The Delta Grassroots Caucus (DGC) is a broad coalition of grassroots leaders in the eight-state Delta region. DGC is also a founding partner of the Economic Equality Caucus,
which advocates for economic equality across the USA.

2013 Expanded Program of Annual Delta Grassroots Caucus Activities

Posted on January 04, 2013 at 03:14 PM

Happy New Year! The Delta Grassroots Caucus will have an expanded annual program of activities from January, 2013 to January, 2014, including for the eight-state Greater Delta Region from St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, IIllinois down to New Orleans, Louisiana and eastward to the Alabama Black Belt. The expanded program includes:

–the fundamental daily, weekly and year-round advocacy campaign of thousands of phone calls, emails, smaller scale meetings and one-on-one meetings;

–a spring, 2013 conference at the Clinton Presidential Library including a package of announcements of exemplary role model economic development projects, and commemorating the 20th anniversary of the bipartisan Delta regional initiative begun in the Clinton administration;

–a fall conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC with Members of Congress, Obama administration officials, and grassroots leaders from the eight states;

–a conference in the Memphis area, which will focus on our northern Mississippi, western Tennessee, eastern Arkansas, western Kentucky, southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois partners;

–We also plan a smaller-scale but important meeting in Louisiana.

The spring conference at the Clinton Presidential Library will be in late April or May, with the exact date to be determined soon. To reserve space, please send in $125, which includes the $100 registration fees and $25 annual membership dues, with the check made out to “Delta Caucus” and mailed to our Washington, DC area office:

Delta Caucus

5030 Purslane Place

Waldorf, MD 20601

The annual membership dues of at least $25 once a year is required to be able to attend the conferences, to receive the group messages, to give input into the decisions of the Delta Caucus on policy matters, and otherwise to be a member of the Delta Grassroots Caucus. When you have paid that $25 once a year, you would not pay it again and would pay only the registration fees of $100 to go to the Washington, DC and Memphis conferences.

While the only requirement is at least $25 once a year, suggested contribution levels are:

$25 for individuals and the smallest organizations;

$50 for medium-sized nonprofits, small businesses, and other mid-sized organizations;

$100 for corporations, foundations, universities, banks, larger chambers of commerce and other larger organizations.

If you do not wish to be a member, please advise. We do need to remove those who are not interested in being members from taking up space on our data base and do not want to contact those who don’t wish to receive our communications.

We will work hard for more productive results from this administration and Congress on our key issues of job creation/economic recovery, renewable energy and energy efficiency, the USDA nutrition, rural development and aid to family farmer programs; health care; Delta heritage tourism; broadband, transportation, housing and other infrastructure improvement and expansion; education (including initiatives to fight illiteracy); disaster relief; and other key issues for the Greater Mississippi River Delta Region.

The package of announcements at our spring, 2013 Delta conference at the Clinton Library will emphasize renewable energy and energy retrofit/efficiency initiatives; education; nutrition (including child nutrition); health care for underserved populations; and job creation.

The recent votes in Congress that averted the fiscal cliff were contentious, but in one sense were very different from the gridlock we have been seeing in Washington, DC in recent years: there were strongly bipartisan votes in the House and Senate on a major, highly controversial issue. The compromise only resolved some of the issues, but they did avoid tax increases on 98% of Americans.

This result was vastly preferable to going over the fiscal cliff, which would have ignited another recession. We commend all those from both parties who agreed to this imperfect but necessary compromise.

We will keep monitoring these debates as we move into the spending cuts issues. We know that some painful decisions will have to be made, but we urge Congress and the administration to avoid cuts in those areas that are most important for the vulnerable working families in the Delta and the nation, such as USDA nutrition and rural development programs, aid for family farmers, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

As a final note, we would like to thank the many people who paid their annual membership dues for 2012. We had the largest number of individual and organizational members pay their dues in 2012 than ever before.

Despite the progress, we still have a situation where many people pay but many others do not, so in 2013 we will be taking steps to assure that we do not have this discrepancy–such as collecting the dues at the time of the major conferences along with registration fees.

Again, thanks so much for sending in dues at a greater level than ever before, but this is a requirement for those who want to be members and it is not fair for many people to pay but others to not do so. We are sure that those who did not pay just forgot about it or did not get around to it.

Journalists, Members of Congress, high-level executive branch officials do not pay the dues. All grassroots leaders do pay the dues. This is an essential part of our budget, along with sponsorships and registration fees.

We look forward to our largest-scale program of activities yet for the Delta in 2013.