[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 162 (Thursday, October 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15360-S15361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            LUNCH OF STONES

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today on Capitol Hill a number of 
religious organizations concerned with hunger in the United States are 
gathering to highlight what I believe is one of the great injustices 
being perpetrated in the name of welfare reform in this Congress.
  Most of my colleagues, I believe, had the best of intentions when 
they voted for H.R. 4, the welfare reform package. But I am very 
concerned with the impact of the final welfare reform package on the 
nutritional safety net for children, families, and senior citizens. 
Quite simply, under either the House or Senate versions of this bill, 
more children will go hungry.
  The majority of the savings in the Senate version of welfare reform 
have come out of nutrition programs, whose main beneficiaries are 
children. H.R. 4 contains a little bit of reform. But even the Senate 
version contains a whole lot of cuts--more than $30 billion in total 
cuts, including more than $20 billion in reduced nutrition benefits to 
children alone. Less than one-half of 1 percent of the bill's savings 
come from antifraud provisions, according to CBO estimates. Over half 
of the savings come from across-the-board cuts, and another 12 percent 
of the savings come from households with high utility costs.
  Under the Senate bill, by 2002, a working-poor family of four 
supported by a full-time minimum wage worker would lose $324 a year in 
food stamp benefits from the across-the-board benefit reductions, 
according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. An elderly SSI 
recipient, typically a poor woman living alone, would lose $228 a 
year--that's a 32-percent reduction.
  The Senate bill also contains an optional block grant that will allow 
States to cancel the national nutritional safety net, divert funds away 
from food, and slash benefits during a recession.
  Wrongheaded as it is, however, the Senate version is actually 
preferable in many ways to the House version of H.R. 4. The House bill 
repeals school lunches, school breakfasts, WIC, the Child and Adult 
Care Food Program, and other programs for children. These are among the 
great success stories of public policy in the 20th century. 
Conservative House Republicans seem to say, ``If it works--but it does 
not fit our ideology--break it.'' I am pleased that many moderates of 
both parties are rebelling against this position.
  The House bill would replace real food with junk food in school 
cafeterias. It would reduce food stamp benefits so they no longer pay 
for a decent diet. It would end scientifically based nutritional 
supplements for pregnant women. It would cancel the guarantee of free 
meals for poor schoolchildren.
  This is bad public policy, and it is immoral. If we are going to turn 
school lunches into junk-food bonanzas and 

[[Page S 15361]]
shrivel food stamps down to a meaningless few pennies per meal, we 
might as well feed our children stones.
  Today, the Christian citizens' group Bread for the World and other 
religious and antihunger groups are gathering on Capitol Hill to ponder 
Jesus' question in the New Testament (Matthew 7:9): ``Is there anyone 
among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?'' To 
symbolize this concern, they are holding a ``lunch of stones.'' Members 
of these groups, which include the Salvation Army, the Second Harvest 
National Network of Food Banks, Lutheran Social Services, the NETWORK 
Catholic social justice lobby, and other national religious and 
charitable leaders, will be visiting offices on Capitol Hill. These 
groups represent tens of thousands of concerned citizens who donate 
their time and effort to improving the diet and health of children, 
families, and senior citizens.
  These dedicated citizens and I urge Members of this Congress to 
protect the national nutritional safety net that Republicans and 
Democrats together have constructed over the last 25 years. The safety 
net ensures that, even during recessions and natural disasters, 
children in need receive food assistance so they do not go hungry. I 
urge my colleagues to listen carefully to the concerns voiced in the 
``lunch of stones.''
  I also want to caution my colleagues against some of the phony 
arguments being bandied about on this topic. None of these gigantic 
cuts will reform welfare. And these cuts are not necessary to balance 
the budget--the President has put forward a plan to balance the budget 
without such gigantic cuts in nutrition programs. I believe these cuts 
are, quite simply, mistakes and errors in judgment. Right now there is 
still time to correct these errors, before more children must go 
hungry.

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