Senate approves tax break for low-income workers, By Mike Glover (AP), February 14, 2012, Sioux City Journal: “The Iowa Senate has unanimously approved a tax cut for low-income workers Tuesday, with backers calling it a powerful tool against poverty. ‘Iowa’s working families will spend this tax cut in their local communities, buying food, milk, gas, repairing the family car and paying medical bills,’ said Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, the measure’s main backer. ‘It helps working families. You must have a job to benefit from this tax credit.’ Critics said they would have preferred a broader tax proposal that would not only help the working poor but spark the economy as well. ‘This is just one piece,’ said Sen. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull. ‘I urge the body to put together a full and comprehensive tax plan…'”
Day: February 15, 2012
SNAP Asset Tests – Michigan, Pennsylvania
Michigan, Pennsylvania put limits on families seeking food aid, By Kathy Barks Hoffman (AP), February 9, 2012, Chattanooga Times Free Press: “The 2010 Buick Enclave parked in her garage kept Michigan resident Renee Moore from getting food stamps for two months last year, even though her family’s income had dropped to below the poverty level, her husband’s Ford Explorer had 300,000 miles on it and her family had less than $1,000 in the bank. The reason? In the eyes of the state, she owned too much. Unlike other states that moved away from setting limits on what families like the Moores can own before they qualify for help, Michigan last year made it harder for thousands of residents to become eligible for food stamps by adopting new limits on what people can own. Pennsylvania also is toughening its so-called asset test, adding new restrictions on who gets government help. The move to redefine who’s truly needy comes after cash-strapped states saw a surge of applications for food stamp aid during the economic downturn. Still, leaders maintain the assistance needs to be targeted to those who need it most…”
Need for Public Benefit Programs
Even critics of safety net increasingly depend on it, By Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff, February 11, 2012, New York Times: “Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman. Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice. There is little poverty here in Chisago County, northeast of Minneapolis, where cheap housing for commuters is gradually replacing farmland. But Mr. Gulbranson and many other residents who describe themselves as self-sufficient members of the American middle class and as opponents of government largess are drawing more deeply on that government with each passing year…”