NEWS

January 25, 2012

Legislative News

By Ron Buffaloe

National Legislative Officer

I’ve been on two recent conference calls with NARFE Headquarters Legislative Department staff where the plans were laid out for our grassroots efforts early in 2012. We have been advised to expect a busy year and events that may affect active and/or retired federal employees are already starting to happen. Detailed information has been shared with those key people involved in our grassroots structure in North Carolina and I hope information is filtering down to the chapter president and chapter legislative chair level.

I trust that you are an email subscriber to NARFE’s Legislative Hotline which we summarize in another column on this website page. If not a subscriber you can become one by visiting NARFE’s website at www.narfe.org. You’ll see there that we have some important dates and actions coming up where we’ll need your help.

The issue we’ll be spending most of our time on in early 2012 is the year-long extension of the payroll tax cut holiday. The 20 member House-Senate Conference Committee charged with finding agreement on ways to fund the year-long extension starts meeting this week and must reach agreement by February 29^th. We have one member of the conference committee from North Carolina—Representative Renee Ellmers of the 2^nd congressional district.

We have only a matter of weeks to educate and influence Representative Ellmers and our other members of Congress on this issue. All members of the House and Senate will ultimately vote on any proposed conference committee agreement. You can help us in our efforts by doing the following:

First, we need you to send a letter to your member of Congress telling Congress to “Don’t Target Federal Employees” as they seek ways to pay for a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut holiday. You can prepare your own letter but we encourage you to use the letter NARFE has made available at http://www.narfe.org/heartbeat/index.cfm.

Second, we need you to Call Congress on Wednesday, February 15^th. You’re encouraged to use NARFE’s toll-free number, 1-866-220-0044, so we’ll get a count, by congressional district, of how many calls are made. If you can’t get through on the toll-free number you certainly can use a direct line number if you have one.

Third, we need you to write a letter or guest editorial to your local newspaper editor opposing the House plan to target federal employees for funding most of the cost of the payroll tax extension. NARFE headquarters plans on making sample language available in the Resources area of the Protect America’s Heartbeat website at http://www.narfe.org/heartbeat/index.cfm.

We need each of you to help us in these efforts. Thanks in advance for sending that letter, making that call, and writing that letter. These actions have proven to make a difference.