FRAC: Inaugural Week Message 1/16/09

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FRAC Inaugural Week Message
January 16, 2009

As we head into the long weekend (FRAC will be closed Monday for the commemoration of Dr. King's life and work, and Tuesday for the Inauguration), we wanted to share some developments with you and share with you our hopes and great optimism, even in the midst of this brutal recession. The work you are doing is making a huge difference. In the middle of all the Inauguration buzz and party planning and important personnel transitions:

• The House of Representatives leadership yesterday rolled out an excellent economic recovery plan that includes: a large boost in SNAP/Food Stamp benefits, and a suspension of the time limits on benefits applied to adult unemployed people without children ("ABAWDs")(together the two steps provide $20 billion in added food stamp assistance); $726 million to boost afterschool snack reimbursement and to expand the afterschool supper program from the current eight states to all 50 states and D.C.; a $300 million fund for states for SNAP/Food Stamp administrative costs to meet growing caseload demands; a huge improvement in the refundable part of the Child Tax Credit for low-income workers, allowing families to start getting a phased-in credit with the first dollar of earnings; Earned Income Tax Credit expansion; assistance to states for Medicaid costs; a boost in SSI payments; major unemployment insurance improvements; and added funds for senior nutrition, emergency food and shelter, TANF, child care and Head Start, WIC management information systems, LIHEAP, child support enforcement, the Community Services Block Grant, and other programs important to low-income people. We are very hopeful that the Senate proposal will have comparable provisions. The President-Elect already has signaled his support for many of these steps. FRAC will enthusiastically support the House bill and comparable steps in the Senate; at the same time we will work to make sure that funds needed for WIC are included in appropriations bills and that needed TEFAP and Commodity Supplemental Food Program boosts happen.

• Secretary of Agriculture nominee Tom Vilsack at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday recommitted to President-Elect Obama's goal of ending childhood hunger in the U.S. by 2015.

• A bipartisan group of 40 senators, led by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin and former chair Richard Lugar, sent a letter to the President-Elect urging him to provide added funding in the Administration's budget for the 2009 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization in order to improve school meals, WIC, and afterschool and child care nutrition. The letter emphasizes program access and participation, nutrition improvement, and modernization.

• The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the recession will increase SNAP/Food Stamp spending to $50 billion this year, up 27 percent from 2008 (this number does not include added spending in the economic recovery bill), and would increase SNAP/Food Stamp spending $86 billion cumulatively over the next decade, showing how responsive the program is to people's urgent need for help during the downturn.

All of this is good news, and we will be working to sustain and build on these steps. We will be asking you to do even more in the weeks and months ahead to join with us in order to soften the impact of the recession and to get this country back on track to ending hunger and dramatically reducing poverty. We believe that the President Elect and Vice-President Elect, their appointees, and the new Congress already are providing important new leadership to reach these goals. Please join us in heartily congratulating them, and please join us in helping them to pursue these goals, in reminding them how important it is to do so, and in communicating what the best strategies are to accomplish those outcomes. We hope that you will join us at the FRAC/Feeding America/CACFP Forum Conference at the beginning of March.

Jim Weill
President, Food Research and Action Center

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The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States.