SNAP Helps 40M from Being Hungry

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Urge Senators to support and strengthen SNAP

(updated June 8, 2018 11pm)

On June 12, the UUSJ Capitol Hill Advocacy Corps will go to the Senate to urge support of SNAP (formerly Food Stamp program). The Senate Agriculture Committee released its version of the 2018 Farm Bill – the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 – on June 8, 2018. Committee mark-up is expected June 13 and a full Senate floor vote by July 4. UU values underline the same principles the UUSJ Advocacy Corps took to House offices in April. (Click here to see the Action Page for the House and for more background information.)

If you’re from Kansas, Michigan or North Dakota, click here to see the specific things you can do locally, before June 12 and on June 14. Join interfaith advocacy and witness activities in your communities to urge your Senators to use their leadership positions to pass a bi-partisan Farm Bill that will keep hunger at bay for 40 million children, and elderly and disabled adults. Urge your Senators to support and improve SNAP, and reject proposals that would leave millions hungry.

Contact Your U.S. Senators

Call your Senators by using the U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

Ask them to support SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), our nation’s most effective anti-hunger program. See sample message below under Action Needed NOW.

Page Contents (click on a title to go to that section):

Action Needed NOW: What You Can Do

1 – Contact your U.S. Senators

Suggested message by phone or email – adapt for your personal message:

Hi, my name is [your name]. I’m a constituent from [city, state]. I am a Unitarian Universalist from [name of congregation and location].

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) keeps members of my community [or state] from going hungry. Nationwide, it ensures 40 million children, and elderly and disabled adults are able to buy groceries and have food on their tables and enjoy a decent standard of living.

I urge you to support a bipartisan bill that is fair-minded, that strengthens SNAP, and create jobs and boost wages, rather than punish people already dealing with economic hardship. Don’t support any bill that requires additional work requirements that could cause SNAP recipients to lose benefits. Farmers need the certainty that the Farm Bill provides, and hungry Americans need to know they can feed their families. It’s wrong to put people already facing economic hardship at further risk. Please speak out and provide moral leadership on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Your FULL NAME AND ADDRESS

U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

To find e-mail addresses and other contact information for your members of Congress, visit these Congressional websites:

2 – Ask your friends and family members to contact their Senators, too.

Send them the link to this page – https://bit.ly/2Iu8H0l We especial need to reach out to the following Agriculture Committee Senators:

John Boozman (Arkansas)

David Perdue (Georgia)

Joni Ernst (Iowa)

John Roberts (Kansas) – thank for bipartisan leadership; send this link too with special in district event information https://uusj.net/wp1/local-uu-action-to-support-snap/

Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) – thank for bipartisan leadership; ; send this link too with special in district event information https://uusj.net/wp1/local-uu-action-to-support-snap/

Deb Fischer (Nebraska)

Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) send this link too with special in district event information https://uusj.net/wp1/local-uu-action-to-support-snap/

John Hoeven (North Dakota) send this link too with special in district event information https://uusj.net/wp1/local-uu-action-to-support-snap/

Bob Casey (Pennsylvania)

3 – Spread the word – Post messages to social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Post links to this page – https://bit.ly/2Iu8H0l

Tweet your Senators  (click here to find Twitter handles). Here’s a sample Tweet:

.@(Senator’s Twitter Handle)  Protect and strengthen #SNAP — no cuts or structural changes. #SNAPtoEndHunger #SNAPMatters #foodstamps #foodsecurity #farmbill https://bit.ly/2Iu8H0l

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What You Should Know

For more information, see the UUSJ sample message to members of Congress and talking points.

Click HERE to see SNAP participation by Congressional district.

SNAP, part of the Farm Bill, accounts for 80 percent of farm bill spending. The Farm Bill is renewed every five years and is up for reauthorization by Sept. 30. It includes food and agriculture programs such as crop insurance, subsidies and rural development. This year the Farm Bill is seen by fiscal conservatives as a way to impose their welfare reform agenda and cut spending on this popular program by adding stricter work requirements, time limits, and administrative burdens.

Historically, Farm Bills have been reauthorized with bipartisan support, thanks to the urban-rural coalition of lawmakers and advocates who support both SNAP and agriculture programs. However, the House Agriculture Committee Chairman has decided to pursue a partisan Farm Bill (Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2)) by proposing new limits and requirements, threatening the likelihood of passage. The Senate has signaled that it would not consider major changes to SNAP. The House bill erodes the effectiveness of SNAP and would lead to greater hunger and poverty among all types of beneficiary families, including the working poor, as well as reduced economic growth and productivity in communities across the country.

  • Under this bill, large numbers of working families with children would no longer receive SNAP, there would be a much harsher “cliff effect” in the program, and, in turn, children would be denied access to other essential anti-hunger programs, such as school breakfast and lunch, putting their health and learning at risk.
  • Many low-income households, including those that receive SNAP, are often forced to choose between paying heating bills or buying food. The bill slashes the amount of benefits for SNAP households struggling to pay for both utilities and food — to “heat and eat.”
  • The bill also seeks to expand dramatically the number of people subject to harsh SNAP eligibility cutoffs by adding unemployed and underemployed parents with older children and adults up to age 60. Currently, time limits apply to able-bodied adults age 18–50 without dependents, many of whom are between jobs or do not have steady enough work to meet the 20-hour per week minimum, often for reasons outside of their control. Others face significant barriers to work, such as lack of job opportunities and lack of transportation to get to the few available jobs.
source: Food Research Action Council

The House and Senate will work on their own versions (which are written by the respective Agriculture Committees), should reconcile their differences and pass one identical version. If that fails, they will be pressed to agree on an extension of the bill that was passed in 2014.

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Our UU Spiritual Grounding

UUs have passed two Statements of Conscience, Ethical Eating: Food & Environmental Justice (2011) and Escalating Economic Inequity (2017) that are directly relevant to this issue with calls to support the reduction of hunger.

In a February 4, 2018 sermon, “All Are Invited to the Table,” Rev. Preston Mears, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, spoke to the seventh Unitarian Universalist principle and our role in the interdependent web of life. “We all have the need to come together, to eat and be nourished: It is a moral imperative that each and every person has a place at the table—no one is too high or too low, too young or too old, too rich or too poor or too different.”

Rev. Mears, who worked on the federal Food Stamp Program (now called SNAP) from 1974 to 1984 as a welfare office supervisor with the New Hampshire Department of Welfare, spoke from personal and professional experience, about the importance of the food stamp program, now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in supporting people in need. He speaks to UUs, saying,

We are not defined by how much materially we have or don’t have but we sometimes hesitate to use words that might be interpreted as narrow or religiously bigoted. Find your words and give voice with them. Listen carefully to the words that are used that seemingly justify treating the DACA young people as “other” or people who are hungry as other. And, listen to your own voice and share it. Our society, “we the people,” need your voice.

Additional UU resources –

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Resources and Relevant News Media Coverage Links

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