Calls Needed to Protect Safety Net Programs -- Including SNAP/Food Stamps and Child Nutrition

From the Food Research and Action Center:

New York Advocates Must Weigh-in with Senator Charles Schumer AND the White House to Protect Safety Net Programs -- Including SNAP/Food Stamps and Child Nutrition –as Discussions Heat Up on Raising the Debt Ceiling/Reducing the Deficit

Background:
As a key player in the ongoing budget negotiations, anti-hunger advocates must contact Senator Schumer to urge him to protect SNAP/Food Stamps, Child Nutrition and other safety net programs during the debt ceiling negotiations. Decisions are happening now!

As you know, President Obama, Vice President Biden and a bi-partisan group of Congressional leaders, including Senator Schumer, are negotiating a debt-ceiling/deficit reduction plan and hope to reach an agreement in the coming weeks. At the top of the agenda is securing $4 trillion in savings from program cuts over the next 10 or 12 years. Whether or not revenues will be part of the final plan is also in play. Anti-hunger advocates are demanding that negotiations follow a key principle included in the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform’s plan (Bowles-Simpson): protect programs for low-income families and individuals, like SNAP/Food Stamps and Child Nutrition, and make sure that the deficit reduction is achieved in a way that does not increase poverty.

Actions Needed:
1. Call Senator Schumer at (202) 224-6542 or call toll-free: 1-888-907-1485 which will connect you to the Capitol Switchboard.

2. Contact the White House (President Obama and Vice President Biden). E-mail or call toll-free: 1-888-245-0215.

Message: Any deficit reduction plan must protect programs for low-income families and individuals -- such as the nutrition programs like SNAP/Food Stamps and Child Nutrition -- and must also include new revenues. The plan should reduce poverty and help the disadvantaged, even as it attempts to shrink the deficit. Low-income assistance programs, like SNAP/Food Stamps and Child Nutrition, must be exempt from any caps and automatic across-the-board cuts which could be triggered when budget targets or fiscal restraint rules are missed or violated.

Please take these actions immediately and to share this alert widely among your network and contacts in order to demonstrate support for responsible long-term deficit reduction through a combination of revenue increases and spending cuts that do not harm the poor and vulnerable.