Latest news with #ShontelBrown
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Community leaders hold roundtable against hate after Beachwood library books burned
CLEVELAND (WJW) – Words can hurt, but they can also heal. A library is a place full of words and ideas that not everybody will agree are the right words or ideas. But actions to forbid or destroy books and other items that highlight conversations about different cultures, religions, races and sexual orientation, civic leaders say, shouldn't happen in Northeast Ohio. 'Hate speech at any race, at any religion, at any ethnic group, at any at any entity is an attack on all of us,' Congresswoman Shontel Brown said. Former investigator: Man convicted of killing ex-wife, an Akron doctor, 'doesn't deserve to be out' This roundtable of area religious, political and community leaders met Thursday to get a handle on the level of hate directed at different communities around our area. There things going on here and around the country, such as the murder of two Israeli embassy staff members, that has many worried about the future. 'The anti-Semitic rhetoric that fuels this kind of violence, the kind of violence that struck down young couple. Words matter and words have consequences, and we know we're not immune to hatred. Closer to home, we already heard about it,' Lee Shapiro of the American Jewish Committee in Cleveland said. That incident was the burning of roughly 100 books from the Beachwood branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library about the Jewish, Black and LGBTQ communities. That struck a nerve with many. So much so that this news conference was specifically held in the newest branch of the Cleveland Public Library, named after one of the most influential figures in Black history. Cleveland Clinic reverses change to copay policy Libraries have always been considered by many to be neutral places and places where all ideas are welcome, but libraries are feeling a lot of pressure to censor ideas. 'We can't take things off of our shelves because everyone needs access to them. It's really important that libraries stand behind the concept of intellectual freedom and making sure that democracy is held and everyone has access to it,' Cleveland Public Library Executive Director Felton Thomas said. Congresswoman Brown said this first meeting will hopefully set the stage for more conversations and direct action to fight against what they call forces that are out to take away the things that make the country better. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Unpacking claims GOP's 'big beautiful bill' lowers age of dependents from 18 to 7 years old
In a popular online video, a Democratic congresswoman, among others, claimed the U.S. House Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" lowers the age of a dependent from 18 to 7. The budget bill does lower the age of a dependent from under 18 to under 7, but only in the context of the Supplemental Food Assistance Program, not across the board. The bill would significantly reduce the number of households with children who benefit from SNAP, according to experts. The bill had yet to be voted on in the U.S. Senate as of this writing. In late May 2025, after Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a new budget bill, rumors abounded that the bill sought to lower the age of dependents from 18 years old to 7. For example, an X account posted a video of Rep. Shontel Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, saying that 8, 9 and 10-year-old children would no longer be considered dependent children (archived): The post had accumulated 1 million views and 15,000 likes as of this writing. Brown said: My amendment would strike an especially harsh provision in this bill that is rooted in cruelty, not policy. This simple, straightforward amendment would strike the work requirement provision in this big, bad, ugly bill that lowers the age of what we call a dependent child from 18 to seven — from 18 years old to seven years old. So I'm abundantly clear. We're saying that eight, nine and 10 year olds are no longer considered dependent children. Where did this come from? Why is this necessary? Since when is a first-grader not a dependent child, preventing families with children as young as seven from losing food assistance? That is what we're debating here. Other accounts on X spread the same video and claim. The video also appeared on Facebook. Further, Snopes readers sent emails seeking confirmation of the rumors. Many people took it to mean that this alleged change affected the definition of "dependent" as it is generally understood, which is to say children under the age of 18 whom adults support financially. This definition often varies. For example, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service outlines as follows: To qualify as a dependent, a child must also pass these tests: Relationship: Be your son, daughter, stepchild, eligible foster child, brother, sister, half-sister or -brother, stepbrother, stepsister, adopted child or the child of one of these Age: Be under age 19 or under 24 if a full-time student, or any age if permanently and totally disabled Residency: Live with you for more than half the year, with some exceptions Support: Get more than half their financial support from you Joint return: Not file as married filing jointly unless only to claim a refund of taxes paid or withheld As we will see, however, while the House Republicans' so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" did change the age of dependents from under 18 to under 7, it was solely in the context of work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — not across the board. Still, such a change would affect a large number of households with children who depend on this program for access to food. Under current law, SNAP includes both general work requirements and work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. All adults who are able to work between the ages of 18 and 59 are required to work in order to receive food assistance, with some exceptions. One such exception exempts adults responsible for the care of a child under six years old from general work requirements. Able-bodied adults without dependents must follow general work requirements and work requirements that apply specifically to them. The latter are more stringent, but such adults can be exempted from the latter if they live in a household with a child who is younger than 18. Under the law, the government cannot limit access to food assistance for such adults to only three months unless they comply with the work requirements. This system allows children under 18 to access food. "The current policy, enacted in the 1996 Welfare Act, was designed to avoid taking food from any children," David Super, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics at the Georgetown University Law Center, wrote in an email. "Therefore, it does not time-limit SNAP benefits to any households with children." The new bill targets this system. Indeed, this provision would only exempt such adults if they live with a child who is younger than 7. With the new bill, "in a family of four with two adults and two children age seven or above, the family would receive enough food assistance to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet for only their first three months on the program," Super said. "After that, the allotment would be cut 45% unless at least one of the adults could document enough hours of work." According to an analysis by the Urban Institute, the proposed changes would impact a large number of households with children. "1.2 million families with 3.6 million people, including 1.5 million children, would receive lower benefits because a family member does not meet the work requirement and can no longer be counted as eligible for SNAP," authors Laura Wheaton and Linda Giannarelli wrote in the report. Further, Super says it can be difficult to prove hours of work in order to maintain SNAP benefits even with the current rules. "Many work in unstable jobs with inconsistent hours and many employers will not cooperate with government agencies," he wrote. The work requirement rule "simply disqualifies people who cannot find jobs, people whose employers will not consistently give them enough hours, people whose employers are unwilling to verify their hours (perhaps because the employer is engaged in tax avoidance), and those who cannot make it through the human services office bureaucracy every month to prove their hours." Super adds that another consequence of such a change would increase the financial burden for states. "The House bill would dramatically increase states' costs for the program, likely causing big reductions in the staffing of already threadbare human services offices," he said. Understaffing may also lead to more difficulty in proving that individuals qualify for SNAP. The new budget bill had yet to go through the U.S. Senate at the time of this writing. Arrington, Jodey. "Text - H.R.1 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): One Big Beautiful Bill Act." 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025. "David A. Super." 2018, Accessed 23 May 2025. "Dependents | Internal Revenue Service." Accessed 23 May 2025. FOOD and NUTRITION ACT of 2008 . 2008, Accessed 23 May 2025. USDA. "SNAP Work Requirements | USDA-FNS." 29 May 2019, Accessed 23 May 2025. Wheaton, Laura, and Linda Giannarelli. "Expanded SNAP Work Requirements Would Reduce Benefits for Millions of Families." Urban Institute, 20 May 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025.
Axios
16-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Cuyahoga County child food insecurity is among the worst in Ohio
Over 40% of children in some U.S. counties live in food-insecure households, per new estimates shared first with Axios from Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. Why it matters: Potential cuts or changes to federal food aid programs like SNAP and tariffs on imported foods could affect millions of Americans and exacerbate the childhood hunger crisis. By the numbers: An estimated 14 million U.S. children overall live in food-insecure homes. That's about one out of every five kids. The rate tends to be higher in relatively poor, rural counties — but there are urban areas with high rates as well, like New York's Bronx County (33.1%). Zoom in: Cuyahoga County's child insecurity rate (26%) is among the highest in Ohio, per Feeding America's new Map the Meal Gap report. Only Adams (27.6%), Meigs (26.7%) and Scioto (26.1%) counties rank worse. The big picture: Childhood food insecurity is one piece of a broader hunger problem exacerbated by rising food costs. The annual aggregate national food budget shortfall — meaning, the total amount of money people in food-insecure U.S. households need to buy enough food — rose from $28.5 billion in 2022 to $32.2 billion in 2023, up 8.4% inflation-adjusted. What they're saying: U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Warrensville Heights) voiced opposition to the proposed SNAP cuts in remarks at the House Agriculture Committee hearing Tuesday.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The GOP is proposing big cuts to SNAP food assistance. Here's what would change and who would be impacted
House Republicans have unveiled a proposal to slash funding for the nation's largest anti-hunger program by an estimated $290 billion as part of their sweeping plan to turn President Trump's agenda into a legislative reality. The draft bill released by the GOP-led House Agriculture Committee would substantially reduce how much the federal government spends on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a public benefit that helps 42 million Americans pay for food. Republicans on the committee argue that the reforms are needed to 'ensure SNAP works the way Congress intended it to' by rooting out waste, increasing accountability and controlling costs. Democrats have roundly condemned the proposal. 'It's bad for families, bad for farmers, and bad for the country. Increasing hunger to make billionaires richer is just plain wrong,' Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio wrote in a statement last week. The GOP's plan to cut SNAP funding is one piece of a much larger effort to pass a budget bill that would slash spending on a long list of programs — including Medicaid and green energy tax incentives — to offset trillions of dollars in tax cuts. SNAP is better known among the public under its old name, food stamps. That name was abandoned in 2008 in an effort to fight the stigma that had plagued the program for decades. Through SNAP, the government provides money directly to people who would otherwise struggle to feed themselves or their families. Participation in SNAP has increased dramatically in recent decades and so has the cost. In 2000, the government spent about $17 billion to support 17 million SNAP recipients. Last year, nearly 42 million people collected benefits that totaled more than $100 billion. Eligibility varies from state to state, but in general SNAP is available to people who either make below a certain income threshold or have no income at all. The amount of money someone receives is affected depending on their household size, income and other factors. The majority of SNAP funding goes toward supporting children, either through money sent to their parents or to them directly. The benefit also goes to millions of elderly people and people with disabilities. Only 13% of SNAP recipients are able-bodied adults with no children. Most of the savings in the proposal come from asking states to foot part of the bill for the first time. Ever since the program was founded in the wake of the Great Depression, the federal government has paid for 100% of SNAP benefits. The GOP's plan would force all states to provide at least 5% of the money starting in 2028, with a provision that could require them to cover substantially more. States could see their funding burden rise as high as 25% if they make too many mistakes in how to administer the program. In 2023, a total of 28 states had error rates that would have put them above that new maximum threshold, according to federal data. SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to work in order to maintain their benefits. The GOP plan would make those rules more stringent in a number of ways, including significantly rolling back exemptions that currently mean many parents and older Americans do not have to meet work requirements. The proposal would also limit how much per-person benefits can increase in the future by prohibiting changes to the formula the government uses to decide how much money each person needs to support a nutritious diet. On the surface, total spending on SNAP wouldn't actually change under the GOP's plan. States would simply be asked to increase their contribution to make funding whole. Many experts predict, however, it would inevitably cause states to cut benefits or tighten eligibility rules, meaning fewer people would receive support. 'We don't have those dollars here at the states to do that, and that means we'll have to decide who will get benefits, and I don't think we can make that choice,' Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said this week. One recent analysis by the Urban Institute estimated that an overall 10% reduction in federal SNAP funding to states would push nearly 900,000 Americans into poverty. Hunger is a problem everywhere in the U.S., but it's especially concentrated in certain parts of the country. More than 47 million Americans, representing 13% of all U.S. households, deal with food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those rates are much higher in some states, particularly in red states in the South. Big states like California and Texas collect a lot more SNAP money from the government than smaller states, but they also have huge budgets that would presumably give them more opportunity to cover the extra cost of keeping the program fully funded if the federal contribution were to shrink. Republicans are attempting to combine a laundry list of legislative priorities into a single, massive spending bill that they hope to pass before Memorial Day. With narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and zero reason to expect they will get any Democratic votes, they have very little room for error. Any part of the 'big, beautiful bill' could be changed or scrapped altogether if the party can't unify behind it. So far, though, disagreement within the GOP has mostly centered around other proposals — particularly a plan to slash Medicaid funding.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The GOP is proposing big cuts to SNAP food assistance. Here's what would change and who would be impacted
House Republicans have unveiled a proposal to slash funding for the nation's largest anti-hunger program by an estimated $290 billion as part of their sweeping plan to turn President Trump's agenda into a legislative reality. The draft bill released by the GOP-led House Agriculture Committee would substantially reduce how much the federal government spends on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a public benefit that helps 42 million Americans pay for food. Republicans on the committee argue that the reforms are needed to 'ensure SNAP works the way Congress intended it to' by rooting out waste, increasing accountability and controlling costs. Democrats have roundly condemned the proposal. 'It's bad for families, bad for farmers, and bad for the country. Increasing hunger to make billionaires richer is just plain wrong,' Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio wrote in a statement last week. The GOP's plan to cut SNAP funding is one piece of a much larger effort to pass a budget bill that would slash spending on a long list of programs — including Medicaid and green energy tax incentives — to offset trillions of dollars in tax cuts. SNAP is better known among the public under its old name, food stamps. That name was abandoned in 2008 in an effort to fight the stigma that had plagued the program for decades. Through SNAP, the government provides money directly to people who would otherwise struggle to feed themselves or their families. Participation in SNAP has increased dramatically in recent decades and so has the cost. In 2000, the government spent about $17 billion to support 17 million SNAP recipients. Last year, nearly 42 million people collected benefits that totaled more than $100 billion. Eligibility varies from state to state, but in general SNAP is available to people who either make below a certain income threshold or have no income at all. The amount of money someone receives is affected depending on their household size, income and other factors. The majority of SNAP funding goes toward supporting children, either through money sent to their parents or to them directly. The benefit also goes to millions of elderly people and people with disabilities. Only 13% of SNAP recipients are able-bodied adults with no children. Most of the savings in the proposal come from asking states to foot part of the bill for the first time. Ever since the program was founded in the wake of the Great Depression, the federal government has paid for 100% of SNAP benefits. The GOP's plan would force all states to provide at least 5% of the money starting in 2028, with a provision that could require them to cover substantially more. States could see their funding burden rise as high as 25% if they make too many mistakes in how to administer the program. In 2023, a total of 28 states had error rates that would have put them above that new maximum threshold, according to federal data. SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to work in order to maintain their benefits. The GOP plan would make those rules more stringent in a number of ways, including significantly rolling back exemptions that currently mean many parents and older Americans do not have to meet work requirements. The proposal would also limit how much per-person benefits can increase in the future by prohibiting changes to the formula the government uses to decide how much money each person needs to support a nutritious diet. On the surface, total spending on SNAP wouldn't actually change under the GOP's plan. States would simply be asked to increase their contribution to make funding whole. Many experts predict, however, it would inevitably cause states to cut benefits or tighten eligibility rules, meaning fewer people would receive support. 'We don't have those dollars here at the states to do that, and that means we'll have to decide who will get benefits, and I don't think we can make that choice,' Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said this week. One recent analysis by the Urban Institute estimated that an overall 10% reduction in federal SNAP funding to states would push nearly 900,000 Americans into poverty. Hunger is a problem everywhere in the U.S., but it's especially concentrated in certain parts of the country. More than 47 million Americans, representing 13% of all U.S. households, deal with food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those rates are much higher in some states, particularly in red states in the South. Big states like California and Texas collect a lot more SNAP money from the government than smaller states, but they also have huge budgets that would presumably give them more opportunity to cover the extra cost of keeping the program fully funded if the federal contribution were to shrink. Republicans are attempting to combine a laundry list of legislative priorities into a single, massive spending bill that they hope to pass before Memorial Day. With narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and zero reason to expect they will get any Democratic votes, they have very little room for error. Any part of the 'big, beautiful bill' could be changed or scrapped altogether if the party can't unify behind it. So far, though, disagreement within the GOP has mostly centered around other proposals — particularly a plan to slash Medicaid funding.
