We need your help!!

CALL Senator Harkin and Senator Grassley TODAY!

The Senate is trying to get the 60 votes needed to restore unemployment benefits, extend increased Medicaid aid to states, provide other important forms of assistance to low-income people*, and continue a variety of tax breaks for businesses and individuals.  They may vote on Thursday night or Friday morning.

In order to get the votes, negotiators have made more and more cuts affecting low-income people.  Last night, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) announced a new version of H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, that cuts SNAP (food stamps) by more than $9 billion and cuts the Medicaid aid to states by $8 billion.  This is in addition to previous cuts that eliminated subsidies to help unemployed people pay for health insurance and reduced current unemployment checks by $25 a week . 

These cuts are being proposed because a number of Senators have called for reducing the cost of the bill while at the same time increasing business tax breaks.  But even though more cuts are being proposed and business tax breaks are growing, these Senators are apparently still unwilling to support the legislation.

PLEASE CALL Senator Harkin and Senator Grassley! 

You can use this toll-free number:  1-888-245-0215.   

Ask them to vote for a version of H.R. 4213 that:

• Restores unemployment benefits
  
• Extends state Medicaid assistance for 6 months without cuts
  
• Rejects cuts in SNAP (food stamps)
  

Remember - unemployment and health benefits for the long-term jobless have expired. By the July recess, 2 million will have lost unemployment benefits; 140,000 will have lost COBRA health insurance subsidies.  Without Congressional action, states will lose $24 billion in Medicaid aid; resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and needed services (see table with state impacts). 

Now, the Senate is also considering ending increased SNAP (food stamp) benefits starting in 2014, which would return millions of families to the situation where SNAP/Food Stamp benefits typically ran out after the third week of the month.  It would increase hunger just when the President's 2015 end-childhood-hunger deadline is coming, and increase obesity by making it even harder for struggling families to purchase healthy food.  (For more information, take a look at this blog post by Chad Stone of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Senator Grassley and Senator Harkin should hear that making things harder for the hungry, sick, and jobless is not the way to fix the deficit.  And it certainly should not be the way to pay for business tax breaks.

Please call NOW.  1-888-245-0215

*H.R. 4213 includes $2.5 billion for the TANF Emergency Fund, for more cash assistance and subsidized jobs for poor families; $1 billion for jobs for youth; and just over $1 billion for the Housing Trust Fund (for affordable housing).  Until the bill passes, these important provisions are held up.
* This alert is from our friends at the Coalition on Human Needs