you live.

Find your Representative's contact information on our website. 

Call 1-866-940-2439 to be connected with a key Representative near you.

You can also call the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 or find your Representative's direct line at

http://capwiz.com/pcusa/dbq/officials/

Feel free to use this sample script:

"I am from [City, State, Congregation], and I urge the Representative to support immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship and reunites families.   

As a person of faith, I urge the Representative to OPPOSE bills like the SAFE Act, Border Security Results Act, Agricultural Guestworker Act, and SKILLS Visas Act. These are not real reforms to our immigration system. We need immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship and reunites separated families." 

Keep up the pressure on social media! Find Your Representative’s Twitter and urge them to support a path to citizenship and oppose incomplete and harmful bills like the SAFE and AG Acts by tweeting @[their twitter name].

Ex: "@Raul_Labrador As a person of faith from Idaho I support #pathtocitizenship & #familyunity. Please support #immigrationreform!"

To read more about our General Assembly policy on immigration read our blog post here.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook and to read our blog for continued updates on immigration.