Support the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (House)

Recipient: U.S. House of Representatives

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse coalition of civil and human rights organizations with nearly 200 member organizations, we are writing to urge your support for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1). This bill is a balanced package that will alleviate mounting economic hardships and also provide the most effective economic stimuli to our faltering economy.

Economists across the political spectrum agree that the most effective approach to economic recovery is the one taken by H.R. 1: an approach that targets assistance to low and moderate-income people, and provides aid to states and localities to prevent service and job cuts that will deepen the recession.

LCCR believes the remedies in the House legislation are urgently needed. Among the most important components of the bill are the following:

• A Child Tax Credit with eligibility beginning at the first dollar of earnings, which will provide very important assistance to more than 13 million children in low income families. Other tax cuts with refundable features included in the House bill, such as the new Make Work Pay credit and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, also speed income to the low- and moderate-income people whose spending will create and save jobs.
  
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP; formerly food stamps), which will allow many millions of distressed families to purchase more of the food they need.
  
• A one-time increase in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) that will help poor people with disabilities and poor elderly to afford to meet more of their basic needs. The legislation restores federal matching funds for state child support enforcement, thereby protecting children and families from losing $1 billion a year in child support collections.
  
• Increased aid to states to prevent cuts in Medicaid, education, and many other programs, thereby forestalling loss of medical and many other services, layoffs, and shrinking income to service providers.
  
• Expansion and extension of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and an increase in the current average UI benefit by $25 per week.
  
• An increase in home energy assistance, as well as in funds for child care and Head Start.
  
• Investments in communities through repair and maintenance of public housing stock, weatherization of public buildings and low-income residences, and rebuilding schools.
  
• Investments in people, through increases in job training for adults (including seniors), youth, and dislocated workers. The bill recognizes that jobless people are swelling the rolls of the uninsured, and provides a 65 percent subsidy for one year of COBRA health insurance benefits, as well as financial incentives for states to insure low-income unemployed through Medicaid.

These provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will help to alleviate hardship for those most vulnerable, and in so doing, foster economic growth. We urge you to provide the help to Americans that is most needed, and look forward to working with you to ensure the economic recovery package’s speedy enactment. Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions, please contact Nancy Zirkin at 202-263-2880 or Corrine Yu, LCCR Senior Counsel, at 202-466-5670.

Sincerely,
Wade Henderson, President & CEO
Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President