June 3, 2026

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the Coalition on Human Needs, I strongly urge you to vote NO on H.R. 7726, the “Stop Child Care Scams Act of 2026”, and H.R. 8872, the “Preventing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in TANF Act”. We join with many partners to oppose these bills and outline many of our reasons for opposition below.

The Coalition on Human Needs is made up of human service providers, faith groups, policy experts, and civil rights, labor, and other organizations concerned with meeting the needs of people with low incomes. Many are dealing with the aftermath of historic cuts to basic needs programs including SNAP, Medicaid and the ACA, higher education, the Child Tax Credit, and other human needs programs.  We’re already seeing the impacts – from enactment until February, more than 3.5 million people lost access to SNAP’s food assistance, while 1.4 million children have lost Medicaid/CHIP coverage with experts flagging that many more are losing coverage in 2026, while CMS’s new Medicaid work reporting rule will create confusion and chaos for states. At a time that many are dealing with rising costs and policy changes that make it harder to put food on the table and access health coverage, giving HHS the authority to withhold child care assistance and further disrupting the lives of low-income working families and providers will increase hardship for families across the country. Families are facing a basic needs crisis – including an acute child care crisis – and this proposal will only exacerbate the hardship that families, providers, and local policymakers are facing.

In particular, H.R. 7726 makes changes to the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) that can lead to disruption of services while increasing paperwork for states and providers. We agree that actual fraud should be identified and vigorously combatted — but taking away affordable child care from families who have done no wrong does nothing to address this. Cutting off access to child care and other basic needs is the wrong answer, and we joined 200 organizations to note that “denying support to children and families while doing absolutely nothing to strengthen our child care system or help the millions of families that are struggling to find and afford the child care they need. We can hold bad actors accountable and protect the people who depend on these programs. What doesn’t work is taking billions of dollars away from children, parents, seniors, immigrants, and people with disabilities and calling it a fix. Instead, it puts children at risk and forces parents out of work.”

H.R. 7726 includes language from H.R. 7723, would could impact CACFP participation. As partners have outlined, it “could bar child care providers from participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) for unintentional or inadvertent errors… states are already administering CACFP with strong oversight systems specifically designed to detect and prevent integrity concerns.” Again, taking away access to basic needs, including nutritious meals and snacks for children in Head Start and child care programs, is not the answer to concerns about program integrity.

Finally, we join others in sharing concerns on H.R. 8872, which could lead to withholding TANF funding to states. Again, we believe that addressing actual fraud is important, and hope Congress will create stronger guardrails for states to target TANF towards cash assistance for families with low incomes and address misuse by contractors. However, experts in our network believe this bill does not address some of the worst instances of state misspending of TANF dollars, notably in Mississippi where we are seeing criminal prosecution move forward. In sum, H.R.8872 could make it harder for families to pay rent and buy food, while not improving the guardrails in TANF to force states to focus on reaching low-income families with cash assistance.

We are concerned that these bills are part of a larger threat to basic needs programs that could mean children, seniors, and people with disabilities lose health coverage, including home care services that enable older adults and people with disabilities to remain in their homes, further cuts  to SNAP’s vital food assistance that millions need amid rising grocery costs, etc. Congress should be protecting child care, cash assistance, health care, food assistance, housing, and other basic needs, not exacerbating the crisis families are facing by undermining basic needs programs. We urge you to reject H.R. 7726 and H.R. 8872 and urge Leadership along with colleagues to instead protect and strengthen basic needs programs.

Sincerely yours,

Deborah Weinstein,
Executive Director