[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 18, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H5592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             END HUNGER NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, although this hall is empty, there are a 
lot of people watching it, and I wonder how many of them have ever 
actually gone hungry. How many of the people watching this have had to 
go without a meal so their kids could eat? How many have had to wonder 
how they'll get through a summer without subsidized school lunches? 
It's easy to talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps when 
you've had designer shoes on your whole life.
  Tomorrow, we will be voting on whether or not to cut $40 billion from 
SNAP. That's a nutrition program for people who do not have access to 
adequate nutrition. It's a program that helps one out of seven 
Americans to put food on the table. If this seems familiar, it's 
because it is familiar. Republicans tried just exactly this before the 
August recess, a couple of months ago, and not surprisingly, for the 
most unproductive Congress in decades, this bill had to be pulled at 
the last minute because of a lack of support. Even some of the 
Republicans saw it was too much.
  Anyone who has been paying attention knows that symbolic votes to 
nowhere are the bread and butter for this Congress, but the Republicans 
couldn't even get their own support on the bill--$20 billion of cuts 
that primarily help children and the elderly wasn't enough for them. 
They had to hurt people more, so here we are again with a new, improved 
plan that doubles the cuts to $40 billion. On top of making 2 million 
people ineligible for benefits, they are also going to take away our 
States' ability to provide temporary benefits in times of high 
unemployment. As a result, the CBO predicts that this will add an 
additional 1.8 million hungry Americans to the ``ineligible'' list.
  Why are we attempting to inflict another needless wound on the 
working poor?
  Republicans will tell you that the program has grown too much over 
the last few years, as though the need for food stamps were unrelated 
to a dragging economy. They see no connection between the economy and 
the fact that people don't have food. That's exactly what the program 
was designed to do--quickly help people who are in need. When 
unemployment is high and people can't pay their bills, that's exactly 
the time they need the SNAP program. Caseloads rose dramatically when 
the recession hit. We laid off 700,000 people a month in 2007, but that 
growth has also slowed as the economy has recovered slowly. The CBO 
projects that, in just a few years, SNAP spending will be back down to 
1995 levels as a share of the GDP, and since it's shrinking on its own, 
it isn't adding to the long-term deficit problems.
  The rhetoric is simply empty and stupid. Conservatives can try and 
push this tired welfare abuse narrative. It's a talking point. Every 
time they come out here, ``Welfare abuse. Welfare abuse. People are 
getting money for food. That's welfare abuse,'' but as usual, the 
reality is not in their corner. Studies show that food assistance has 
some of the lowest rates of fraud of any benefit program. If you go to 
one of those food banks and talk to the people who are there, you'll 
find some surprising people there, people who thought they would never 
have to go there, but they are short on money and can't feed their 
kids, so they're getting some money.
  So I ask you again: Why are we doing this--wasting time to satisfy 
the furthest right-wing of the Republican Party?
  We are again catering to a fringe agenda thought up by partisans who 
are obsessed with the deficit bogeyman. That bogeyman has been roaming 
around here for 4 years. ``We're going to have a terrible collapse. 
We're going to have inflation. We're going to have terrible things.'' 
It has never happened. The President has done a miraculous job in 
keeping us on an upward track in spite of the resistance of the other 
side. What it does is it makes it harder for 4 million people to put 
food on the table.
  So be it. That's their attitude. I'm in. At least they won't risk 
facing a primary in the next election. They are all worried about 
somebody further on the right. We've already got one Member over here, 
Mr. Speaker, who is worried about somebody coming from the right, and 
he's about the furthest right I can imagine on the floor.
  Senate Democrats and Republicans appointed conferees to negotiate a 
farm bill back at the beginning of August. Quit worrying about scoring 
points with the Heritage Foundation, and let's focus on the American 
family and vote this bill down.

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