Faith Community Urges Senators to Include Low-income Tax Credits in Tax Reform

July 22, 2013

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator:

Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch invited you to provide input on tax reform, particularly about tax expenditures. As people of faith from across religions, denominations, and backgrounds, we see the federal budget and our tax code as moral documents, outlining our priorities as a country. We urge you to write a letter and emphasize some of the most effective anti-poverty initiatives enacted: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

As groups dedicated to addressing poverty and hunger, we were pleased to see the letter from Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch. As we read it, this letter calls for a “blank slate” approach in regards to tax credits, while protecting the EITC and CTC at their current levels, with the 2009 improvements. We in the faith community would like to affirm this decision and would hope that in the coming conversations about tax reform this is not lost. The EITC and the CTC keep many out of poverty and are examples of our faithful principles in practice.

Please write Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch and tell them that you support and agree that tax reform must ensure the EITC and CTC are continued at their current levels with the 2009 improvements.

We know there are many voices clamoring around tax reform. However, those struggling with hunger and in poverty are often left out of the tax policy debates. We urge you to remember them as you make important decisions over generating and allocating federal resources.

Second, it is important that tax reform generate adequate new revenue so we can continue this country’s commitment to addressing poverty while contributing to a healthy economy and fiscal future. As people of faith, we can envision a world without hunger and poverty. But that vision is untenable if sequestration remains in place, if our long-term deficits grow too big, if we fail to invest in effective anti-poverty measures, and if our economy remains weak. We urge you to emphasize this point as well.

In Proverbs (31.9) we are reminded of our responsibility to “Speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.” We urge you to follow these words as you provide input on tax reform. These tax decisions will reflect more than our government’s revenue situation, they will reflect our values as a nation.

Sincerely,

Bread for the World

Friends Committee on National Legislation

Jewish Council for Public Affairs

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office

The National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

National Council of Jewish Women

NETWORK

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Institute Justice Team

Union for Reform Judaism

United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries

The United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society

Urge Congress to Finish a Full, Fair Farm Bill

Full and Fair Farm Bill NOW

The undersigned 262 groups from all parts of the country have joined together today to demand that Congress develop and pass a full and fair Farm Bill this summer, without further delay. A full and fair Farm Bill must include farm, food and nutrition, conservation and rural economic development programs and commodity and crop insurance reforms. It must also provide renewed and enhanced funding for the now-stranded but critical subset of programs that assist the most chronically under-served segments of agriculture and our rural and urban communities.  The House and Senate should immediately appoint conferees to work in an open and urgent fashion toward adopting a final full and fair Farm Bill this summer.

The final bill should include:

• All nutrition programs, while rejecting all cuts or changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that would increase hunger or reduce access to nutrition education for any

 of the 47 million Americans who currently rely on the program to meet basic food needs;

• Full funding for farm conservation programs, enhanced and streamlined to better meet the pressing and accelerating natural resource and environmental issues of our day;

 • The cost-saving crop insurance and commodity subsidy reforms included in one or both bills including payment limit reform, national sodsaver, and conservation compliance re-linked to crop insurance- plus additional reforms needed to create a strong, targeted

 and cost-effective safety net; and

• Robust provisions and funding to increase economic opportunity for the nation’s diverse family farmers and ranchers, farm and food workers, rural and urban communities, and Indian Tribes.

• Provisions to ensure that a comprehensive farm bill with all titles will be updated on a regular five-year basis as conditions in the food and farm system change.

We support equity, justice, opportunity, and access across all titles of the Farm Bill. Therefore, we support removing elements that make the bill less fair and that weaken protections for consumers, including those in need of food assistance; or of farmers, labor and the environment. These include provisions restricting SNAP eligibility as well as those related to the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Act (GIPSA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Commerce Clause.

We further pledge to work with Congress to secure passage of a Farm Bill package that continues the currently stranded programs that

 are so critical to producers and communities around the country. These vital programs – representing a small fraction of overall Farm Bill investments – support beginning, socially disadvantaged, tribal, women, and veteran farmers and ranchers; rural economic development and job creation; renewable energy; fruit and vegetable production; organic farmers; local and regional food systems; farmers markets; healthy food access; and community food and urban agriculture projects.

Completion of a full and fair Farm Bill in 2013 is critical to the health of our recovering national economy.

We strongly urge Congress to act now to:

• assure access to affordable healthy and nutritious food for all;

• support the next generations of our nation’s farmers and ranchers;

• protect farm and ranch land, forests, and other natural resources; • advance food and agriculture-based economic development;

• invest in sustainable agriculture and food system research;

• promote energy conservation and renewable energy production;

• rebuild local and regional food infrastructure and markets;

• ensure the success of our nation's diverse producers, farm and food chain workers, and communities in greatest need of the landmark programs wisely created by Congress in the past several Farm Bills, programs which must be funded as part of a full and fair farm bill.

Sincerely,

262 groups, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Third Thursday Alert: Stop Forced Displacement in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory

This alert is a part of the ecumenical advocacy community's  Third Thursdays for Israel-Palestine. Stay tuned every month for updates from the Middle East!

On June 27th, 2013 the Israeli civil administration in the West Bank issued 34 demolition orders against Palestinian homes and buildings in the village of Susiya. This follows the issuance of 52 demolition orders against structures in the village in August 2012. Every structure in the village is now under threat of demolition and the community’s 250 residents are all at risk of being forcibly displaced from their homes.

This is not the first time that the residents of Susiya have been in this position. In 1986 Israel declared the site of the original village a national park and forcibly displaced all of the village’s 400 residents from their homes. Villagers quickly resettled in caves, tents, and homes they built on land that they owned nearby. The Israeli military completely destroyed this new community in 2001, and mass demolitions of rebuilt homes and structures have occurred on several occasions since then. Nearly half of the village population has been permanently forcibly displaced from their homes and village as a result of these demolitions.

The forced displacement of Palestinians in Susiya is not unique. Nearby herding communities including Safai, Majaz, Tabban, Fakhit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, and Hillet A-Dab are all threatened with demolition because the Israeli military has declared the area where they are located a closed military zone (known as Firing Zone 918). Palestinians in Fasayil, Jerusalem, Al-Aqaba, Beit Lahiya, Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and more than 100 other communities across the occupied Palestinian territory also live under the constant threat of being forcibly displaced.

Additionally, on June 24th the Knesset approved the first reading of the Prawar-Begin Plan which, if passed, would result in the destruction of up to 35 Negev area villages and the displacement of between 30,000 and 70,000 Bedouin from these villages into overcrowded and impoverished townships.

The 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church urged that the security of Israel is “inexorably dependent” upon the “dignity of persons, land property, safety of home, freedom of movement, the rights of refugees to return to the homeland, the right of a people to determine their political future, and to live in peace and prosperity.” For these conditions to be met, the forced displacement of Palestinians from their historic homes and villages in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel must end as soon as possible.

The United States must use its relationship with Israel to ensure that human rights are not violated, that Palestinians in these communities are not displaced, and that these communities’ rights to safety and basic services are fulfilled.

Take action--ask that your legislators demand an end to Israeli government policies and practices which contribute to a coercive environment that forces Palestinians to leave their land their homes and to implement a full moratorium on demolition orders.

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.

            

Decriminalizing HIV and AIDS: A Bill to Provide Justice and Reduce Stigma

(photo courtesy of the North Carolina AIDS Fund)

There are currently laws in 32 states that discriminate against people who are HIV positive. People with HIV may be prosecuted for not disclosing their HIV statuses to their partners - even if no transmission occurred.  In many cases, they are charged with felonies under attempted murder, aggravated assault, and bioterrorism laws, even for simple offenses that would not be considered serious by people who are not infected with HIV.  According to the CDC, it is impossible for HIV to be transmitted through saliva, but many people with HIV have been convicted of crimes for spitting or biting someone because their saliva is considered a "deadly weapon." Here are just a few of the discriminatory sentences that have affected people living with HIV:

•  A man with HIV in Texas is serving thirty-five years in prison for spitting at a police officer;
•  A man with HIV in Iowa, who had an undetectable viral load, received a twenty-five year sentence after a one-time sexual encounter during which he used a condom; his sentence was suspended, but he had to register as a sex-offender and is not allowed unsupervised contact with his nieces, nephews, and other young children;
• A woman with HIV in Georgia received an eight-year sentence for failing to disclose her HIV status, despite the trial testimony of two witnesses that her partner was aware of her HIV positive status;
• A man with HIV in Michigan was charged under the state's anti-terrorism statute with possession of a "biological weapon" after he allegedly bit his neighbor. 

 (photo courtesy of Rep. Barbara Lee)

 People are unjustly convicted today under these outdated laws, which were passed in the 1980s and 1990s when HIV and AIDS were poorly understood by the general population, healthcare providers, and public officials. Click here to check out the discriminatory laws in your own state. This discrimination results in unnecessary hardship for and a perpetuated negative stigma for people living with HIV. Also, fewer people get tested for HIV because only people that have been tested and know their positive status can be prosecuted under these unfair laws. Fewer people getting tested results in more transmissions and a furtherance of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Since 1 in 5 people living with HIV in the United States don't know they even have the virus, this is an enormous problem.

The REPEAL (Repeal Existing Policies That Encourage and Allow Legal) HIV Discrimination Act (HR 1843) is bipartisan, no-cost legislation that would create a federal guideline for states to review and change their laws that criminalize those living with HIV. If people are not criminalized for their HIV status, then they will be more likely to get tested and to receive the proper healthcare they need, which would drastically lower transmission rates.

Ask your Representative to Support the REPEAL Act now.

As people of faith, we stand with people that are HIV positive and celebrate their dignity as children of God who deserve equal treatment under the law.  The PC(USA) has made a commitment to become an HIV and AIDS competent church, and offers several ways to undertake this ministry in a 2010 statement. As Presbyterians, we support and are supported by the work of the Presbyterian AIDS Network in their efforts to change the face of HIV and AIDS in the world. Stand with us today and contact your representative to support HR 1843, the REPEAL Act.