The weekly Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) News Digest highlights what's new on hunger, nutrition and poverty issues at FRAC, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, around the network of national, state and local anti-poverty and anti-hunger organizations, and in the media. The Digest will alert you to trends, reports, news items and resources and, when available, link you directly to them.

1. Vote on Budget Bill Postponed Because of Opposition
2. Florida: Thousands Hit by Hurricane Wilma Rush for Emergency Food Stamps
3. Editorial: House Makes ”Morally Wrong” Budget Choices
4. Editorial: Defeat of Deficit Bill Would Show Better Fiscal and Human Priorities
5. Op-Ed: Reducing Poverty Starts with Halting Tax Cuts for Wealthy and Preserving Programs for Poor – Not the Other Way Around
6. Editorial: Federal Government Must Attack Child Hunger
7. Block Granting Food Stamps Will Hurt Those in Need
8. U.S.-Mexico Campaign Gets Under Way to Educate Mexican Community about Nutrition Benefits
9. Montana: No Money to Spare, No Place to Turn for Elderly Couple Facing Gas Shut-Off
10. Federal Budget Cuts Will Hurt Needy South Carolinians
11. More Than a Million North Carolinians Are at Risk of Hunger
12. Report: Capital Gains Tax Extension Would Overwhelmingly Benefit the Rich in Every State
13. Standard Answers to Obesity Do Not Help the Poor
14. Kansas – Editorial: Rising Tide of Need Would Not Be Met Without School Feeding Programs
15. Georgia: Signs of Tension between Katrina Evacuees and Local People in Need in Atlanta Worry Charities
16. Texas Privatization: Conditionally Approved, but Worrisome to Social Workers and Advocates
17. Oregon: New Effort to Encourage Poor Families to Apply for Earned Income Tax Credit
18. Illinois: Lounge Style School Cafeteria Boosts Meal Sales

1. Vote on Budget Bill Postponed Because of Opposition

(“House Leaders Postpone Vote on Budget Bill,” nytimes.com, November 11, 2005)

Last week House Republican leaders called off the vote on the ”contentious” budget-cutting bill. Making concessions to moderate Republicans did not help win enough pro-bill votes, and House leaders said they would try to bring the bill with its $50 billion in spending cuts to a vote again this week. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri said the Budget Committee would revisit the budget package to make more adjustments, with nutrition programs and rural pharmacies among proposals that could be changed. In the Senate, Republicans on the Finance Committee on Thursday sought to approve a bill with $68 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, but were forced to postpone a vote after Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) dissented from the proposed cuts.

http://tinyurl.com/7ak7t

2. Florida: Thousands Hit by Hurricane Wilma Rush for Emergency Food Stamps

(“Florida Food Program Attracts Thousands,” msnbc.msn.com, November 9, 2005)

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Wilma victims in Florida applied for emergency food stamps last week. At the Orange Bowl, the line in the hot sun stretched for blocks. People actually ran to get in line, some of them pushing baby carriages, as officials started taking food stamp applications in Palm Beach County. “What's striking is these are people who normally aren't considered poor enough to qualify for food stamps but who now are in serious trouble.” Flora Beal of the Florida Department of Children and Families says, “This is for those people who because of the hurricane have had their financial stability pretty much destroyed.” Jenny Gonzalez, a teacher's aide with three children whose home was damaged and who applied for food assistance for the first time in her life, is one of those people. “To recover has been really hard after the storm, so it's really great that they are helping us,” she says. State officials report the emergency food stamp program is expected to help four million Floridians. A qualified single person is given a $152 one-time debit card that can be used at select grocery stores, and a family of four gets about $500.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9982315/ (to see the video, click the “Launch” button on the right side of this page)

3. Editorial: House Makes ”Morally Wrong” Budget Choices

(“Budget Cuts,” philly.com, November 9, 2005)

“It would have been difficult for budget-cutters in Congress to devise a plan to punish poor children more severely if they had set out with that goal in mind,” editorializes the Philadelphia Inquirer about the $54 billion deficit reduction plan by the House of Representatives. “From food stamps to health care to child-support enforcement, children in low-income families would bear a cruelly disproportionate share of these proposed cuts.” The House deficit reduction plan will not reduce the deficit if Congress passes the expected $70 billion tax cuts next. “It's perverse even by this Congress' standards to cut free school lunches [for 40,000 low-income children] to make way for extended tax relief for the wealthy from capital gains and stock dividends. But that would be the net effect of lawmakers' actions. . . .” Food stamps for 70,000 legal immigrants and for 225,000 members of low-income families in which one or more adults is working will be eliminated. Lawmakers “must recognize that this budget plan makes choices that are morally wrong.”

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/13116841.htm

4. Editorial: Defeat of Deficit Bill Would Show Better Fiscal and Human Priorities

(“Cuts for the Vulnerable,” boston.com, November 9, 2005)

“Republican budget-writers in the US House of Representatives are nibbling away at programs that affect the lives of millions of people . . . . For the sake of all those who depend on food stamps, student loans, Medicaid, and child support payments, the bill should be defeated,” argues this editorial in The Boston Globe. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 would save $53.9 billion over five years. However, if followed by a $70 billion tax-cutting bill, most of which will benefit the wealthy, the bill will not achieve any deficit reduction. The real consequence of the deficit reduction bill will be to deny food assistance; discourage states from collecting child support payments; and increase the costs of government-guaranteed loans for students. Under the Bush administration, the government has collected a far smaller share of the gross domestic product in taxes than over most of the last 40 years. “The government needs to generate more revenues to pay for its obligations, including the costs of hurricane relief,” and “House rejection of the deficit bill would be an early hint of better fiscal and human priorities.”

http://tinyurl.com/9g7fa

5. Op-Ed: Reducing Poverty Starts with Halting Tax Cuts for Wealthy and Preserving Programs for Poor – Not the Other Way Around

(“Poverty Rising under Bush; Will He Really Take Action?” lsj.com, November 6, 2005)

Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Community Advisory Board member to the Lansing State Journal, writes that President Bush “has lavishly promised to rebuild New Orleans and even acknowledged that poverty in the U.S. ‘has its roots in a history of racial discrimination.’” This acknowledgement is belated but welcome. The number of Americans below the poverty line decreased by 2.29 percent annually during the Clinton administration, but has increased by 4.33 percent annually in the Bush years. The poor have gotten poorer, but the rich have gotten richer. Even in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration intends to finance $70 billion in tax cuts, half of these for the wealthy, by borrowing and by cutting programs for low and moderate-income families. If the president “were truly committed to reducing poverty in the United States, he could begin by halting his tax cuts for the wealthy, and ending programming cuts for the poor.”

http://tinyurl.com/eyeq2

6. Editorial: Federal Government Must Attack Child Hunger

(“Vermont Children Need Security of Food,” burlingtonfreepress.com, November 9, 2005)

There are 55,000 adults and 21,000 children who are food insecure in Vermont, according to USDA. Since 1999, the number of Vermont households unable to provide food for their children has doubled. The state has experienced the largest increase in the number of households with the most severe category of hunger of any other state in the last six years. Robert Dostis of the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger says, “people's income is not keeping up with their expenses and they are averting food money to heat, rent and other things.” Many households are living on the edge, with parents who cannot afford adequate diets and skip meals to allow their children to eat, Dostis noted. It is a sign of deep poverty when children go without food at home and rely largely on breakfasts and lunches at school. To alleviate this situation, this editorial in the Burlington Free Press urges to reject the House of Representatives’ cuts to the food stamp program; to increase funds for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Plan; to provide nutrition education in schools; and to ensure that all 40,000 eligible Vermont students receive free school and summer meals.

http://tinyurl.com/d8u8u

7. Block Granting Food Stamps Will Hurt Those in Need

(The Changing Face of Food Stamps,” connectforkids.org, November 7, 2005)

Nadio Owjama, a single mother of two, fled the horrors of war in Somalia and ended up a refugee in a Seattle shelter. She received food stamps and TANF until she found a job in a day care center. Only after a doctor ordered her to rest, because of her pregnancy, did she go back on food stamps while she was unable to work or until she could earn enough to feed her family. This assistance, or “bridge to independence,” is vital for Nadio and 7.5 million American households, writes Marilyn C. Lewis for Connect for Kids. Beneficiaries receive, on average, $74.76 per person per month in food stamps. While poor families might receive welfare cash for a limited time and states might run out of welfare block grant funds, the food stamp program still will provide food to eligible persons. Now, however, the House of Representatives has included in its version of TANF reauthorization a provision for block granting food stamps in five states. If passed, this rule would only provide these five states with a block of money based on what food stamps cost there previously. “Not only would a state's food stamps funds be spread thin if the need increases, but states could reimburse themselves for what they now must contribute to administration, employment and training – bleeding food assistance.” This would have grave consequences for beneficiaries. Meanwhile, “at the grinding edge where policy meets poverty, working people, one of whom Nadio Owjama hopes soon to be, continue trying to meld government help with work in a climate of changing policies and practices.”

http://www.connectforkids.org/node/379?tn=hp/6

8. U.S.-Mexico Campaign Gets Under Way to Educate Mexican Community about Nutrition Benefits

(“ U.S., Mexican Officials Launch Outreach Campaigns,” accessnorthga.com, November 8, 2005)

U.S. and Mexican officials, including Mexican consuls from Salt Lake City to Orlando, met to discuss an outreach campaign meant to educate Hispanics about public nutrition benefits available to them. The purpose of the meeting was to find ways to implement recent agreements between Mexico's Foreign Ministry and USDA officials on Hispanic access to nutrition programs as well as housing and business loans. “What we're doing is to make the Mexican community aware of who's eligible for USDA programs in everything that has to do with WIC, school lunches, food stamps," said Bosco Marti, the director for North America at Mexico's Foreign Ministry. It is estimated that not even 50 percent of Mexicans in the United States who are eligible for USDA public assistance programs take advantage of them. Lack of information about healthy nutrition translates into an obesity epidemic: twenty-five percent of Mexican-American children are overweight or obese. “It's imperative that we continue to reach out to Spanish-speaking Americans,” said Roberto Salazar, head of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. “It behooves us as a country to insure that we're taking preventive steps for all Americans,” he said. As the best way to reach the Spanish-speaking community, the campaign will work with the consulates with whom U.S. officials have already developed rapport.

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=67409

9. Montana: No Money to Spare, No Place to Turn for Elderly Couple Facing Gas Shut-Off

(“Couple Struggles to Pay Bills,” billingsgazette.com, November 5, 2005)

Violet, 73, and Matt Synek, 77, a Lockwood couple, are living on $1,293/month Social Security and $143/month food stamps. They cannot afford utility bills; are being threatened with a gas shut-off, and have not heard whether the LIHEAP application they made last summer will be granted. Besides a several months-old debt to the phone company, the Syneks worry that their 13-year-old car needs repairs and is their only means of transportation to doctor appointments. Violet has worked a series of part-time jobs she found through senior employment programs, but stopped working because of an injury. “I can't cut back, I just don't have any money to pay my bills. I get sick to my stomach every month because I don't know how I'm going to make it," Violet said. “I told [the power company] we're both disabled, but that doesn't make a difference these days,” Violet said. “It's just plain hell living on Social Security,” she complained. “You never have enough money for paying the bills.”

http://tinyurl.com/8h2q4

10. Federal Budget Cuts Will Hurt Needy South Carolinians

(“Budget Cut Could Hurt Needy in S.C.,” thestate.com, November 7, 2005)

The list of those who could be hurt by federal budget cuts include “single mothers seeking child support from deadbeat dads,” according to Rep. John Spratt, the ranking South Carolina Democrat on the House Budget Committee, as well as “students struggling to pay loans for their college education, foster children, the sick and poor whose only access to health coverage is Medicaid or whose nutrition depends on food stamps.” While the Senate did not vote for any changes in the food stamp program, “the cornerstone of the federal food assistance program for the poor,” the House of Representatives’ plan denies 300,000 people food stamps to save $844 million. An average of about 500,000 South Carolinians a month participated in the program in 2004, based on USDA data. “I’m very distressed about it because I know we are again taking the cuts to the people that are most vulnerable,” said Diane L. Thompson, director of the social work program at Columbia College.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/13101159.htm

11. More Than a Million North Carolinians Are at Risk of Hunger

(“Poverty Continues to Rise in North Carolina,” rdu.news14.com, November 4, 2005)

Poverty continues to spread in North Carolina. State food banks describe this as a situation “quickly becoming a crisis.” North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation for food insecurity. More than a million North Carolinians are at risk of hunger. “One-point-two million people statewide live below the poverty line . . . so it really could be someone next door who needs food assistance,” said Lindsey Graham, a representative of North Carolina food banks.

http://rdu.news14.com/content/your_news/raleigh/?ArID=76610&SecID=17

12. Report: Capital Gains Tax Extension Would Overwhelmingly Benefit the Rich in Every State

(“IRS Data on the Capital Gains Tax Cut in Each State ,” cbpp.org, November 7, 2005)

While making a decision about the reconciliation tax cut bill in coming weeks, Congress will focus on whether to extend the reduction in the capital gains tax rate that was enacted in 2003 and that is set to expire in 2008. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published the IRS data table, “The Distribution of Capital Gains Tax Cut Benefits in 2003, by State,” to show who would benefit. The table shows the percentage of tax returns filed in each state that reported incomes of less than $50,000, and the percentage of tax returns from households with income above $200,000. The data also displays the proportion of the total tax savings from the capital gains rate cut that was received by each of these two income groups. In 2003, 70.7 percent of all filers in the nation had annual income below $50,000, but this group received only 3.2 percent of the benefits from the capital gains tax cut. In contrast, those with incomes above $200,000 represented 2.0 percent of all filers, but received 80.5 percent of the capital gains tax cut benefits.

http://www.cbpp.org/11-7-05tax.htm

13. Standard Answers to Obesity Do Not Help the Poor

(“Big and Broke in America,” indystar.com, November 6, 2005)

Indiana politicians are trying to shame overweight people with eating better and exercising regularly. This makes sense for those who belong to gyms, live in neighborhoods with safe sidewalks, and shop at supermarkets with sushi bars. But this is not the profile of Mary Chocklett, whose name “would be too good to believe, except that the 59-year-old Wanamaker resident doesn't crave sweets.” She is overweight, diagnosed with clinical depression, and cannot easily walk, or work, much less work out. She and her husband, Cecil, live on $850 a month, his Social Security. Sometimes it means 49 cent junk bread instead of the healthy $3 whole grain bread. A joint study by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University and the Food Research and Action Center showed that the food choices of low-income people often are dictated by the need to maximize calories for each dollar spent, to pursue quantity over quality, and a tendency to overeat when food is available so that there is an expansion of fat storage in the body that compensates in times of food shortages. Fitness and healthy eating initiatives are not designed to consider the circumstances of the poor. “It's a community problem. It's a public health problem,” says Dr. Mercy Obeime, who sees many Mary Chockletts in her practice.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005511060310

14. Kansas – Editorial: Rising Tide of Need Would Not Be Met Without School Feeding Programs

(”A rising Tide of Poverty,” winfieldcourier.com, November 3, 2005)

Poverty is rising in Cowley County as shown by the high percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals. In USD 465 at Winfield, the percentage rose to 42.5 percent this year, after hovering around 35 percent for several years. In USD 285 at Cedar Vale, the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals is 45.8 percent. “These numbers are disturbing because they tell us more and more families in the Cowley County area are struggling to feed their children properly,“ writes this editorial in the Winfield Courier Online. “The big picture is one of a rising tide of need that would not be met if not for school feeding programs. Our schools, public and private, have taken on the challenge of meeting the nutritional needs of the increasing number of children from families that are poor and nearly poor. We should ask ourselves: What would we do without those feeding programs? . . . . let’s be sure we do not forget the poor and the working poor – especially when it comes to adequate and proper nutrition.”

http://www.winfieldcourier.com/editorial/e051103.html

15. Georgia: Signs of Tension between Katrina Evacuees and Local People in Need in Atlanta Worry Charities

(“In Wake of Katrina, Some Local Poor Feel Shunted Aside,” ajc.com, November 6, 2005)

Sixty-three-year old Mary Berry became homeless when her lease ran out and a car accident left her without transportation. Her placement in senior citizen housing was delayed, and she had to spend weeks sleeping on friends' couches. Berry asked for help from more than a dozen charities, but was told that many of them were helping only Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Homeless and needy people interviewed around Atlanta “say they're angry the evacuees are getting the kinds of help they've requested for years, but been denied.” They point to longer lines and closed services. They say Katrina victims are showered with sympathy and help. “It's unclear how much the efforts to help evacuees have made life tougher for the local needy. Numerous agencies and charities say a boost in donations and volunteers have let them serve both populations, but for some longer lines.” Several local service providers say the majority of needy and homeless people have not been hurt by the evacuee relief efforts. People are still getting their food stamp and welfare benefits, and most of the homeless can still stay at a shelter if they want to. But some providers see why tension between the evacuees and local needy persons has grown. Philip Bray, president of the Safe House Outreach in Atlanta, says some days have been so crowded that some people left without getting food. The charities in Atlanta worry that the evacuees from afar may, in the long run, when special help ends, join the city’s chronically poor and homeless. “They're going to see what it's like to be in Atlanta with no public housing and no affordable housing to replace that, and minimum wage at $5.15 an hour," said Elisabeth Omilami of Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless. “In the long-term, we will find out what the commitment really is . . . How do we really feel about the poor?”

http://tinyurl.com/ct5xb

16. Texas Privatization: Conditionally Approved, but Worrisome to Social Workers and Advocates

(“Privatizing Aid to Needy Worrisome to Workers,” chron.com, November 9, 2005)

Sheila Badzioch, along with 2,600 other Texas eligibility workers, likely will soon lose her job serving Houston's poor as the global outsourcing giant Accenture LLP starts screening applicants for government programs under a five-year, $899 million call center contract with the state of Texas. Texas officials had been moving forward with their plan without any federal approval, but last week the federal government granted conditional approval to the new system for the next three months. Badzioch fears her clients' needs will be neglected: “If you really want to get someone off welfare, you need a face-to-face interview. If I have a client come in for food stamps, and she has a black eye and such, it has nothing to do with food stamps,” she said. “Most of us believe they want to make it so complicated that people won't apply . . .” Texas Democrats, the state employees union and advocates for the poor also complain that the state is rushing into an untested private system that still lacks full approval. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) called the Texas project “an ideological experiment conducted on some of the most vulnerable people in our society.” William Ludwig, regional USDA administrator, stressed that any future federal funding for Texas’ call center project will depend on its “demonstrated success.”

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3448316

17. Oregon: New Effort to Encourage Poor Families to Apply for Earned Income Tax Credit

(“Poor Families May Be Sitting on Nest Egg,” oregonlive.com, November 7, 2005)

In Cassandra Garrison's case, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit worked as a life-changing opportunity. The $3,000 check from the government helped this former welfare recipient – now public policy director for the Oregon Food Bank – to buy a house and break out of poverty. But tens of thousands of Portland-area workers do not even know that they might be eligible for the tax credit that can help them repay their debts and even become homeowners. Though many agencies offer free tax-return clinics, dealing with the IRS is too complicated or intimidating for many workers. Some of them believe they earn too little to file a tax return. As a result, $75 million a year in annual Earned Income Tax Credits is going unclaimed in Oregon. “That's a lot of money to leave on the table," says Jim Harper, who runs a new nonprofit, CASH Oregon, whose mission is to put more money into the hands of people who need it. “Even if you don't owe any tax at all, you would still be eligible,” says Jim Steiner, an IRS regional spokesman. “We wish that more and more people who are eligible applied.”

http://tinyurl.com/8ko5x

18. Illinois: Lounge Style School Cafeteria Boosts Meal Sales

(“Schools: Burger With a Side of Cool,” msnbc.msn.com, November 7, 2005)

On school days, U.B.U. lounge at Sterling High in Sterling, Illinois is the hottest lunch hangout. It is crowded with students ordering chicken wraps and singing along with Beyonce or Gwen Stefani. Students love their new jazzed-up cafeteria, and so does principal Jerry Binder: “It's just more attractive, so kids want to stay for lunch.” Sterling High is one of 130 schools experimenting with U.B.U. lounges to keep teenagers in school and away from fast-food outlets. The new style cafeteria project was launched by food-service provider Aramark and has proved successful in boosting sales. In Missouri’s Springfield Glendale High School, a U.B.U. pilot school, sales of meals are up 40 percent this fall. Aramark is planning to expand its U.B.U.s to all of its 420 school districts, but Michael Carr of the National Association of Secondary School Principals points out that, nationwide, lounges are “way down the list” of priorities for school administrators.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9935135/site/newsweek/

For news tips, suggestions, comments, contact Olga Doty at odoty@frac.org

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