[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 36 (Monday, February 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2230-H2231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I have been troubled over the past 10 days and 
particularly this weekend over the rhetoric that has been coming from 
the other side of the aisle with respect to the school lunches and WIC, 
which means the program that is for women, infants and children. We 
have been attacked on this side of the aisle with all of the old 
canards: callousness, lack of compassion, not caring at all, being the 
toutees of big business, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
  I have been extremely curious about why the Democrats have been 
attacking us with such viciousness. We heard another attack just this 
morning on the same subject, not a vicious attack, but an attack 
nonetheless. And because it is clear to me that when you analyze the 
Republican approach to this, it certainly does not do what the 
Democrats claim it would do. In other words, it is not on the facts 
that people are confused.
  If you listen to the numbers, Mr. Speaker, you get a very different 
picture. First of all, the amount that we are spending on school 
lunches in 1995 is $4,509,000,000. Under the base line, what the 
proposal from the President, it would have been $4,703,000,000 in 1996. 
Our Republican proposal actually increases that to $4,712,000,000. So 
in other words, there is more money going to school lunches, certainly 
$200 million more than in 1995. Actually, $9 million more than, I am 
sorry, not $9 million, $90 million more than had been proposed in the 
President's budget. And so that does not square with the attacks you 
have heard.
  Look at the WIC spending. WIC is money that goes to women, infants 
and children, $3,470,000,000 in 1995. Under our proposal, 
$3,684,000,000 in 1996, an increase of more than $200 million. That is 
also an increase of $100 million over the CBO baseline estimate.
  Now, I started to think about this. I thought, if we are in fact 
increasing the amount of money that is going to school lunch spending, 
why is it that we have been attacked by the President, by the 
administration, by Cabinet members and by leadership on the other side 
of the aisle? It seems to me that what you have to look at is who is 
being cut. And who is being cut by this program are bureaucrats in 
Washington. The people in Washington that have been making these 
decisions, they are cut through the Ag budget. They are cut 
substantially. It is real pain for a person that is losing their job in 
the Federal bureaucracy. I do not doubt that for a moment. But the fact 
is, that when we are making the cuts, as a result of that, you have to 
say to yourself, who is it that the Democrats are representing in this 
process? Are they representing the children or are they representing 
the bureaucrats?
  So I decided to myself, well, maybe what I want to do is what I used 
to do in the private sector, and that is follow the money.
  [[Page H2231]] So I did a little analysis, the details of which I am 
going to disclose later on today, but it compared the number of dollars 
that have been contributed to Democrat candidates over the past 10 
years, the past five cycles, by Federal employee PAC's, political 
action committees. Those are special interests that give money to 
candidates.
  I compared those dollars given the Democrats to dollars by those same 
Federal employee PAC's given to Republicans. Guess what I found out? I 
found out that Democrats get more than 10 times the amount of those 
dollars in terms of contributions. So I started to say to myself, of 
course, there is something very natural going on here. The Democrats 
understand who their constituents are. Their constituents are not the 
children. Their constituents are not the children who, in this case, 
here is a doll that was given to me by Jamie. It was brought to me by 
Billy Osborn Fears, who is probably one of the most wonderful, 
responsible, intelligent, creative, energetic, committed social workers 
I have ever met working in Cleveland, OH. And what the Democrats are 
saying is that Billy Osborn Fears, who actually goes in and out of 
these centers on a daily basis, she is there, she knows what is needed, 
she knows how to administer these things, she knows how to get the 
biggest bang for the buck, that she does not have as much intelligence 
or commitment as the Federal bureaucrats in Washington do.
  I am not going to impugn the reputation of people working in 
Washington, but I will tell you one thing, and that is, that if you are 
in Washington, how can you possibly know what is needed on the west 
side of Cleveland? How can you possibly have the same sensitivity to 
what is needed in the borough of the Bronx of New York, if you are not 
there, if you are not there every day? And that is what this program is 
all about.
  It is a very different way of spending your Federal tax dollars.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very important. So I started to think about this. 
My only conclusion is that you have to determine who the constituents 
are. We represent the children.


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