Pallone to Call for Boost in Support of Hunger and Nutrition Programs in Federal Budget at Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen, New Brunswick

Congressman, Advocates and Local Elected Officials to Decry Crippling Cuts to Critical Food Assistance Program

New Brunswick, NJ – On Monday, December 2nd, 2013 at 10:30 a.m., Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) will visit Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick, New Jersey, decrying cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) on the heels of House Republicans’ latest effort to disable the program. In September, Republican leadership in the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to cut roughly $39 billion from the SNAP program over the next decade.

Pallone will be joined by New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill, Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, Lisanne Finston, Executive Director, Elijah’s Promise and Adele LaTourette, Director, New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition.

According to the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, 394,240 children in New Jersey were living in food insecure households in 2011. More than 15% of Americans, including 22% of all American children, live in poverty. SNAP provides a basic nutrition benefit to many low-income Americans, including senior citizens and children, and has largely eliminated severe hunger and malnutrition in the United States. The Republican effort to further cut SNAP would mean more Americans, including children, will go hungry and malnourished, and an influx of pressure would be put on our community soup kitchens. The $39 billion in SNAP cuts would come on top of $5 billion in across-the-board SNAP benefit cuts that already went into effect on November 1st due to an expiring provision included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that provided a modest boost in SNAP benefits.

Elijah’s Promise is a community soup kitchen, culinary arts school, catering business, and pay-as-you-can café that connects low-income individuals and families with social and health services. Elijah’s Promise serves 100,000 meals per year and trains previously unskilled workers for careers in the food service industry.

The Shutdown in New Jersey

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

About 31,000 New Jerseyans work for the federal government. Many of these public servants have been furloughed; the remainder are continuing to perform their duties but will not be paid until Congress funds the government. As a result, Moody’s Analytics estimates that a three-to-four week shutdown would cut economic growth nationwide by more than half in the fourth quarter.

Due to the shutdown, the Children’s Home Society – which administers the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program in Mercer County – could not write any food or milk vouchers last week, impacting several thousand women and their families. The state of New Jersey has since stepped forward to support WIC temporarily, but if the shutdown continues, more children could lose access to basic nutrition.


At Rutgers Cooperative Extension, 60 staff members are about to be laid off due to funding shortfalls related to the shutdown. New small business loans, including those for New Jersey’s nearly 200,000 small businesses, are being halted. New student loans for New Jersey’s 440,000 college students are not being disbursed. New applications for Social Security, veterans’ benefits, visas, and passports are not being processed.

These problems will only grow worse if this shutdown is allowed to continue. And if the debt ceiling crisis is not resolved, the increased cost to the government could easily be in the tens of billions of dollars each year.

For Generations

Today Republicans in the House are stalling and filling time while they find the courage to admit they have made a big mistake, substantively and politically, in shutting the federal government and to bring to the floor a resolution to resume funding. So, they are using time to bring up a version of the farm bill that would leave more Americans hungry by reducing SNAP benefits (previously known as food stamps).

According to the Lancet Medical Journal published this past week, “SNAP is in jeopardy, which means American children’s health is in jeopardy.” More than 70 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with children. The program, dating from the 1960s, has been shown to have less waste, fraud, and erroneous awards than other government programs.

The Lancet article continues, “Many studies have shown positive associations between receipt of SNAP and... a lower risk of anemia, obesity, poor health, hospital admission for failure to thrive, and reports of child abuse and neglect. Children aged 5 - 9 years of SNAP-participating families had better academic outcomes and less obesity than had children of non-participating families... Between 1961 and 1975, the programme was implemented county by county, thus, allowing for comparison across counties that differed only by SNAP availability. In SNAP-available counties there was… a significant increase... in mean birthweight [an important measure associated with infant health] for both black and white Americans compared with those counties where SNAP was not available. Children of low-income women in SNAP-available counties were less likely to have metabolic syndrome [ill health such as diabetes] in adulthood, and women who had received food stamps during early childhood were more likely to be economically self-sufficient.”

This seems to me to be a very important point: the societal benefits of food stamps extend far beyond the temporary reduction of hunger pangs, and the benefits last for years, even into the next generation.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt

New Jersey Failing to Offer Voter Registration to Low-Income Residents

 Dēmos
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 1, 2013

National Voting Rights Groups Put Lt. Gov. Guadagno and DHS on Notice for Violations of Federal Law

TRENTON, NJ - October 1 - Citing clear evidence that numerous low-income New Jersey residents have been denied the opportunity to register to vote, attorneys from Rutgers Constitutional Law Clinic, Project Vote, Demos, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the NAACP have issued official notice to Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, as well as the state’s Department of Human Services (DHS), that the state is not in compliance with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The notification letter, sent today on behalf of the New Jersey State Conference of the NAACP, calls on Guadagno and DHS to take corrective action necessary to bring New Jersey into compliance with the NVRA by offering voter registration opportunities at public assistance agencies or to face possible litigation.

Commonly known as the “Motor Voter” law, the NVRA requires motor vehicle agencies, as well as public assistance agencies that provide services such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other benefits, to proactively offer voter registration services to their clients. Since the implementation of the NVRA, an estimated 141 million Americans have applied to get on the voter rolls through the registration services the NVRA requires at motor vehicle agencies, disability offices, and public assistance agencies.

The notice letter cites evidence that public assistance agencies in New Jersey are neglecting to consistently offer voter registration services to their clients, and are therefore failing to carry out their responsibilities under the NVRA. As discussed in the notice letter, there has been a significant decline in the number of voter registration applications from New Jersey public assistance agencies since 1995, despite a sharp increase in the number of persons seeking public assistance. Investigations at county welfare agencies also showed a lack of compliance with the law. Discussions with both clients and agency staff confirmed that voter registration services were not consistently offered as required by the NVRA.

“Public assistance agencies are a vital component of the voter registration system because they connect with Americans, including low-income individuals and persons with disabilities, who are less likely to register through other means,” said Sarah Brannon, director of the Public Agency Registration Program at Project Vote.

Frank Askin of the Rutgers Constitutional Law Clinic says, “We have been trying since 2010 to bring New Jersey into compliance with the law. The Division of Human Services initially acknowledged the problem and announced an Implementation Plan to correct it. But, unfortunately, that plan was never carried out.”

“The NVRA tasks all states, including New Jersey, with promoting and protecting one of the most fundamental freedoms of our democracy,” said Dave Rubino, Counsel at Demos. “Voting is the means by which Americans, regardless of class or race, control their lives and their futures. Right now, New Jersey is falling short on this task.”

“Our work to ensure that states offer voter registration at public assistance agencies as required by the NVRA helps to guarantee that convenient voter registration opportunities are accessible to all eligible citizens,” said Robert Kengle, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee.

“Due to New Jersey’s failure to fulfill its obligations under the NVRA, the indigent are less likely to register to vote,” said James Harris, president of the New Jersey State Conference of NAACP. “True democracy requires the participation of all citizens regardless of race or income. It is unfortunate and unacceptable for elected officials to disregard laws and allow policies that diminish opportunities for minority and poor citizens to exercise the basic right to vote. The State Conference is committed to doing everything possible to educate, organize, and mobilize all citizens who are eligible to vote.”

In the past several years, lawsuits filed by voting rights groups have forced other states neglecting the NVRA into compliance with dramatic results. For example, Missouri public assistance agencies received more than 500,000 applications in the four years following a successful court action to improve compliance in that state. Prior to a 2008 court order, the state had averaged fewer than 8,000 per year. And, after a similar case was settled in Ohio in 2009, voter registration applications from public assistance agencies in the state increased from an average of 25,000 applications per year to more than 200,000 per year.

The voting rights groups urge the state to take immediate action to bring New Jersey into compliance with the NVRA, and offer to work cooperatively with DHS to develop a plan to do so.


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A multi-issue national organization, Demos combines research, policy development, and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change. We publish books, reports, and briefing papers that illuminate critical problems and advance innovative solutions; work at both the national and state level with advocates and policymakers to promote reforms; help to build the capacity and skills of key progressive constituencies; project our values into the media by promoting Demos Fellows and staff in print, broadcast, and Internet venues; and host public events that showcase new ideas and leading progressive voices.

Pallone: We Cannot Allow Children and Families to Go Hungry

Congressman Visits Elijah’s Promise, Calls on GOP to Stop Crippling Critical Food Assistance Program

New Brunswick, NJ – At a visit today to Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) held a press conference with local hunger advocates decrying cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps) on the heels of House Republicans’ latest effort to dismantle the program. Yesterday, House Republicans voted to remove critical SNAP funding from the Farm Bill, effectively killing the program.

“SNAP is our nation’s most important anti-hunger safety net program and is one of the most effective and efficient federal programs, with one of the lowest – if not the lowest – rates of fraud, waste and abuse,” said Congressman Pallone. “The Republicans’ never ending effort to cut and dismantle this program is cruel and does not reflect our values. In the wealthiest country in the world, we can’t allow our children and families to go hungry.”

According to the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, about 897,376 people were living below poverty level in New Jersey in 2011. The food insecurity level in the state was 12.7% overall and 19% for children, meaning 394,240 children were living in food insecure households.

Currently, 873,657 New Jersey residents and nearly one in seven Americans rely on SNAP to help cover the cost of their meals. The program provides basic nutrition assistance to qualifying low-income Americans, including senior citizens and children, and has largely eliminated severe hunger and malnutrition in the United States. SNAP is a powerful anti-poverty program, and lifted about 4.7 million Americans above the poverty line in 2011, including about 2.1 million children. Roughly 91 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with incomes below the poverty line.

The Republican effort to further cut SNAP would mean more Americans, including children, will go hungry and malnourished, and an influx of pressure would be put on community soup kitchens.

Pallone has been outspoken in his support of SNAP and has called on House Republicans to stop holding the critical food assistance program hostage for political purposes. This week, Pallone voted against the FARM Bill that completely omitted the SNAP program from reauthorization, and he is a cosponsor of H. Res. 90, a resolution calling for an end of any further reductions to SNAP, which House Republicans have yet to bring up for a vote.

Pallone was joined today by Adele LaTourette, Director of New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition and Lisanne Finston, Executive Director of Elijah’s Promise. Elijah’s Promise is a community soup kitchen, culinary arts school, catering business, and pay-as-you-can café that connects low-income individuals and families with social and health services. Elijah’s Promise serves 100,000 meals per year and trains previously unskilled workers for careers in the food service industry.

Pallone Statement on Legislation Allowing FAA Flexibility In Staffing Shortages

Washington, DC – Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) released the following statement regarding legislation passed today in the House of Representatives allowing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to prevent furloughs that have caused airport delays around the country as a result of budget sequestration:

“Today’s vote to allow the FAA the flexibility to prevent the furloughs that have slowed flight air travel and caused hours of delays at our nation’s airports, was a glaring example of why the automatic, across the board cuts known as the sequester are such a bad idea. While I voted for this bill to help restore normalcy to air travel, it does nothing to meet the other pressing needs and critical programs that are being slashed by sequestration.

“I have opposed the sequester since it was first conceived. The idea that across the board, blind cuts could be used as a vehicle to reduce spending is foolhardy and dangerous. The sequester cuts seriously hurt our economy, debilitate programs Americans rely on, and put our public safety at risk. Budgets are statements of priorities, and by pursuing a piecemeal approach to fixing the sequester, we are being asked to place a higher value on airline delays in lieu of Head Start, the Supplemental Nutrition Program Assistance Program (SNAP) , funding for science and research, FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, and public safety to name only a few.

“Members of Congress are elected to work together and act in the best interests of our constituents to make tough decision on things like federal spending. Sequestration represents a failure of that charge by House Republicans and sadly, as the effects of this wrongheaded plan become more and more apparent, it is likely that we will see more acts of desperation like today’s vote, rather than a long term fix that truly addresses the needs of Americans.”

House Passes Bombs Not Bread Budget

By Imogen Reed



Paul Ryan

The House of Representatives voted 218-199 to approve Paul Ryan’s ‘bombs not bread’ budget last Thursday. The vote means that America’s military will be exempted from all budget cuts over the next decade. The same cannot be said for the poorest and weakest elements of society who will continue to feel the brunt as the budgets for Medicaid, federal worker benefits and food programs are cut to ribbons.

This new budget will actually allow the defense budget to grow by 20 percent and was designed in order to head off an automatic budget of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, which would have kicked in during the summer. Termed a ‘reconciliation’ budget by the Republicans, the budget has effectively saved the military from a budget cut of about $600 billion.

Instead, the Republicans will force retired federal employees to take a 5 percent pay cut to make an $83 billion saving, cap malpractice lawsuits for Medicaid thus saving around $49 billion and by cutting another $48 billion from Medicaid programs in general. In addition to this, the budget is due to slice $36 billion off the food aid budget. It is the kind of budget to make the blood boil, and it even riled 16 Republicans into rejecting the deal; sadly their votes were not enough.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D. Mass.) exploded during the floor debate and said:

"I am so sick and tired of the demonization of programs that benefit poor people in this country, especially the [food stamp] program. This is not some extravagant, overly generous benefit. Rather than cutting waste in the Pentagon budget, which we all know exists, you protect the Pentagon budget. You know, rather than going after subsidies for oil companies and going after billionaire tax breaks, you protect all that."

Dennis Kucinich asked Republicans how they could “reconcile more money for bombs while cutting money for bread?”

The question is especially pertinent as the Congressional Budget Office reported that the number of people requiring the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has increased by 70 percent in five years from 26 million people in 2007 to 45 million in 2012. As a result of this, the cost excluding administration, has increased over 100 percent from $30 billion to $72 billion. As a result of this budget, less money will have to help more people.

Speaking in a Catholic Church, Paul Ryan defended his budget as a moral budget by saying that he supposed “that there are some Catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly of sorts, not exactly on heaven, but on the social teaching of our Church." Also that the poor should see independence from the state as a preferred option, but Ryan is ignoring or not realizing that many depend on the state not out of choice, but out of necessity.

90 faculty members and priests of the Catholic Church, however, deigned to disagree with the rising star Republican. In their letter, they said: "We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few."

In a final quip and attack on Ryan’s budget, the letter added that his “budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinoy’yevna Rosenbaum was a Russian-American philosopher who died in 1982. She is most famous for her novel Atlas Shrugged and for her philosophy of Objectivism whereby she put cold calculated reason ahead of ideas such as faith and religion. The Church, therefore, was calling Ryan amoral.

While certain Republicans who voted in favor of the bill and those who support it like Mitt Romney have accused the Democrats of playing politics with the budget, it is clearly a case of accusing someone else of doing exactly what you are. The budget helps to draw the battle lines for the forthcoming election by pitting the party of the poor against the party of the rich, with the former ranting from the unemployment lines while the latter prosthelytizing from their expensive chaise sectionals and luxury yachts. Republicans will point to creativity and venture capital, to small government and the rich creating jobs.

The budget, in actual fact, is a godsend to the Democrats. It emphasizes all of the negative perceptions people can have about the Republicans. The party of small government is expanding the Pentagon while cutting back on care to the vulnerable, is penalizing the poor’s pockets while not taking a cent more from the rich, the party of the Church and of religion, is being left behind by those very institutions.