Home > Take Action > Action Alert - 8/1/05

TO: Anti-Hunger Allies

FR: Food Research and Action Center
      America's Second Harvest
      Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

RE: Organizational Sign on Letter in Support of the Food Stamp Program

Pasted in below and posted here is an organization sign- on letter in support of the Food Stamp Program. We urge you join us in sending a strong message to Congress to protect the Food Stamp Program against budget cuts and damaging structural changes. Please review a list of national, state, and local signatories as of August 8, 2005.

Background

As you know, the FY 2006 Congressional Budget Resolution instructs the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to design policies to cut $3 billion in five-year spending from programs under their jurisdiction by September 16, 2005. In addition, the House bill to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program (H.R. 240) would allow five state food stamp block grants and give the executive branch extraordinary authority to change Food Stamp Program rules.

Action Needed

The Food Stamp Program is vital to millions of vulnerable people in communities across the country. Help us to protect this important safety net by urging Congress to keep any cuts to the Food Stamp Program as close to zero as possible, by:

1. Signing your organization on the letter (see form below);
2. E-mailing this request to other organization partners and encouraging them to sign on;
3. Sending your own individual letter to your Senators and Representative (feel free to borrow ideas and language from the group letter).

For technical assistance and/or feedback, contact FRAC (evollinger@frac.org; eteller@frac.org; ichavez@frac.org), America's Second Harvest-The Nation's Food Bank Network (dobrien@secondharvest.org; ethompson@secondharvest.org; jparadis@secondharvest.org; jjones3@secondharvest.org), or CBPP (rosenbaum@cbpp.org; pawling@cbpp.org).

To sign the letter, print, fill in & fax it to 202-986-2525 or copy the letter’s content and paste it into an email message, edit it and email it to ichavez@frac.org

SIGN ON LETTER

We are writing to encourage you to do everything in your power to protect the nutrition assistance programs under your committee's jurisdiction from actions in the budget reconciliation process that would add to the already millions of needy people who are hungry or food insecure.

We understand that the Committee on Agriculture faces the challenge of reducing mandatory spending by $3 billion and that difficult choices must be made. Nevertheless, according to the most recent federal government measurement of food insecurity and hunger, 36.3 million people in our nation, including 13.3 million children, live in households that experience food insecurity. That represents 11.2 percent of all U.S. households. These numbers have been increasing nationwide, and attempts to cut back the nutrition safety net for these families will make the situation worse. Food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens cannot replace lost food stamp benefits.

Therefore, we strongly encourage you and your colleagues to be mindful of the impact of nutrition cuts on the most vulnerable people in our communities and to keep any reductions in such assistance as close to zero as possible. Food stamp cuts will disproportionately harm low-income people, those who can least afford to bear this additional burden.

The Food Stamp Program is our nation's best defense against the hunger that can make it so difficult for children to thrive and learn and families to achieve self-sufficiency. While more than 36 million people are hungry or at risk of hunger, fewer than 26 million participate in the Food Stamp Program. Further, more than 95 percent of food stamp benefits go to households with incomes below the poverty line; many of the remaining beneficiaries are near-poor elderly or disabled persons.

As you know, the Food Stamp Program has already been subject to major cuts in deficit reduction contexts in the 1996 reconciliation and welfare reform legislation. As estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, almost $28 billion was cut from the Food Stamp Program over six years - more than any other program, and whole categories of persons were denied eligibility or had access to the program reduced. Most of these billions of dollars in cuts continue to affect needy people. Only about one-third of these cuts have been restored.

Too many people are hungry; too many hungry people are not getting food stamps; too many people cannot afford to lose even one cent of food stamp benefits; the average benefit amounts to just one dollar per person per meal. We strongly encourage you and your colleagues to do all you can to protect this important nutrition program.

Please review a list of national, state, and local signatories as of August 1, 2005.

Sign the letter and fax to Iris Chavez at 202-986-2525.

Yes, please sign my organization onto the Letter in Support of the Food Stamp Program.