[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 57 (Thursday, April 19, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E584-E585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     PROTECTING AMERICAN BABIES FROM THE SCOURGE OF THE REPUBLICAN 
                               PLUTOCRACY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHELIA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 19, 2012

  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening because 
this House Majority seeks to play Freddy Krueger with our social safety 
net, attacking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, or 
food stamps, and ripping families to shreds, under the guise of budget 
cutting.
  This program is our most important anti-hunger program, with over 46 
million Americans in more than 21 million households relying on it to 
help feed themselves and their families
  The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP is the 
cornerstone of the Nation's nutrition assistance safety net. SNAP 
touches the lives of over one in seven Americans. Indeed you could say 
that SNAP saves lives.
  Everyone's life is not as simple as some on the other side would have 
us believe--every person who is homeless cannot be fixed with magic 
dust and self-help policy prescriptions. Life is complicated and 
fraught with danger and uncertainty.
  Lucky are many of us who go home to warm shelter, food, and family. 
There, but for the grace of God go I.
  SNAP benefits are available to most people who meet the financial 
requirements, and the program serves a broad spectrum of low income 
people. In Fiscal Year 2010, SNAP provided about $5.4 billion dollars 
in food benefits to a monthly average of over 3.6 million people in 
Texas.
  The program served 55 percent of those eligible for benefits in Texas 
in 2008. SNAP also has an economic multiplier effect with every $5 in 
new SNAP benefits generating as much as $9 in total economic activity.
  It is a proven fact Mr. Speaker that people who receive SNAP benefits 
put them to almost immediate use. SNAP beneficiaries are not converting 
their benefits into convertible bonds or stock options. They spend and 
help the economy along the way.
  The Ryan Republican Budget would force SNAP into an inadequate State-
by-State block program. Such a breakdown would make SNAP static and 
unable to react to a changing economy. This is not an example of a 
sensible ordering of the fiscal priorities.
  When times are tough, SNAP expands to bring assistance where needed. 
And as the economy improves, SNAP shrinks in size as families are 
better able to provide for themselves. A static program would not be 
able to react to such economic changes and Americans would suffer.
  The Republican Budget also is asking for SNAP recipients' aid to be 
'contingent on work or job training.' SNAP does help many people who 
are unemployed or underemployed to make ends meet. Let's not make our 
fiscal and economic policies punitive towards the people who need us 
most.
  But it also helps families with children, the elderly and the 
disabled. SNAP was created to respond to the economic climate and help 
the most vulnerable among us, including but not limited to those that 
have lost their job, avoid hunger.
  In my district, the Texas 18th, more than 190,000 people live below 
the poverty line. Additionally, a study conducted in August 2011 by the 
Food Research and Action Center ranked the 18th Congressional District 
as having the 33rd highest rate of food hardship in households with 
children.
  According to the Texas Food Bank Network and Baylor University's 
Texas Hunger Initiative, 700,000 families in Harris County, Texas 
struggle to provide enough food for their families.
  In 2010, there were 46.2 million Americans living in poverty 
nationwide. According to the 2010 Federal poverty threshold, determined 
by the U.S. Census, a family of four is considered impoverished if they 
are living on less than $22,314 per year.
  The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that there are currently 5.6 
million Texans living in poverty, 2.2 million of them children, and 
that 17.4 percent of households in the State struggle with food 
insecurity.
  I am committed to preserving essential programs aimed at combating 
poverty, like the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program, SNAP, that fed 
3.9 million residents of Texas in April 2011, or the Women, Infants, 
and Children, WIC, Program that provides nutritious food to more than 
990,000 mothers and children in my home State.
  SNAP kept more than 5 million people out of poverty in 2010 in 
addition to helping feed millions more who were already below the 
poverty line. About three-quarters of the families aided by the program 
have children. More than a quarter of the families include seniors or 
people with disabilities.
  The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, provides 
benefits to low-income, eligible households on an electronic benefit 
transfer, EBT, card; benefits can then be exchanged for foods at 
authorized retailers. SNAP reaches a large share of low-income 
households. In November 2011, there were 46 million persons in 22 
million households benefitting from SNAP.
  Federal SNAP law provides two basic pathways for financial 
eligibility to the program:
  (1) meeting federal eligibility requirements, or (2) being 
automatically or ``categorically'' eligible for SNAP based on being 
eligible for or receiving benefits from other specified low-income 
assistance programs. Categorical eligibility eliminated the requirement 
that households who already met financial eligibility rules in one 
specified low-income program go through another financial eligibility 
determination in SNAP.
  In its traditional form, categorical eligibility conveys SNAP 
eligibility through the receipt of cash assistance from Supplemental 
Security Income, SSI, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 
TANF, block grant, or State-run General Assistance, GA, programs.

[[Page E585]]

  However, since the 1996 welfare reform law, States have been able to 
expand categorical eligibility beyond its traditional bounds. That law 
created TANF to replace the Aid to Families with Dependent Children, 
AFDC, program, which was a traditional cash assistance program. TANF is 
a broad-purpose block grant that finances a wide range of social and 
human services.
  TANF gives States flexibility in meeting its goals, resulting in a 
wide variation of benefits and services offered among the States. SNAP 
allows States to convey categorical eligibility based on receipt of a 
TANF ``benefit,'' not just TANF cash welfare. This provides States with 
the ability to convey categorical eligibility based on a wide range of 
benefits and services. TANF benefits other than cash assistance 
typically are available to a broader range of households and at higher 
levels of income than are TANF cash assistance benefits.
  In total, 43 jurisdictions have implemented what the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture, USDA, has called ``broad-based'' categorical 
eligibility. These jurisdictions generally make all households with 
incomes below a State-determined income threshold eligible for SNAP. 
States do this by providing households with a low-cost TANF-funded 
benefit or service such as a brochure or referral to an ``800'' number 
telephone hotline.
  There are varying income eligibility thresholds within States that 
convey ``broad-based'' categorical eligibility, though no State has a 
gross income limit above 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. 
In all but three of these jurisdictions, there is no asset test 
required for SNAP eligibility. Categorically eligible families bypass 
the regular SNAP asset limits.
  However, their net incomes (income after deductions for expenses) 
must still be low enough to qualify for a SNAP benefit. That is, it is 
possible to be categorically eligible for SNAP but have net income too 
high to actually receive a benefit. The exception to this is one- or 
two-person households that would still receive the minimum benefit.
  During the decade of the 2000s, there were a number of proposals to 
restrict categorical eligibility based on receipt of TANF benefits. 
These proposals would have limited TANF-based categorical assistance to 
households receiving TANF-funded cash assistance. The proposal was made 
by the Bush Administration in its farm bill proposals and several 
budget submissions. It passed the House in a budget reconciliation bill 
in 2005 but was not part of that year's final reconciliation package, 
the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109 171).
  Mr. Speaker, let's not punish those in need any longer! Help the 
poor--don't show the dark side of America.

                          ____________________