Anti-poverty groups want congressional Democrats to boost government health insurance, food stamps, and low-income housing, despite budget constraints.

SPECIAL REPORT: The New Congress National Journal looks at demands by traditional liberal interest groups as Democrats begin to map their long-term agenda for the 110th Congress. Environment · Labor · Education · Gun Control · Abortion · Minorities · Gay Rights · Trial Lawyers

By Marilyn Werber Serafini, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007

When Democrats won control of Congress in November, there were "a lot of high fives in the housing community," said Linda Couch, deputy director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group. "I think this Congress will be a lot more open to hearing our proposals," she said. "And we even hope that more [Republican] members now in the minority will be able to show their true colors and support us."

To be sure, Couch and her low-income housing allies aren't the only ones high-fiving. A variety of anti-poverty groups are appealing to the new Democratic-controlled Congress. They want lawmakers to expand government health insurance and access to food stamps during debate this year on several federal program reauthorizations. They also want Congress, through the budget and appropriations process, to increase funding for housing, child care, child-support enforcement, and other federal "safety-net" programs for the poor. Already, these groups are heartened by the House's early passage of legislation to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25.

"I hope we can begin to come to our senses," Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, said in an interview. "I hope the new leadership will be much more thoughtful."

In recent years, with Republicans controlling Congress and President Bush in the White House, anti-poverty groups have been unable to win even inflationary increases in some safety-net programs. At the same time, more Americans have sunk into poverty. Between 2000 and 2004, their numbers increased by 5.3 million, even though the economy was recovering, according to Catholic Charities USA. Today, 37 million people -- one in eight Americans -- live below the federal poverty line (about $20,000 for a family of four), the group said. Last year, 25 million people sought help from food banks, marking an 18 percent increase from 1997.

Anti-poverty advocates say they're optimistic about improving the situation, not only because Democrats have traditionally been more sympathetic to their cause but also because members of both parties seem worried about the spike in poverty and its negative impact on the economy. David Cicilline, the mayor of Providence, R.I., boasts that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., chose the U.S. Conference of Mayors for her first interest-group meeting since becoming House speaker, and that she seemed receptive to the mayors' wish list.

Still, anti-poverty advocates recognize the limitations. Their relatively tiny lobbying force must compete with deep-pocketed interests for federal dollars. And Congress recently adopted "pay-as-you-go" rules requiring budgetary offsets for any new increased spending on entitlement programs. "We know it's not going to be easy, but we have to make the case for these urgent needs, and we're prepared to do that," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of more than 100 anti-poverty groups.

The Children's Defense Fund is focusing primarily on legislation due up for debate this year to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Congress created the federal-state partnership in 1997 to provide health care coverage to lower-income children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid; it covered 6 million youngsters in 2005. "It's morally intolerable to have 9 million uninsured kids in this country, and 90 percent in working households," Edelman said. "As the SCHIP bill comes up, it would be a tragically missed opportunity to not cover all children."

In his fiscal 2007 budget request to Congress last February, Bush proposed freezing federal SCHIP allotments at 2007 levels of about $5 billion for each of the next 10 years, and, unless Congress changes the budget rules for SCHIP, the president will have his way. The Congressional Budget Office assumes that SCHIP funding will remain frozen at 2007 levels for the long term because of existing budget baseline rules. By 2012, 36 states would face a combined shortfall of as much as $4.3 billion, equivalent to the cost of insuring as many as 2.1 million of SCHIP's kids, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The food stamp program also faces reauthorization this year, as part of the farm bill, and anti-poverty groups want to raise benefits and simplify the application process. The average food stamp benefit translates into about $1 per meal per person, and "most people can't sustain a nutritious diet" on that amount, Weinstein said. Many working families, she added, don't get food stamps because it's "hard to apply."

Anti-poverty groups will target the annual budget and appropriations process to increase funding for programs that enforce the payment of child support. Last year's budget reconciliation bill cut child-support collection by $8.4 billion over 10 years, Weinstein complained. "Many Democrats didn't want to see that kind of a cut. Some Republicans also," she said. "We need to leave room for that in the budget resolution, and it will have to be paid for [under paygo rules], or it will take 60 votes in the Senate to waive that requirement." Child support, she said, "gets more money to low-income families than just about anything else."

Weinstein said that her group's members will also seek more money for child care subsidies that make work possible for welfare families. The idea behind the 1996 welfare reform act was to move people from welfare to work, partly by helping them to afford child care. "What's happened between 2000 and now is that a lot of ground has been lost, because funding has been flat for so many years," Weinstein said. When Congress reauthorized the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families law as part of last year's reconciliation bill, it provided a small increase for child care. But Democrats have long pushed for a much larger increase -- about $6 billion over five years.

In addition, anti-poverty groups are hoping to do some damage control from last year's reauthorization of TANF. Congress increased the number of hours that welfare recipients must work to receive cash assistance, and the Health and Human Services Department subsequently issued regulations that advocates say make it harder for people to get education and training and still qualify for cash assistance. It might take legislation to force HHS to change the regulations, the groups say.

Couch and other low-income housing advocates, meanwhile, are counting on new House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., to improve what they see as a dire situation in public and low-income housing. Already, Frank has pushed for a national housing trust fund to pay for new homes for extremely low-income people, at a total cost of about $5 billion a year.

Currently, 1.8 million people get help under the Section 8 low-income housing voucher program, although the government has not added new recipients since 2002, Couch said. In 2004, the Housing and Urban Development Department changed the way the voucher program is funded. Because it did, local housing authorities have been unable to cover 130,000 existing vouchers, marking an actual cut since 2004, according to Couch. Through the congressional appropriations process, advocates are hoping to redistribute funds for Section 8 vouchers from housing authorities that have excess money to those coming up short.

Funding for public housing, which serves as many as 1.2 million extremely low-income families a year, is at 76.4 percent of what is needed, according to Couch's group. "Public housing is at a historic low," she said. "In past Congresses, it was huge news if we were at 97 percent. Housing authorities are laying off staff." In Washington, D.C., for example, 40,000 families are on the waiting list for help with housing. In New York City, 125,000 families were on the list as of 2004. Some municipalities have even closed their lists, said Couch, who noted that the wait in some big cities is as long as 10 years.

All in all, anti-poverty advocates see the minimum-wage bill as just a down payment on their agenda. "After we get past these 100 hours, there are a lot more hours left, and we hope we can devote time to the needs of low-income people," Couch said.

Anti-Poverty Groups Key Players: Catholic Charities USA; Children's Defense Fund; Coalition on Human Needs; U.S. Conference of Mayors; National Low Income Housing Coalition On the Front Burner: Raise the minimum wage; relax welfare work requirements; ease food stamp enrollment; increase child care subsidies and child-support enforcement; expand government health insurance for children Sleeper Issue: Encourage children to save money for college or other adulthood expenses in special bank accounts with the federal government matching deposits -- Marilyn Werber Serafini

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