Celebrating Bread's 2017 Legislative Victories

Bread for the World's newsletter for January 2018 reflects on legislative accomplishments in 2017.

This summary was put together by Chris Ford, senior manager of media relations

Despite the challenges of a new administration and new Congress, with your help Bread was able to achieve several significant legislative victories in 2017.

Offering of Letters: Doing Our Part to End Hunger

Our 2017 Offering of Letters: Doing Our Part to End Hunger was successful in securing a short-term budget through early 2018.

As Congress continues to negotiate a budget deal “for the remainder of the fiscal year,” Bread for the World is urging congressional members to include funding for programs and priorities that will end hunger That put the total funding for famine relief in 2017 at approximately $5.4 billion, which is a 20 percent increase over what Congress passed in its December 2016 continuing resolution.

Although the situation in all four countries remains dire, the additional funds have provided much-needed relief to those in need during a time of extreme crises.

 “Vital to our success were Bread's grassroots and online activists visiting, calling, and emailing their members of Congress to create a groundswell of support as Bread staff and others lobbied on the Hill,” said Ryan Quinn, a senior international policy analyst at Bread for the World. “Without their hard work, we would not have gotten the additional funds for famine relief.”

Foreign Aid: Support for Maternal & Child Nutrition Programs

Photo: USDA

The 2017 budget also kept funding levels the same as the previous year for international maternal and child nutrition programs, including the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. The budget also increased funding for global health programs and development assistance. U.S. foreign assistance comprises less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget, yet it has saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world and enabled countries to become more stable and self-sufficient.

Funding for WIC, Head Start, Child Care

Domestically, the 2017 budget funded anti-hunger programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and increased funding for Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and nutrition programs for senior citizens. Programs like these are vital to low-income families and have helped keep millions of Americans out of hunger and poverty. 

The Trump administration had proposed drastic cuts to both international and domestic anti-hunger and poverty programs in the 2017 budget. Fortunately, Congress rejected these cuts. We are grateful for our congressional champions and advocates who made ending hunger a priority. 

Saving the Affordable Care Act

Finally, because of your faithful advocacy, we were victorious in our efforts to save the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Legislation proposed by both the House and the Senate would have repealed the ACA, taking away health care coverage from as many as 15 million Americans through drastic cuts to Medicaid. The bill would have also ended the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and enacted significant structural changes to the program that could have resulted in millions more Americans losing coverage. 

While the House passed its health care bill, senators rejected efforts to repeal the law, citing the proposed cuts to Medicaid. Currently, about 74 million of the most vulnerable Americans, including older Americans, the disabled, and children, receive health care coverage through Medicaid. In fact, more than one-third of all children in the U.S. rely on Medicaid for their health care, and almost half of Medicaid recipients are children.Bread entered the debate because people without affordable health coverage must often choose between putting food on the table for their families, and paying for medicine and the health care they need. If the cuts to Medicaid had passed, millions of Americans could have fallen into hunger and poverty.

Bread members and supporters made thousands of phone calls and sent thousands of emails, shared stories at town halls, and visited dozens of congressional offices urging members of Congress to protect Medicaid from these drastic cuts. Clearly, your outreach had an impact.  

Now, for the bad news: the tax bill

While we were able to achieve significant victories this year, we did suffer a set back with the tax bill. The tax cuts passed by both chambers, which largely benefit high-income individuals and large corporations, will almost certainly lead to deep cuts in Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs that help people experiencing hunger and living in poverty.

“This tax bill is part of a one-two punch,” said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. “President Trump and congressional leaders have already announced plans to follow this tax cut, mainly for high-income people, with a big push to cut more than $2 trillion from social programs for low-and middle-income people."

The bill raises taxes on the lowest earners starting in 2021. Tax cuts for all individuals and families expire at the end of 2027, and millions earning less than $75,000 would then see a significant net increase in their taxes. The corporate tax cuts in the bill are permanent.

The tax bill also repeals the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Without the mandate, 5 million of the most vulnerable Americans could lose their Medicaid coverage.

The important victories we were able to achieve would not have been possible without your help. We expect many more challenges in the coming year, as Congress and the Trump administration look to make cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and other programs that help people living in hunger and poverty. Your faithful advocacy will be needed more than ever.

Together, our collective Christian voice can move mountains. Thanks be to God who guided us, and will continue to guide us, in these efforts.