WASHINGTON – The Coalition on Human Needs and other defenders of the poor wrote to President Obama and the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress June 27 urging them to reject any cutbacks in low-income benefit programs that would increase poverty and hunger in their current negotiations on deficit reductions.
The message comes as Obama exerts pressure on Republicans to drop their efforts to extort sweeping cuts in Social Security, Medicare and other federal programs as the price for their agreement to an increase in the debt ceiling. Obama is demanding an agreement by July 1, before Congress recesses for the Fourth of July.
It reduces the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, she noted, “and that will cost the Treasury $2 trillion over ten years,” a huge addition to the Federal deficit. “That’s from Chairman (Paul) Ryan who touts himself as someone concerned about deficits,” she said.
Federal nutrition programs “are the difference between enough to eat and not for one in four Americans,” she concluded.
Other organizations signing the letter include the Children’s Defense Fund, United Way, National Council of La Raza, Families USA and the NAACP.
Ryan’s budget proposes to transform SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) from an entitlement with automatic increases in funds to meet increased need, into a block grant, a fixed amount of money distributed to the states no matter how many are hungry.
The states, grappling with budget shortfalls, would be forced either to tighten eligibility, terminating benefits for an estimated 8 million current recipients, or they could reduce benefits across the board. “A family of four would lose $147 per month in food benefits, a devastating cut,” Weinstein said.