No Cuts to Snap: Food Stamp Program Restored

Thank you for sharing your concerns about provisions affecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) in the 2014 Farm Bill. I hope this letter will clear up any questions you might have.

I care deeply about protecting nutrition assistance programs, and I am very proud that the final version of the Farm Bill ensures that  no one  will be removed from SNAP and that all families will get 100 percent of the assistance they are intended to receive under the current program. In fact, the 2014 Farm Bill saves the program from the devastating $133 billion in cuts in the budget passed by the House of Representatives and the $40 billion in cuts passed in the House Farm Bill.

During our negotiations on a final bill, every time House members offered amendments to gut food assistance or kick families off of SNAP, I led the charge and beat them back. I know that for struggling families, food assistance is a lifeline. Nearly half of those who receive these benefits are children!

And that ' s why it ' s so important to me that we defend the integrity of the system. In order to protect benefits for 46 million families, our Farm Bill tackles fraud and misuse to make sure every dollar goes to families who truly need it.

For example, you may have heard about lottery winners in Michigan who stayed on food assistance after collecting substantial cash prizes. Obviously the program was not intended to provide benefits to someone with a million dollars in the bank.

Sometimes states also misuse the program. SNAP benefits are based on a family ' s income and expenses. A handful of states have been providing $1 or less per year in home heating assistance to people who may not even have a heating bill, so that they can qualify for a standard utility deduction and additional food assistance above and beyond the benefits they are intended to receive.

While I understand the desire to provide additional food help, by misusing the SNAP connection to the heating assistance program these states are undermining the SNAP benefits as a whole and jeopardizing heating assistance for people who have the greatest need. This only gives ammunition to those who oppose the food assistance program entirely. In fact,  The Washington Post  wrote that this loophole "... looks like a political gift to SNAP's perennial opponents. "

The reality is we stopped tens of   billions in cuts and, instead, achieved $8 billion in savings by eliminating fraud and misuse without changing any standard benefits or eligibility for anyone on food assistance.   In this challenging economy, we should be increasing food help not cutting it!

I'm proud we were able to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill that substantially cuts big farm subsidies for the first time in decades, makes conservation programs more effective, strengthens access to healthy local foods, and confronts misuse in food assistance programs while protecting critical food assistance for families in need.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please don't hesitate to do so again if my office can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Debbie Stabenow
United States Senator 

Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

This post was written by AG for US

Who is Bill Schuette?

He’s the 53^rd attorney general of Michigan, elected during the Republican wave of 2010. With a warm smile and looks that would make him a natural for the role of “Politician #1” in any movie, Bill Schuette might be mistaken for being a harmless, mild-mannered bureaucrat.

Don’t be fooled.

The attorney general is supposed to be the lawyer for all 10 million citizens of Michigan. But Bill Schuette doesn’t see things that way. He’s a lifelong Republican born into the Dow Chemical fortune.

The AG makes $112,000 a year, but his 2012 income was padded by $518,000 from investments. And Schuette, who’s only 59, has $38,000 in pension income. Being a career politician pays off. The average Detroit city retiree has a $20,000 annual pension, and probably will lose it with Detroit’s bankruptcy.

Schuette was elected by cozying up to the far-right Tea Party, which has just shut down the federal government and delayed the Medicaid expansion in Michigan so 470,000 people can get health care coverage. Gov. Rick Snyder is a Republican, but his administration admits the delay is costing the state $630 million. But Schuette still opposes the Medicaid expansion, even though Michigan taxpayers are losing more than a half-billion dollars.

Bill Schuette has been the most partisan attorney general in the history of Michigan. Here’s how:

• Schuette wants to know what you’re doing in the bedroom. The AG has decided that the state has an interest in “regulating sexual relationships,” which sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi show. Schuette made that intrusive argument in a brief he filed in September defending Michigan’s ban on gay marriage.
• Schuette continued futile lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars. In June 2012, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law.
• Schuette has joined the War on Women. Even after Obamacare was upheld, he signed on to another lawsuit to fight part of the law that requires employers to cover certain preventative health care services for women. Even though 90% of Americans support contraception, Schuette wants to block women’s choices.
• Schuette has been a one-man wrecking crew against Michigan’s medical marijuana act, which passed in 2008 with the support of 63% of voters. Schuette led the campaign against the MMA to jump start his AG bid, even though he admitted to using marijuana himself. He’s since used the power of his office once to shut down dispensaries and go after patients and caregivers.
• Schuette has used taxpayer dollars to stop workers from organizing at the University of Michigan. Even though only 300 of 2,000 graduate research assistants didn’t want to be in a union, Schuette didn’t believe in majority rule – the basic principle of democracy. As AG, he successfully fought to keep the grad assistants from forming a union.

And that’s just for starters.
Bill Schuette is running for re-election next year, even though he doesn’t do his job very well. But don’t expect him to stop there. It’s no secret that he wants to be governor. Many Republicans expect him to run for president.
Those of us in Michigan know who Bill Schuette really is. It’s up to us to spread the word.

Beware of false prophets

Beware of false prophets

 

No corporate money. Defend working families and power progress in Michigan

 

 

After getting trounced at the polls in 2013, Republicans commissioned an autopsy report to figure out why and recommend strategies that could help lead them out of the political wilderness. As you’d expect, the report recommended expanding the Republican Party’s tent by “softening” their stance on immigration reform and supporting LGBT rights.

Almost a year later and the Republican Party’s tent isn’t any bigger – and it’s not for lack of opportunities. Last year, Dave Agema – one of Michigan’s two Republican National Committeemen – made headlines when he claimed LGBT individuals lead a “filthy” lifestyle and account for more than half the murders in large cities.

While the public outcry was swift, Gov. Snyder and Michigan Republicans refused to call for Dave Agema’s resignation, insisting his views didn’t represent the Republican Party. A few weeks later, Dave Agema’s amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman was overwhelmingly approved by the Republican National Committee, thereby making it party policy. Just this week, Dave Agema praised Russia’s anti-LGBT propaganda law, calling it “common sense.”

And if defining marriage as between one man and one woman isn’t clear enough, former State Rep. Jack Hoogendyk lambasted the unfair persecution of Dave Agema, calling him “a prophet.”

A prophet? You’d think conservatives who justify their bigoted opposition to marriage equality by citing the Bible would be more well versed in the Good Book, but these are the same folks who think Jesus would support cutting food-stamps.

If Republicans want to emerge from the political wilderness anytime soon, then they’d better remove folks like Dave Agema from leadership positions. But don’t take our word for it, the Book of Matthew (King James Version) verse 7:15-20 says it best:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Dave Camp's (R-Mich.) Rise to Power

Washington Post

Politics

Dave Camp (R-Mich.)

U.S. Representative (since January 1991)

Why He Matters

In nearly two decades in the House, Camp has quietly but steadily risen in the GOP ranks. In December 2008, he beat back a spirited campaign by Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) to become the ranking Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. In the GOP-led 112th Congress, Camp was appointed as chairman.

As the panel's senior GOP lawmaker, Camp played a prominent role in the 2010 health-care debate, sponsoring the lead Republican alternative. Though he built a conservative record in Congress, he occupied what Congressional Quarterly termed a "one-man Republican faction" as the only member of both the conservative Republican Steering Committee and the moderate Main Street Partnership.

Camp was first elected to his seat in central Michigan in 1990. He is known for keeping a close connection to his constituents and boasts of personally signing more than 30,000 pieces of constituent mail each year.

Camp ranked as a rising star in the Republican Party early in his tenure and was influential in drafting the welfare reform bill that President Bill Clinton eventually signed in 1996.

In Their Own Words

"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers,” Camp said of a potential government-provided health-care plan. “I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."



 

• Career History: Michigan representative(1988-1990); Aide to Rep. Bill Schuette (R-Mich.) (1984-1987); Michigan Assistant state attorney general (1980-1984)
• Birthday: July 9, 1953
• Hometown: Midland, Mich.
• Alma Mater: Albion College, B.A. 1975; University of San Diego, J.D. 1978
• Spouse: Nancy Camp
• Religion: Catholic

• Committees: Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee (since January 2011)
• DC Office: 137 Cannon House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515(202) 225-3561
• District Office: Midland, 989-631-2552; Traverse City, 231-929-4711
• Email
• Website

 

Born in 1953, Camp grew up in Midland, a central Michigan industrial town where he and his wife and three children still reside. He attended local schools before graduating from Michigan's Albion College in 1975.

After earning his law degree from the University of San Diego in 1978, Camp returned to Michigan to practice law and later served as a special assistant to the Michigan attorney general during the early 1980s. He became active in local Republican politics and managed the winning congressional campaign of his boyhood friend Bill Schuette in 1984. Camp then worked as an aide to Schuette for four years before beginning his own electoral career with a successful run for a seat in the Michigan House in 1988.

 

Though he has kept one foot in the moderate bloc through his participation in the Main Street Partnership, Camp has generally voted as a conservative and along party lines in the House. He sided with Republicans 93.7 percent of the time during the 111th Congress.

The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 89 percent,though his score with the Club for Growth is considerably lower.

"I'm a conservative on fiscal policy, but I'm a moderate on some other issues," he told Congressional Quarterly in 2006, though he told National Review the following year that he feels "more at home" with the conservative Republican Steering Committee.

Camp opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He voted twice for President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and he supports their full extension. He has pushed for private accounts for Social Security and supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On foreign policy, Camp supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he backed - with some reservations - President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in earlier 2007.

The Economy

Camp supported the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in the fall of 2008, a position that drew criticism from Andy Concannon, his Democratic opponent for reelection. "This is not something that anyone really wanted to do, but it was something that had to be done because the risk of (doing) nothing was far too great," Camp said in defending his vote. "This is a stop-gap measure. It is not going to fix all our economic problems."

Camp's post as ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee earned him a spot on the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February 2009. But the invitation to the negotiating table didn't change his opposition to the package. Camp said the legislation contained "far too much spending, and the tax relief is the not right kind of tax relief to create jobs."

He also complained that Republicans were "frozen out" of the process by the Congressional Democratic leadership. He helped draft a GOP alternative stimulus package that focused heavily on tax cuts and aid to small businesses, homeowners, and the unemployed.

While Camp has praised President Obama for reaching out to Republicans, he broadly criticized his 2010 budget for excessive spending and taxation. Its spending and borrowing, he said, would make the current generation of Americans the first to fail to improve the nation's prosperity.

Health Care

Camp played a leading Republican role in the debate over a health-care overhaul at the center of President Obama's domestic agenda.

In November 2009, Camp introduced the chief Republican alternative to the Democrats' bill called the "Common Sense Health Care Reform and Accountability Act," which Republicans said would lower costs by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, permit small businesses access to combine and form pools; and prevent insurance companies from denying insurance to those with preexisting conditions.

The chief obstacle to a consensus, Camp suggested, was the push by many Democrats for the creation of a public-health plan to compete with private insurers.

"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers," the congressman said in a statement prior to a Ways and Means Committee hearing on health care in April. "I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."

The public plan option, he has said, is a "bright line" dividing Democrats and Republicans who are open to reform.

Camp strongly opposed the ultimate legislation, enacted in March 2010, arguing that it implemented a variety of new tax increases and didn't comply with "pay-as-you-go" budget rules.

Over the years Camp has spoken out on other areas of the health-care debate. In 2003, he championed a provision in the Medicare prescription-drug bill that would protect nurse training programs, warning that to scrap the initiative would exacerbate a nationwide nursing shortage. He also pushed legislation expanding coverage of cholesterol screenings and aid for patients with kidney disease.

At the same time, Camp steadfastly opposed legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. He called the bill, which was enacted under President Obama after vetoes by President Bush, "woefully flawed" and said it inappropriately covers children of families with high incomes.

Trade

A longtime supporter of free trade, Camp voted for both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
In February 2009, he hailed a bipartisan agreement to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, praising the new inclusion of service workers in the initiative and calling it "a coherent, rational, accountable, and cost-effective system for training trade-affected workers and putting them back to work quickly and at better jobs."

Welfare Reform

Camp's first real brush with the Washington spotlight came in 1996 during the intense negotiations on a bill to overhaul the nation's welfare system. Camp partnered with then-Rep. John Ensign (R-Nev.) to lobby a reluctant GOP leadership to strip out provisions making significant changes to Medicaid, the inclusion of which was sure to draw a veto from President Clinton.

The move quickly garnered support from the Republican rank-and-file in the House, and it was later cited as the "decisive breakthrough" in the bill that Clinton eventually signed.

 

Camp was an early supporter of Mitt Romney 's campaign for president in 2008, serving as a congressional liaison for the former Massachusetts governor. He would be a natural ally for Romney as he stays in the national limelight in advance of a potential second run for the White House in 2012.

Camp was also a top supporter of former House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), managing the Republican's campaign for that post in 1998.

Read more

 

1. Camp House web site
2. Wayne, Alex, "Health Care Factions Loom on Hill," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 13, 2009.
3. American Conservative Union
4. Barber, Barrie, "Camp: No to Stimulus Push," The Saginaw News, Jan. 28, 2009.
5. Camp House web site
6. Camp House web site
7. Church, George J., "Ripping Up Welfare," Time Magazine, Aug. 12, 1996.
8. Miller, John J., "Republican from Michigan - Dave Camp is a Quiet But Effective Congressman," National Review, Dec. 3, 2007.
9. Camp House web site
10. Barber, Barrie, "Candidates: Economy No. 1," The Saginaw News, Oct. 12, 2008.
11. Eversley, Melanie, "Camp Working to Make Hastert Speaker," Detroit Free Press, Dec. 21, 1998.
12. Ota, Alan K., "House Republican is Moderate Today, Conservative Tomorrow," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 10, 2006.
13. Camp press release, November 2009
14. Struglinski, Suzanne, "Romney Recruits 3 House Members as Eyes, Ears," Deseret Morning News, Jan. 21, 2007.
15. Washington Post Votes Database
16. Camp House web site
17. Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition.
18. Camp House web site
19. Camp press release, March 24, 2010
20. David Camp's official biography
21. Club for Growth scorecard