[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   DO NOT CHANGE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER Pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, all of us agree the welfare system 
needs major changes, but I have not met anybody in my district, 
students parents, teachers, school administrators, cafeteria workers, 
that think that we need to radically change the school lunch program.
  Earlier this week I visited Tennyson Elementary School in Sheffield 
Lake, OH, east of where I live in Lorain County. I was taken around 
this wonderful little school by a couple of young men, 9-year-olds, 
third graders, named Will Emery and Zach Russell. I also met with 
Jennifer, Kelly, and Sarah Ward, three sisters at the school, and lots 
of other children; Mrs. Urmston, the principal, some people on the 
school board, administrators, and others.
  It is clear. Every one of them said:

       Do not mess with the school lunch program. It works. We do 
     not want any changes in the school lunch program.

  Unfortunately, Republicans in this radical proposal do not see it the 
same way in their move toward their extremism.
                              {time}  2045

  I would like to put on this board, add to this board what the school 
lunch cuts will mean in Ohio, another 13,400 children will lose their 
school lunches as a result of this Republican extremism.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. HOKE. Have you seen this CRS report?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I have seen it. Every speaker that comes up uses 
the CRS report.
  Mr. HOKE. We are both from Ohio. We both care about Ohio. It shows 
that there is an increase in funding for school nutrition programs, 
school lunch, $11,500,000, 1996 over 1995. Why are we not on the same 
page with this?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Every teacher, every PTA, every group out there, 
every organization, every individual that knows about this understands 
the mean-spiritedness of these cuts. You claim $7 billion in savings on 
the one hand so you can score for your tax cuts for your wealthiest 
constituents on the west side of Cleveland, and yet, on the other hand, 
you are saying ``we are not making any cuts.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman would from New York [Ms. 
Slaughter].
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to get in 
on this a little bit, too. The fact of the matter is that the block 
grant program, with some increase, is really the amount of children 
right now in the State that requires nutritional help. If there are 
more, as one of my colleagues has said earlier, it is like counting up 
to 100 and saying the rest of you are out of luck.
  It does not take into account any recession. It does not take into 
account the fact that 20 percent of that block grant can be used for 
anything in the world that the State wants to use it for, even to build 
a bridge, if they like.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. If the economy goes bad in a certain area, there 
are a lot of parents laid off, those school lunches will not be 
increased for those kids.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Correct. There is nothing more coming from here. 
Nothing more will come from here. The States, there is nothing in the 
world to make the States do anything, including putting people to work. 
As a matter of fact, the Republican head of the Congressional Budget 
Office said just today that there was not a single state in the union 
that was going to meet the goal of putting people to work that is in 
this contract. That is the Republican CBO director. That is the word we 
got from him today.
  We are trying, on our side, to get people back to work. We do not 
think that just after the amount of time that you can spend on welfare 
is up and you are thrown out in the street, we do not consider that 
success. We look at success in getting somebody to a job that they 
badly need and they badly want.
  The Republican bill does not do any of that. It simply gives you the 
amount of time. If there are more children that need food than the 
block grant allows for, tough.
  Now, if we can feed children in Somalia, we can feed people in the 
United States.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio, after I stick this on New 
York, 7800 children in my district alone will go without lunch.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, we will see, instead of 
running the School Lunch Program the way it has been run for 49 years 
to the satisfaction of almost every one in this country, we will turn 
it over to 50 State bureaucracies.
  We will lose the power buying, if you will, and some of the savings 
that way, particularly in the WIC program, where infant formula will 
cost as much as $1 billion more, several groups have estimated, because 
we will lose competitive bidding. We will end up in a situation where 
we have programs that work and instead we may turn them into programs 
that do not work.
  If something is working, certainly the welfare needs reform, but 
something like the School Lunch Program standing alone works. I see no 
reason to change it.


                          ____________________