[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3130-H3131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Whitfield] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, when the school lunch program was started 
back in 1946, the research that I have done indicates that the program 
cost about $70 million that year, and the projections indicate that by 
the year 2000 the food programs in the United States will be 
approaching $7 billion.
  Now, when you talk about hunger in America, I want to emphasize this 
evening that those of us on this side of the aisle are just as 
concerned about the welfare of children throughout America as those 
people on the other side of the aisle. They certainly do not have any 
sole discretion about and concern for the needs of children around this 
country.
  But when you have a program, and I might also add that in addition to 
this school lunch program, there are thousands of programs out there to 
provide help to American citizens, and that is part of the problem, 
because you cannot solve a $4.7 trillion deficit problem in America 
without coming up with new approaches and new solutions to very 
difficult problems.
  Now, all of us would like to do everything that we can do to 
eliminate hunger in this country. We would like to eliminate disease in 
this country. We would like to eliminate child abuse completely in this 
country. All of us agree to that. But we have a significant problem. 
How do we continue to provide the money for all of the thousands of 
programs out there, whether they are child care programs, breakfast 
programs, lunch programs, after school programs, child abuse programs, 
or whatever they may be?
  So the challenge that we have is to come up with innovative solutions 
to provide the maximum benefit for children throughout America at the 
lowest 
[[Page H3131]] cost, and that is what this block grant does that we are 
now proposing.
  We are trying to send this money back to the State and say, 
bureaucrats in Washington are not close to the problem. The people in 
the State may be more innovative. Some governors around this State have 
shown in the last 10 years that they can come up with innovative 
programs to make a real difference in saving dollars and providing more 
benefits for the recipients, and that is what we are looking for in 
this block grant on this school lunch program.
  Now, many speakers have already indicated today that our program 
provides 4.5 percent more nationally for this program each year over 
the next few years. But I want to, as we have talked about this program 
in very general ways, we have not been specific enough on how the 
program really works. And I want to take a moment this afternoon to 
talk about that.
  First of all, in a school lunch program in America today, there are 
three basic programs. First of all, there are those children who 
receive free lunches, free breakfast and free snacks, and they receive 
it because they are somewhere between 135 percent and 185 percent of 
the poverty level, and they should receive free food because they are 
not going to get a nutritious meal anywhere else and our program is 
going to see to it that they continue to receive it.
  Then the second group of students, in my home State of Kentucky, the 
average meal at lunch time on the school lunch program costs $1.60 
approximately. And this second group, they pay 40 cents for that lunch.
  Now, the Federal Government each month writes the local school board 
or school nutrition program a check. For those students who paid zero 
for their lunch, the Federal Government writes a check for $1.60 for 
every meal served, and by the way, 25 million meals are served around 
this country everyday. And for those students who paid 40 cents, the 
government writes a check each month for $1.20 to the local school 
program.
  Now, there is another group of students and those are students who 
belong to their parents, may be doctors, may be lawyers, may be 
businessmen, coal operators, coal miners, but they can afford to pay 
for their lunch and they pay $1.20, still 40 cents below the cost of 
the lunch. And then on top of this--the Federal Government writing a 
check for the balance between 40 cents and $1.20, we also sent an 
additional 17 cents for all meals served.
  So all I am saying is that we can provide a program where the wealthy 
children in this country pay their full share and we can benefit more 
poorer children, provide better nourishment, more nutrition, and I 
think that the entire country will benefit from this innovative 
approach to the school lunch program.


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