Pivotal Week to Act Against Hunger

It’s Budget Week in Olympia! On Monday, the House released its operating budget proposal. Every one of you who has contacted your representatives this session about our priorities should take a moment to be proud of your contributions because this budget makes strong and much-needed investments to increase access to nutritious food for all Washingtonians, including:

• $2.5 million to create a state fruit and vegetable incentives program that boosts the purchasing power of SNAP when buying fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and grocery stores
• $630,000 for the Washington Department of Agriculture, supporting staff that work with our growers, helping them build sustainable businesses by selling directly to schools, hospitals, restaurants, and other institutions
• $1.5 million for emergency basic needs grants that will help low-income community and technical college students pay housing, child care, or other basic needs so they can focus on their studies. If this is included in our final operating budget, it will draw down matching federal funds for our state’s employment and training program for people on SNAP
• $150,000 for a study to help schools plan and implement model policies to increase seated lunch time so that our kids have enough time to eat a nutritious lunch to fuel them for the rest of their school day

When it comes to issues on our support agenda, the House budget makes a good start, but investments could be stronger to make important policy changes to TANF, a cash assistance and workforce development program for families with children so that more families living in deep poverty access this program. We would also like to see a stronger investment in the Housing and Essential Needs program which provides rental assistance for people with disabilities who are unable to work so that we can ensure that all who are eligible for this program receive assistance. We will keep fighting for a final budget that finally funds the Working Families Tax Credit which provides a cash rebate of a portion of sales taxes to working poor households. Earned income tax credits like this are highly effective anti-poverty programs, providing cash resources needed to buy food and pay the bills.

We applaud the House budget for including a revenue package that finds the resources needed to pay for these investments and others in basic education, housing, and mental health, by closing outdated tax loopholes, including one that will collect taxes on capital gains from the sale of expensive properties or stocks. If we want to see this strong investment in healthy food access, we need to support efforts like this to clean up our tax code.

The Senate will respond with their budget at the end of this week, and we expect a budget hearing early next week. That means this is an important week to continue to contact your state lawmakers, encouraging them to prioritize healthy food access and poverty reduction strategies in our final budget.

Time is nearly up! Submit your public comment TODAY

This is also a pivotal week to take action to protect SNAP: we have one week left, or until April 2^nd to submit public comments, opposing USDA’s proposal that will take food off the tables of 755,000 Americans. So, what are you waiting for? Submit your comment today and help spread the word, encouraging others to join you in protecting SNAP!

WHAT YOU CAN DO