[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3533-H3534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 MORE FACTS ON CHILD NUTRITION PROGRAMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Myrick] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, if you watched TV lately, read a magazine 
or a newspaper, surely you have seen photographs of Democrats 
surrounding themselves with children and claiming that Republicans are 
out to cut school lunches and be cruel and mean to little kids.
  Mr. Speaker, the policy of this historic Chamber should be set based 
on the fact they are not on photo ops that make one party look like 
they love children more than the other. The American people are smarter 
than that, and I know they can see through it.
  Between 1962 and 1992 welfare spending increased by over 900 percent, 
while the poverty rate only dropped less than 5 percent, and 
illegitimacy has increased over 400 percent.
  I ask you, is that progress? My mom always told me you do not get 
something for nothing. But in this case, after spending $5 trillion, we 
have got just that. Nothing.
  I do not understand, why are the Democrats defending a system that 
has literally enslaved its recipients into a cycle of dependency? If 
Democrats feel so strongly about welfare reform, why did they not do 
something about it during the 40 years they controlled this House?
  The Republicans are talking heat right now, but it is because we are 
picking up the mess left behind by the failed welfare state. But that 
is OK. It takes leadership to make hard choices.
  The current welfare system should be arrested for entrapment, because 
it traps its recipients in a web of dependency.
  Listen to the following facts: There are 5 million families with 9.6 
million children on AFDC right now, and more than one-half of those 
families remain on AFDC for more than 10 years. Of the 5 million 
families receiving that help, only 20,000 people work, and children 
born out of wedlock have three times greater chance of being on welfare 
when they grow up.
  You know, we are hearing a lot of talk right now about Head Start and 
WIC also. Well, not one penny is being withheld from Head Start, and as 
for WIC, this rescissions bill merely recouped $25 million out of the 
$125 million the programs was unable to spend in the previous fiscal 
year.
  Our bill does not take a single person off the WIC rolls and leaves 
in place the $260 million increase for the program in fiscal 1995.

                              {time}  2100

  And the School Nutrition Block Grant Program actually grows at a 4.5 
percent rate. Over 5 years that is $1 billion more than is currently 
being spent.
  As a former mayor, I spent a lot of time with programs to help people 
get out of the dependency cycle and learn to help themselves. My 
experience has taught me that people want their self-respect and their 
dignity restored, and the current system does not do that. In fact, it 
works against that goal. I trust the American people can see through 
the smoke screens and deception that we have heard here tonight from 
the other side.
  Mr. Speaker, I am finished.
  Mr. OLVER. Would the gentlewoman from North Carolina yield?
  Mrs. MYRICK. Yes, I will yield.
  Mr. OLVER. Yes, thank, you very much.
  I recognize that the gentlewoman and I both serve on the Budget 
Committee, and the Budget Committee has had to deal with scoring the 
items that 
[[Page H3534]] we are talking about here tonight and that the 
gentlewoman has just finished speaking about.
  The two nutrition programs that the gentlewoman has spoken of show 
savings by your own party's count and by the Congressional Budget 
Office of $6.6 billion over the next 5 years. That is the school-based 
nutrition program and the family nutrition program. How can you be 
claiming savings on those programs if in fact there has not been 
something cut?
  Mrs. MYRICK. We are talking about, what you are talking about, the 
only thing that has been cut is the increases that were requested that 
are not being increases in the same point.
  Mr. OLVER. How can you get savings if you have not cut something?
  Mr. HOKE. Would the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. MYRICK. Yes.
  Mr. HOKE. You get savings when you are using a baseline that is phony 
to begin with and you define savings as being a cut from an inflated 
number in the first place.
  The fact is that we are going from some $6.7 billion a year up to 
come $7.8 billion a year in the year 2000. That is clearly an increase 
in spending. Only in Washington.


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