[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 52 (Tuesday, March 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1430
                   LET US KEEP THE FREE LUNCH PROGRAM

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday morning I went to Hawthorne 
School in Seattle and talked to the whole student body, 650 squirming 
kids, all of whom had taken a paper dinner plate and written a note to 
me about the school lunch program. The kids actually know what is 
happening. In Seattle, 47 percent of the students take part in the 
reduced or free lunch program. There were almost 430,000 lunches served 
last year.
  In the next school year, with the cuts in this bill we are going to 
deal with over the next couple of days, Seattle will lose $654,000. 
Now, that means the State legislature has got to pick up that amount. 
Some of my colleagues in my delegation pushed through an amendment that 
says it takes 60 percent to raise the taxes in the State of Washington. 
So how are you going to get that through?
  But even more amazing, I picked up the Seattle paper, and one of my 
colleagues says we are going to save money by cutting regulations like 
that useless regulation that requires the schools to monitor the 
temperature of the milk. It is as though the Members on the other side 
never heard of the germ theory.
  The reason you have cool milk being is to keep kids from getting 
stick.
  Vote against this bill.

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