Earlier this week my colleague posted a profile of corporate tax dodging by Yum! Brands.The folks at American for Tax Fairness have a new blog post on the scale of tax breaks for  profitable corporations and the wealthy just in time for Thanksgiving.

America’s most famous meal, Thanksgiving draws needed attention to the scandal of hunger within the world’s richest nation. Even though one in seven U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2012, nutrition assistance programs have been repeatedly cut in recent years. By closing tax loopholes, we can ensure everyone has enough to eat, on Thanksgiving and throughout the year. Cost of 31.5 Million 10-Person Thanksgiving Dinners: $1.5 billion.

Mortgage interest was made deductible to encourage middle-class home ownership. But wealthy families can use the same break for fancy vacation homes—and even for yachts (“Qualified Home”). Believe it or not, anything with sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a bathroom counts as a mortgage-deductible home to the IRS. So even as millions of American homes were “going underwater” during the mortgage crisis, the “second homes” of many rich families floated securely on top. Annual Tax Break: $1.5 billion

North Carolinians’ struggle to put food on the table for their families has gotten more attention of late. North Carolina catapulted to the dubious distinction of being the state with the fourth highest level of food insecurity in the latest data release by the USDA.  State policymakers, during the federal government shutdown, then tried to cut off WIC vouchers, being one of the first in the nation to do so.  And now we are approaching the November 1^st deadline when cuts to the benefit amount for food stamps or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will make it more difficult for more than 1 million families to put food on the table.

Today, as various groups recognize “Food Day”, another aspect of the challenges to meeting basic nutritional needs is being highlighted:  the lack of places to buy healthy food in many communities.  In North Carolina, the Support Center has found, twenty six percent of North Carolina’s census tracts do not have a healthy food retailer within a half-mile of their community.

The presence of food deserts is another issue.  Communities in a food desert require travel (more than a mile for an urban area and more than 10 miles for a rural area) to reach a retail outlet or other place where food is sold.  That presents challenges particularly for low-income families that often don’t have flexible or reliable transportation. The map here shows that many food deserts exist throughout the state.  Nearly 60 counties have at least one food desert and some many more.

A lack of proximity to the places where food is sold is particularly disturbing when at the same time North Carolina continues to produce significant pounds of vegetables and other produce year round.  Greater connections are being made through local farmer markets and farm to school initiatives to ensure that consumers and growers can be connected.

One additional policy idea that has been effective in other places is a state-funded Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which provides capital to retailers and businesses that seek to expand access to healthy foods in communities that are underserved. This is a win-win in meeting the nutritional needs of North Carolinians and supporting job creation, business anchors, and the revitalization of commercial districts in the state.

The federal budget negotiations are beginning in order to meet the timeline that policymakers established in the recent deal to re-open government and raise the debt ceiling.  While some report that revenue has been kept off the table, this should be a non-starter for federal policymakers seeking a fiscally responsible budget that won’t harm the economy or grow poverty.

The negative impacts of sequestration have recently been calculated at the county level by researchers at the Center for Public Integrity and the Financial Times. The analysis of North Carolina counties shows that not just military communities but research hubs and areas of significant hardship have been negatively impacted by these across-the-board spending cuts. These findings are on top of the growing catalogue of the harm these cuts have caused in the day to day lives of many thousands of North Carolinians. It is clear that policymakers must pursue revenue to replace the across-the-board spending cuts, closing corporate tax loopholes is a good start.

Shutting down the government is bad for the economy and for the public that benefits from a broad array of public services.  That said, some of the conditions that are under consideration by House Republicans as a price for ending a shutdown would be worse for families and for states than the shutdown itself.

As Sarah Ovaska reports, the state level details are only just beginning to take shape.  For families struggling to make ends meet, federally funded programs provide support to feed their children, secure child care, and have resources to pay for other basic necessities like housing. Mandatory programs, such as Medicaid and Social Security, are not affected during a government shutdown. Among the programs that could be affected beginning in October are:

• Early childhood programs delivered through Head Start programs and child care subsidies
• Financial support for families facing economic hardship delivered through Work First
• Nutritional food for infants and children delivered through WIC

After October, additional impacts to SNAP, food stamps, are possible. Read More