Congress Considers Reauthorization & Funding of Key Anti-Poverty Bills

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Congress Considers Reauthorization & Funding of Key Anti-Poverty Bills
12/13/2011

Western Center has joined national anti-poverty advocates in monitoring several important votes and hearings in the District of Columbia. Below is a list of several important votes that impact the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program or other anti-poverty programs and their outcomes. As we enter the final weeks of the year, there are several pieces of federal legislation we are tracking.

TANF Reauthorization: By December 31, 2011, Congress will need to reauthorize TANF. Two pieces of federal legislation have been introduced concerning this reauthorization.

The Rewriting to Improve and Secure an Exit Out of Poverty Act (RISE), introduced by Congresswoman Gwen Moore, lays out a very clear path to improved family outcomes through TANF reform. Read the Congressional Research Service’s summary of the RISE ACT and see their comparison of RISE and TANF, and their estimates of RISE's impact on states' TANF block grant amounts.

House Resolution 3630, which simply extends TANF for one more year and implements TANF limit of use policies that limit where recipients can access benefits. This large bill was passed on Tuesday, December 12^th. A compromise Senate / House bill is expected to pass before Congress returns home for the holiday break on December 22^nd.

The Senate will now take up language to extend and limit use of EBT Cards (as introduced in S. 943 by Senators Hatch and Baucus). Western Center has proposed changes to that language and, while we wish it were longer, are supporting the one year extension. We hope the extra year will give us an opportunity to advocate for improvements in the program like those proposed in the RISE Act, that help to improve the efficacy of the program in reducing poverty and hardship among our poorest Americans.

SNAP Reauthorization: SNAP Reauthorization, due in 2012. An attempt was made to include Farm Bill reauthorization in the failed Deficit Reduction Committee (Supercommittee) and it is unclear whether there will be another attempt to push these same proposals through Congress. The specifics of this proposal have not been published, but Agriculture Committee Leadership said the proposal would secure $23 Billion in budget savings, with $4 Billion in savings believed to come from cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Western Center and California partners at the California Association of Food Banks and the California Hunger Action Coalition are calling on Members of Congress to sign a letter being circulated by Representatives McGovern and DeLauro asking Congress to support SNAP during Farm Bill Reauthorization. A copy of the letter can be found online here.

Important DC Votes in November to December:

Passage of H.R. 2112: On November 17 the House and Senate both passed a $128.1 billion minibus Appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, that combines funding for FY 2012 for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, HUD and Science programs including NASA. Western Center joined national advocates, Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), and state advocates with the California Association of Food Banks (CAFB) and the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA) to prevent passage of a last minute floor amendment introduced by Senator Sessions which would have cut SNAP eligibility for an estimated 150,000 low-income Californians. This amendment needed 60 votes to pass and failed 41-58 with just one Democrat voting in favor of it (Senator Mckaskill) and 7 Republican votes in opposition (Brown, Coats, Cochran, Collins, Lugar, Rubio, Snowe). The final vote count can be found online here.

Failure of the Joint Select Committee of Deficit Reduction: The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSC), created by the Budget Control Act of 2011, was charged with issuing a formal recommendation on how to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. According to the rules governing the Committee, their recommendation was to be voted on before November 23^rd and receive an up-or-down vote in Congress before December 23, 2011. On November 21, 2011, Co-Chairs of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (Supercommittee) issued a statement that they were unable to reach an agreed upon proposal. According to the terms of the Deficit Control Act, upon failure to put forth an agreement by Nov. 23 and to vote on a bill by Dec. 23, automatic sequestration kicks in by cutting $1.2 trillion over 10 years, beginning in January 2013. These automatic cuts would be shared equally between defense and non-defense programs. Programs like SNAP, TANF, Medicaid and other entitlement programs will be protected from these cuts.

House Rejects Balanced Budget Amendment:On November 18 the House failed to garner the two-thirds majority (290 votes) needed to pass H. J. Res. 2, a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget (BBA). See Western Center’s legislative blog about the defeat of the BBA.

For more information about Western Center's Human Services legislative advocacy, contact Jessica Bartholow (jbartholow@wclp.org) and Mike Herald (mherald@wclp.org).