[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3424-H3425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                OPPOSITION TO SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM CUTS

  (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the Members of this body to 
seriously consider how they might be undermining the future or our 
children, and, as a consequence, the future of this country. Children 
are our future, it is often said. Yet, as I hear those words, I also 
sense their hollowness. Why, are we so intent on sabotaging their 
welfare in our haste to enact changes? At best it is a tenuous safety 
net that we have built for so many of our children. And now we are 
proposing to make drastic cuts in the most basic segment of this net.
  The School Lunch Program which the Republican bill is proposing to 
fold into a block grant is slated to be cut. I speak of real cuts that 
await hungry children. Yet, I wonder how many Members of this body have 
taken the time to look in the faces of these children or sat with them 
in a school cafeteria and watched them eat? I ask myself how many would 
have the gall to continue to insinuate the School Lunch Program will be 
increased when in fact it is slated to be drastically cut.
  Again, I urge you to oppose this most frontal attack on the Nation's 
future.
                      [[Page H3425]] {time}  1045
                      THE WELFARE SYSTEM IS BROKEN

  (Mr. TALENT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, Josef Stalin said, ``The death of a million 
men is a statistic. The death of one man is a tragedy.'' Let us talk 
about the death, then, of one boy, Eric Morse. In 1994 Eric lived in a 
public housing project in Chicago, which is where he was raised. He was 
a good boy. Two older boys tried to get him to steal candy, and he 
refused to do it. So they took him up to a 14th floor window in the 
public housing project, and they threw him out, despite his screams and 
the screams of his brother.
  Mr. Speaker, there were no dads there to help. There was nobody there 
to put a stop to it. And the reason is that our welfare system has over 
the last generation systematically destroyed the families and the 
incentives of low-income Americans. Probably in Eric's neighborhood, 4 
out of 5 of the kids born each year are born out of wedlock.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not have to do that. Do not believe people who 
suggest that our choice is between this existing system, which is an 
engine of destruction for the families and the opportunity of the poor, 
and doing nothing. We can help them with a system that is based on work 
and family and responsibility. What Americans have always believed in. 
That is what this bill is about. That is what we are trying to do. I 
hope every Member of the House will put partisanship aside and consider 
supporting it.

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