Health reform legislation and its impact on Arkansas’s low- and moderate-income children and their families remains at the top of AACF’s advocacy agenda. This issue of Moving Families Forward outlines AACF’s top concerns with Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus’ revised proposal released this week.
Arkansas working families are losing as much as $110 million every year because they don’t claim the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a significant loss in federal dollars to the hard-pressed Arkansas economy. They spend another $100 million on expensive, and unnecessary, tax preparation services and refund anticipation loans, according to a new report […]
In public debates on taxes, it is often forgotten (or ignored) that the poor pay taxes just like everyone else. Not only do low-income working families pay a vast array of taxes—from payroll to sales taxes and from property taxes to driver’s license fees—but as a percentage of their income, they also pay far more […]
Even during the August recess, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families has been closely following Congress as it continues to develop legislation that will have a profound impact on Arkansas children and families. Newly released 2009 federal budget deficit projections underscore the need for healthcare reform, which will continue to dominate discussion in both the […]
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ending welfare as we had then known it for several decades. The Act replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with an employment-oriented program with time limits for eligibility, known as the Transition Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) […]
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families is closely following Congress as it continues to develop legislation that could have a profound impact on Arkansas children and families. Healthcare reform and climate change dominate discussion in both the Senate and the House.
Arkansas’s Transition to Employment Assistance (TEA) program is a safety net for children and families in poverty. TEA provides short-term cash assistance to families in financial crisis, with the long-term goal of moving them from poverty and dependence to economic self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, Arkansas’s poverty rate has only risen since the TEA program was created, with […]
The economic stimulus program of the Obama administration, ARRA, is intended to save jobs and increase consumer spending during the worst economic downturn billion—will provide toward tax cuts and support a wide spectrum of government services, including health, education, energy, housing and many other areas. One important part of ARRA that will benefit many Arkansas […]
You’ve heard it a thousand times: “The only thing certain in life is death and taxes. We’ve all complained and joked about taxes for so long that we often forget how critical they are in supporting the common good. Whenever you drive to work, your taxes are keeping you and your kids safe by providing […]
Recently President Obama released his detailed budget that outlines funding for key programs that support low-income children and their families in Arkansas. On the same day that the President released his budget, Sen. Blanche Lincoln filed two bills to in crease funding for child care and child care facilities. Pressure continues to build in the […]