[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3532-H3533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               FACTS CONCERNING CHILD NUTRITION PROGRAMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I am sure the people who are following these 
proceedings are really at a loss to figure out which side of this aisle 
is telling the truth. I am not sure my 5 minutes here will convince 
anyone one way or the other.
  I would like to lay out a few of the facts which my friends on the 
Republican side just do not want to point to. The fact is if you took 
the time to go speak to a local school principal in your hometown or 
perhaps one of the people who runs the local school lunch program, they 
would tell you, as we have all heard on the Democratic side of the 
aisle, that the Republican idea is a very, very bad idea
  You would think, if the Republican position was so good and was going 
to give this authority to the local school districts and to the States, 
these people would be jumping up and down, and they are not. And do you 
know why? Because fundamentally what the Republicans are offering them 
is not enough money to do the job.
  The Republican plan, yes, does provide additional funds in years to 
come. Let us concede that point. They just do not provide enough money, 
because we 
[[Page H3533]] know as sure as God made green apples that each year the 
cost of food is going to go up a little bit in each of our school lunch 
programs. We know there will be more kids enrolled in school, and we 
know, God forbid, if we have a recession, there will be more families 
that will be eligible for school lunch.
  The Republicans do not build any of those possibilities into their 
block grant scheme. They assume none of that is ever going to occur. 
They think the cost of food, the increased number of kids, and the 
possibility of recession, the most that could ever increase the program 
in any given year is 4\1/2\ percent. That is it.
  Then they say to the school districts, ``Listen, If that is not 
enough, you find a way to economize. You finds a way to cut costs.''
  Do you know what principals tell me at these schools they are going 
to have to do? They are either going to have to cut the money that they 
put into classrooms, teachers, computers and microscopes and the like 
or basically are going to have cut kids off the school lunch program.
  That really gets to the bottom line here. Is it not curious when the 
Republicans finally got in the majority, the first place they turned to 
start cutting was not waste, fraud, and abuse? The were, in fact, on 
the floor of the House just a couple of weeks ago asking us for $40 
billion more for Star Wars, $40 billion for that loony idea under 
President Reagan that might have made some sense when the Soviet Union 
was a powerful missile threat to the United States, but does not make 
sense anymore. They wanted $40 billion more for Star Wars. They lost 
it, thank goodness. Then they turned around and said, ``We will tell 
you how we will save some money. We will cut school lunches.'' School 
lunches? Do you remember reading, I sure do not, about scandals and 
waste and abuse in school lunches? You do not hear about it. The reason 
you do not is it is being run by your local school districts, your 
local principals, the folks who work for them in the cafeteria. It is a 
good program. It is a program that most of us saw when we were growing 
up as a way to have a good meal each day when we went to school, and 
unfortunately for a lot of kids today, it is the best meal of the day. 
We even offer a little breakfast to the school lunch program, and the 
Republicans are willing to cut that, too. They think it is unnecessary. 
Maybe it is a frill they can do away with.
  You ought to see some of the kids I have seen. You ought to talk to 
some of the teachers about kids who get to school who do not get enough 
to eat and what their school day starts out like. It is not very 
pretty.
  My friends on the Republican side turn first to school lunch 
programs, which I think frankly has been a big embarrassment to them to 
try to explain across America. They you ask the bottom line, surely, 
there must be something critically important they would cut America's 
school lunches for, it really must be the highest possible priority.
  Well, what is it the Republicans want to cut school lunches for? Why 
do they want to cut the food available to kids in schools? So they can 
pay for a tax cut, a tax cut for these same families? Well, a little 
bit of it, sure. But the most of the money that goes in that tax cut 
goes to the wealthiest people in this country. The privileged few will 
get the break from the Republican tax cuts. It is the kids of working 
families, it is the kids of middle-class families that will find their 
school lunches being cut.
  I went into Quincy, IL, and sat down with a group of mothers and 
their kids and talked about the Republican plan. Mothers came forward 
to me and said, ``Congressman, let me tell you my story. I am not on 
welfare.'' This mother said, ``I am working for a living.'' One of them 
said, ``I am working two jobs.'' Another works 45 hours a week at fast 
food. They had their kids in day care. They are doing their darndest to 
stay off welfare. We gave them a little helping hand. You know what it 
is? We help pay for the meal at the day care home which the Republicans 
would cut.
  Now, is that the way to end welfare in America, to heap more expenses 
on working families who are struggling every single day to make ends 
meet? I do not think so.
  Let me offer a helping hand, whether it is the WIC program for the 
new mother, whether it is the day care center lunch or the school 
lunch, and make sure those struggling families, those working families 
trying to make ends meet get a helping hand to stay off of welfare and 
move in the right direction, the right family values, the right kind of 
personal responsibility.
  We have to resist the Republican plan. It does nothing but cut the 
most vulnerable people in America. You cannot have a strong America 
without strong kids and strong families.


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