[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 124 (Thursday, September 19, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5669-H5684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 687, SOUTHEAST ARIZONA LAND
EXCHANGE AND CONSERVATION ACT OF 2013; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF
H.R. 1526, RESTORING HEALTHY FORESTS FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES ACT;
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3102, NUTRITION REFORM AND WORK
OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 2013; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 351 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 351
Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule
XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of
the bill (H.R. 687) to facilitate the efficient extraction of
mineral resources in southeast Arizona by authorizing and
directing an exchange of Federal and non-Federal land, and
for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be
dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of
the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the
bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Natural Resources. After general debate the bill
shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule.
It shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the
purpose of amendment under the five-minute rule the amendment
in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on
Natural Resources now printed in the bill. The committee
amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered
as read. All points of order against the committee amendment
in the nature of a substitute are waived. No amendment to the
committee amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be in
order except those printed in part A of the report of the
Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such
amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the
report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the
report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for
the time specified in the report equally divided and
controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be
subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand
for division of the question in the House or in the Committee
of the Whole. All points of order against such amendments are
waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for
amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the
House with such amendments as may have been adopted. Any
Member may demand a separate vote in the House on any
amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole to the bill
or to the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute.
The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the
bill and amendments thereto to final passage without
intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or
without instructions.
Sec. 2. At any time after the adoption of this resolution
the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII,
declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole
House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill
(H.R. 1526) to restore employment and educational
opportunities in, and improve the economic stability of,
counties containing National Forest System land, while also
reducing Forest Service management costs, by ensuring that
such counties have a dependable source of revenue from
National Forest System land, to provide a temporary extension
of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination
Act of 2000, and for other purposes. The first reading of the
bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against
consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be
confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally
divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Natural Resources. After general
debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the
five-minute rule. In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a
substitute recommended by the Committee on Natural Resources,
an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the
text of Rules Committee Print 113-21, modified by the
amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on
Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as
adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The
bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill
for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute
rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order
against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. No
further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order
except those printed in part C of the report of the Committee
on Rules. Each such further amendment may be offered only in
the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a
Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read,
shall be debatable for the time specified in the report
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an
opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be
subject to a demand for division of the question in the House
or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against
such further amendments are waived. At the conclusion of
consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall
rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such
further amendments as may have been adopted. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as
amended, and any further amendment thereto to final passage
without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with
or without instructions.
Sec. 3. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in
order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3102) to amend
the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008; and for other purposes.
All points of order against consideration of the bill are
waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of
order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on
any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening
motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Agriculture; and (2) one motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 1
hour.
{time} 1245
Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And congratulations
to the Clerk for the long reading of the rule.
For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to
the gentleman from Worcester, Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my dear
friend--
[[Page H5670]]
and I spent a lot of time with him yesterday--pending which I yield
myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this
resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
General Leave
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SESSIONS. House Resolution 351 provides for a structured rule for
consideration of H.R. 687 and H.R. 1526, and provides a closed rule for
consideration of H.R. 3102.
Mr. Speaker, the first of these bills is H.R. 687, the Southeast
Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act. This bill permits a land
conveyance which will lead to the development of important copper
deposits in Arizona that is estimated to create 3,700 jobs and $60
billion worth of economic opportunity. That is a great reason to be on
the floor on behalf of the Republican Party of the United States of
America.
We are on the floor today because people in Arizona, on a bipartisan
basis, have asked that their elected representatives, on a bipartisan
basis, come to the United States Government and ask for swapping lands
that will result in 3,700 American jobs--probably about 3,700 jobs in
Arizona--and up to $60 billion worth of economic opportunity. What a
great reason for Paul Gosar and Doc Hastings, the chairman of the
Natural Resources Committee, to approach the Rules Committee about
getting that bill on the floor today.
We hear over and over and over and over about jobs and job creation
for the middle class. Well, let me tell you what, Mr. Speaker, 3,700
jobs for the middle class in Arizona and up to $60 billion worth of
economic opportunity are available to Members of Congress today where
they can make a decision about what they want to vote on. I would
submit to you the Republican Party is for those 3,700 middle class
jobs.
The second bill before us today is H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy
Forests for Healthy Communities Act. This legislation will improve the
health of our Nation's forests by promoting effective forest management
while simultaneously strengthening a timber sales revenue-sharing
program which is, once again, designed to allow rural communities to
benefit from their local natural resources.
I will go back and say it again. The reason why we are on the floor
today is that the Republican Party wants local, rural communities to
have a part of their cost sharing with the money that would come in to
help rural communities to benefit from what sits in their own back
yard, their own natural resources, which we as Republicans understand
is best admired and best taken care of when local people take care of
their own needs. Point two why the Republican Party is on the floor of
the House of Representatives today: for local rural communities.
The final bill considered in this rule is H.R. 3102, the Nutrition
Reform and Work Opportunity Act. This vital legislation reforms--and I
add the word ``reforms'' because it needs reform--reforms our Nation's
nutrition programs, saving taxpayers about $40 billion while
maintaining critical benefits to helping America's neediest families,
seniors, children, and veterans. H.R. 3102 reinforces our country's
commitment to those who cannot help themselves while working to prevent
waste, fraud, and abuse.
What is the waste, fraud, and abuse? It is many, many people who
should not be receiving these needy items--that should be reserved for
those who need it the most--people who are able-bodied; and we should
not extend those benefits to people who actually can take care of
themselves.
So you're going to hear a robust argument today that will take
place--it took place for hours yesterday in the Rules Committee as we
considered amendments after amendments, ideas after ideas. Each and
every person, whether they be Republican or Democrat, were treated with
fairness and the opportunity to equally present their ideas with the
knowledge that there was a committee, the Rules Committee, on a
bipartisan basis, that was available and ready to engage each of those
Members on their ideas that are called amendments. That is why we are
on the floor of the House of Representatives today.
I urge my colleagues to support the rule--we will talk a little bit
more about it--and to support the underlying legislation. And of course
we will talk about that more during this hour.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Sessions), my friend, the chairman of the committee, for yielding
me the customary 30 minutes.
I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day in the people's House. Today, the
Republican leadership is bringing to the floor one of the most
heartless pieces of legislation I have ever seen, a bill to take food
away from some of our most vulnerable neighbors.
After a $20 billion cut was voted down by the House in June, the
Republican leadership has decided to double down on the cruelty with a
$40 billion cut. It is terrible policy wrapped in a terrible process.
This is a 109-page bill that would cut the SNAP program, cut billions
of dollars and make major changes to the way SNAP works; and there
hasn't been a single hearing, not a single markup. It didn't even go
through the Agriculture Committee. And today it's being brought to the
floor under a closed rule. It was just cooked up in the majority
leader's office as some sort of Heritage Foundation fever dream.
CBO says that the bill would cut 3.8 million low-income people from
SNAP in 2014 and millions more in the following years. These are some
of America's poorest adults, as well as many low-income children,
seniors, and families that work for low wages. Let me say that again,
Mr. Speaker, so there's no confusion. People who work but who don't
make enough to feed their families will be cut from this program.
The biggest cut affects millions of unemployed, childless adults who
live in areas of high unemployment. These are poor people. Many don't
have the skills or education they need to find a job. It is a group
whose average income is about $2,500 a year. And for most, SNAP is the
only government assistance that they receive.
Now, if that weren't bad enough, 210,000 children in these families
would also lose their free school meals; and 170,000 unemployed
veterans will lose their SNAP benefits as well. Let me repeat: 170,000
veterans will lose their benefits. These are the people who have served
our country. How can you do that?
Mr. Speaker, we are 45 years and a million miles away from the War on
Poverty. The Republican leadership has instead launched a war on poor
people.
This bill is not about reform. It is not about making SNAP a better,
stronger program.
Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to be poor in America. It is not a
glamorous life. It is a struggle just to make it through the day. The
average SNAP benefit is $1.50 per meal. Housing costs, transportation
costs, childcare costs, they all add up.
You know, fighting hunger used to be a bipartisan issue. Think of
people like Bob Dole and Bill Emerson. And I know that a lot of
Republicans--moderates and conservatives--are very nervous about this
bill. So I would say to them: don't do this. Please don't do this.
Don't go along with cutting food benefits to millions of struggling
families. Don't make hundreds of thousands of children and seniors and
veterans go hungry. Don't put the food banks and church pantries in
your districts into an even deeper hole. The people who rely on SNAP to
feed their families struggle every single day. Please don't make their
lives even harder. It is not too late. We do not need to pass this bill
in order to go to conference on the farm bill.
{time} 1300
I would urge my colleagues to search their consciences and to vote
against this bill.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who serves on the Natural
Resources Committee and the Budget
[[Page H5671]]
Committee, from Oak Grove, California.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman so much for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, listening to the debate on the other side, I think
there's a misunderstanding on the nutrition bill. It doesn't cut people
off from food stamps. What it does is simply ask that they either work,
look for work, or train for work while they're receiving these
benefits.
This is $80 billion a year. That's about $760 from the taxes of every
average family in America. I think that they have a right as a
condition of extending that aid to ask that those on it do everything
they can to get off of it.
I am here today to rise particularly in strong support of H.R. 1526
that this rule also brings to the floor, the Healthy Forest Restoration
Act.
I represent the communities of the Sierra Nevadas that have just been
devastated by the Yosemite Rim fire that has incinerated some 400
square miles of forestland.
Federal environmental regulations have forced an 80 percent drop in
timber harvests in this region over the past 30 years, despite urgent
warnings from foresters that the excess timber would either be carried
out or burned out. As the timber harvests have declined, the acreage
burned has increased contemporaneously and proportionately. The great
irony, of course, is that there is nothing more environmentally
devastating to a forest than a forest fire.
In addition to reporting out H.R. 1526 that restores sound forest
management practices in the future that will reduce or prevent such
catastrophes in the future, the rule makes in order emergency
amendments to deal with the aftermath of this fire.
An estimated 1 billion board feet of dead timber can be salvaged out
of the forest if, and only if, we act soon. Within a year, the timber
will become unsalvageable.
This measure sets aside the litigation that routinely delays these
salvage sales until the timer simple becomes worthless. This will mean
a surge of employment in the mountain communities that have been
devastated by this fire and a new stream of revenue for the Federal
Government that would otherwise be lost.
I want to thank the Rules Committee for acting on this imperative,
and I look forward to the debate and passage of the underlying
legislation.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to
the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the ranking member of the
Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this rule and the
bill made in order on this rule, H.R. 3102, which is just another
example of the Republican majority's misplaced priorities.
I have been working on this farm bill for nearly 4 years. From the
beginning, I've said that I think it is possible to find some middle
ground and to make reasonable, responsible reforms in nutrition
programs. Unfortunately, this bill is neither reasonable nor
responsible.
The House failed to pass the Agriculture Committee's bipartisan farm
bill because it was hijacked with partisan amendments on the floor,
amendments that are included in this bill that we are considering here
today. This bill goes even further by eliminating State-requested
waivers to exempt able-bodied adults without dependents in high
unemployment areas from SNAP's current work requirements.
To be clear, these waivers are granted only at the request of the
States. They are under no requirement to apply and may choose to opt
out in the future. There is a lot of hypocrisy coming from the other
side of the aisle here, because these waivers have been requested by
both Republican and Democratic Governors. In fact, a majority of the
Republican Governors have asked to waive these current work
requirements.
This notion that we have to pass this bill, as Mr. McGovern said, to
go to conference is not true. The House passed H.R. 2642, which can be
conferenced with the Senate, and there's no reason to pass this bill
here today other than to placate some people that want to make a point.
This bill isn't going anyplace in the Senate, the President wouldn't
sign it, so I don't know what we are doing.
In July, a broad coalition of more than 500 organizations expressed
their opposition to splitting this farm bill. Senator Bob Dole
expressed his opposition recently to doing it. In a letter to House
Members, the American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman
said:
We are quite concerned that without a workable nutrition
title, it will prove to be nearly impossible to adopt a bill
that can be successfully conferenced with the Senate's
version, approved by both the House and Senate, and signed by
the President.
All this bill is going to do is make our job harder, if not
impossible, to pass a new farm bill.
I strongly oppose this rule and the bill and urge my colleagues to
vote ``no.''
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I appreciate the gentleman from Minnesota coming down and giving us
his thoughts on what we are attempting to do today. The bottom line is
that what we are going to do is we are going to make natural and, I
believe, reasonable changes to the nutrition program that will help
sustain it. Rather than growing and growing and growing and growing the
amount of money that's necessary to sustain this, we are going to put
it into a perspective where it is available and ready for the neediest
of Americans, which is what the food stamp program really is all about.
In fact, we are here to make sure that when our great chairman of the
Agriculture Committee, Frank Lucas, goes to a conference with the
United States Senate that we give him a full portfolio of the thoughts
and ideas about the changes that we would make to the entire
agriculture bill. Chairman Lucas is one of the most awesome members of
our conference and who, yesterday, spent a number of hours with us, not
just to get us to understand what we are trying to do, but why we are
trying to do what we are doing. It means that we will arm him with the
available content to go to the conference with the Senate to make the
farm bill that includes the nutrition program even better and
sustainable.
I think the gentleman, Mr. McClintock, said it best, and that is that
what we are trying to do is to make sure that the neediest Americans
get what they want and need. But it simply and, I believe, carefully
says, where you're able-bodied and on food stamps, you have got to be
looking for work also. You have to make sure that you're a part of
trying to go and better your life, not using the food stamp program as
an alternative to the hard work which will help make you and perhaps
your family, but certainly your community and your country even
stronger. So it becomes an incentive to do exactly that.
Just like what we did in welfare reform in the early nineties where,
in welfare reform, jobs became a substitute and really a demand that
you needed to go look for a job, millions of people took us up on that
and bettered their life, that's what we are trying to do now. There are
still jobs available in America. There are still jobs available. They
might not be the job that you would want to stay in for the rest of
your life, but it means that you need to go and actively participate,
because there are those behind, so to speak, the program that are the
neediest of most Americans.
I will tell you that I understand some of those people, some of these
people that live within the district that I represent in Texas, but I
also understand them firsthand in dealing with disabled people and
families with disabled children and families with disabled adults.
Where a person cannot take care of themselves, we are not putting that
at risk at all. Where a person cannot take care of themselves and needs
the benefits of the community, in this case a nutrition program, we
need to make sure that there is more money that is available to them.
There was a discussion about the average cost not being very much,
and I think that's a true statement. We would like to increase the
money for more and better food, including fruits and vegetables and
other items, in the future, but the only way we can do this is if we
are aiming at the people who need it the most.
[[Page H5672]]
That's where this great Nation will continue. Not only through their
food banks that are available across the country because of local
people getting involved, but also the competition that comes from the
Federal Government to help work with them to better the lives, the
nutrition, of children and seniors and veterans and families that need
them the most. That's what this is trying to do to reform that program.
I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, Republican talking points aside, according
to CBO, this bill, if passed, will result in 3.8 million people losing
their benefits, including 170,000 veterans. That is shameful.
I appreciate the gentleman's concern about the waivers, but I remind
him that his Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has requested waivers on a
number of occasions because people haven't been able to find jobs in
his State of Texas. So if you've got a problem with the waivers, you
ought to talk to your own Governor.
At this point, I yield to the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Fudge) for a
unanimous consent request.
Ms. FUDGE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Adam, a disabled man from Ohio, a face of hunger in
America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
``There's been days when I have not had a good meal.''
Adam has been disabled his entire life. He lives on his own off of
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments and receives $136 a month
in food stamps.
``Where I live, I don't have a kitchen. I have a toaster oven and a
microwave. I try to make them (food stamps) last a month, but it's
really hard to do. I would say about three weeks or less, that's about
all they last. I do the very best I can to budget, but it's hard.
Everything's so expensive in the stores, you really can't gauge how
much you're going to spend.
``My mom told me not to work, because my check will get cut. And then
if they (Social Security) see me working, and I'm not making enough to
live on while I'm working, then I'm pretty much in the hole. And I
don't want to put myself in that position. And even though I'm on
benefits, it's only about $8,055 a year.
``I'm really happy for this place because it really helps. At the end
of the month when I don't have any food, or I need groceries, I can
come at the end of the month and get food. I always buy food first. I
don't ever want to run out, but sometimes I do run out of food, and
that's why I come here.
``It makes me feel depressed when I don't have anything to eat.''
Source: Ohio Association of Food Banks
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
O'Rourke) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record references to pages 1 through 4 of report S. 2201 from the U.S.
Census Bureau showing that 329 Active Duty military families at Fort
Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the
table.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota
(Mr. Ellison) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Dorothy, a grandmother from a State very near
Minnesota--South Dakota--and she represents the face of hunger. Here
she is with her family.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Minnesota?
There was no objection.
``I'm a descendent of Crazy Horse, and I live in a trailer on our
ancestral land in Wounded Knee. Life here in the winter is very hard.
Our water pump freezes, so we have to haul water from a half-mile away.
Cold air comes through the broken windows, and it's hard to heat the
trailer. Because we can't afford snow tires to drive over the five-foot
snowdrifts, I have to take the little money I have and pay someone $20
to drive me to the only grocery store on the reservation, 45 minutes
away.
``Many people here struggle like I do. There are lots of gangs,
violence and alcoholism and almost no jobs here. The moccasin factory
closed down. So did the fishhook factory. My husband used to be able to
take care of us, but not anymore.
``We are raising 7 grandchildren: 5 from my daughter, who died at 30
of cardiac arrest, and 2 from a daughter-in-law, who just left her kids
with us one night and never came back. Because I have the grandkids, I
get welfare and food stamps. Otherwise, I couldn't feed my family.
Buying food comes first. Then I pay for electricity, so we can cook
with the microwave and hot plate and run the space heaters to warm the
trailer.
``Food is so expensive on the reservation, and our food stamps only
last about two weeks. When they run out, I go out and sell beadwork
really cheap, just so I can continue to feed my family. But there
aren't many tourists in winter, so we eat lots of crackers (we call
them Indian potato chips) because they are filling and we won't be
hungry.
``Life on the reservation changed a lot since the buffalo are all but
gone. So many people on the reservation have replaced buffalo meat with
processed foods, and diabetes has become a big problem. I don't want to
have my limbs cut off, so I try to eat healthy. During the growing
season, I plant a vegetable garden with things I can store for the
winter. I'm learning a lot every year about how to take care of my
garden. The only thing I really have a problem with is that I can't
stop the grasshoppers from eating everything. This year they didn't eat
my squash, so we are eating a whole lot of squash soup.
``It upsets me that so many people on the reservation use their food
stamps to buy junk food instead of healthy food. I think that everyone
on the reservation should have a small garden to feed themselves and
eat healthy. I also think the government should bring the buffalo back.
When our people ate buffalo every day, we were strong.''
Source: Mazon
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from California
(Mrs. Capps) for a unanimous consent request.
Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Congressional Record the story of Rosemary. She is a grandmother from
Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a face of hunger today in the United
States of America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
Rosemary has full custody of her three grandchildren, whom she has
been caring for since her daughter passed away from cancer several
years ago. Rosemary used to work full-time in healthcare but has been
unable to work in recent years due to illness and family
responsibilities. She struggles financially to care for her
grandchildren. She sold her home and moved into a smaller apartment to
cut expenses but relies on SNAP to help feed her family. ``I'm used to
working, buying what I need. I'm not used to doing without and I didn't
want to accept it.'' She is very grateful for the assistance. Without
SNAP, her grandkids ``probably wouldn't have food to eat.''
Source: Share Our Strength
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey
(Mr. Pascrell) for a unanimous consent request.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
The Chair would advise Members that although a unanimous consent
request to insert remarks in debate may comprise a simple, declarative
statement of the Member's attitude toward the pending measure.
Embellishments beyond that standard constitute debate and can become an
imposition on the time of the Member who has yielded for that purpose.
The Chair will entertain as many requests to insert as may be
necessary to accommodate Members, but the Chair also must ask Members
to cooperate by confining such remarks to the proper form.
The gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Beatrize, a mother from Camden, New Jersey, a face
of hunger. This is her child.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New Jersey?
There was no objection.
Beatrize is a 24-year-old single mother of one young son. She is from
Camden, NJ and is a member of Witnesses to Hunger, a research and
advocacy project that is part of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities
at Drexel University.
Beatrize struggles to make ends meet while working 40 hours a week at
a convenience store. SNAP helps Beatrize makes ends meet because even
while working full-time she does
[[Page H5673]]
not make enough to keep food on the table. Beatrize dreams of earning
her surgical technologist certification but the work and cost of school
would put more strain on her household.
Source: Drexel University Center for Hunger-Free Communities
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms.
Kaptur) for a unanimous consent request.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Shellie, an unemployed mother with two children,
from Ohio, a face of hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
``Every single day, I get up and make the most of that day, because
that's what moms do.''
Shellie is currently living with her two teenage children in a hotel
room. They had to move out of the house they were renting after it was
condemned because of black mold.
``I feel sorry for my kids because times are harder now than they've
ever been. You know, I didn't have to live like this as a child. We
didn't live in hotel rooms. We never went without. And you know, my
kids are going without. At the end of the month, I have to tell them,
`all I have is dinner food,' because there's nothing to put on the
table for breakfast or lunch.''
``It's awful, disheartening. I feel like a complete loser right now,
to be honest. Because I can't do for my kids like I should be. I can't
provide for them like I'm used to providing. I try to look for work,
but I can't get hired anywhere. There's no jobs in Vermilion, there's
not.''
``I know Grace's Kitchen has been a blessing to me. We get a lot of
fresh fruit, we get breads. That's a treat, because we don't get fresh
fruit at home because it's so expensive. So when we have that the kids
are like `yeah, fruit, this is awesome! ''
``Trust me, America is very concerned about it [cuts to food stamps].
They do something like that, that's saying you don't care about your
children. Really? You run the country but you don't care about the kids
here? They're our future. They're our next presidents, they're our next
nurses, they're our next doctors, they're next. How dare you take from
them. It's not right. You've never known hunger, to take something away
like that. You've never been hungry.''
``If you'd ever been hungry you know you don't take away things like
that.''
Source: Ohio Association of Food Banks
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms.
Jackson Lee) for a unanimous consent request.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into
the Record the story of Melinda, a cancer survivor and single mother
from Texas, a face of hunger.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Texas?
There was no objection.
I felt like I pulled a muscle in my side. And one morning the pain
was just unbearable and I actually went to the hospital. Told my kids,
``It's nothing. We'll be in and out. I'm just going to get some
medicine for this.''
The breathing was so bad the doctors wanted to make sure that I
wasn't actually having a heart attack . . . So they did a scan on me.
That's when they told me that I had a tumor and somehow it collapsed my
lung. And that's when they told me I had lymphoma.
So I was actually in the hospital for two months.
[Melinda is now recovering and in remission. She lost her job and
struggles as a single mom to provide for her family.]
I would see people in the line and I would seem them using the food
stamps and I was just like ``man I wish that . . . that would help me
so much.''
[Melinda quickly started receiving SNAP benefits for her family of
four.]
It's all I've ever cared about is food on the table for my kids and
that's it. And that's exactly what--that's been taken care of. It helps
me out so much just knowing that's a cost that I don't have to worry
about.
You know when I was paying cash it was just a lot more different junk
food and this time around it is a lot more fruits and vegetables. It
opened my eyes. You need that you need that assistance if it's really
going to help you out and you know you're going to do right with it--go
for it. Just don't give up.
I'm Melinda and thank you for feeding America.
Source: Feeding America
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from California
(Ms. Lee) for a unanimous consent request.
Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert
into the Record the story of Steven, a father from San Francisco,
California, the face of hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
For Steven, the most significant benefit he realized was to be able
to access TANF, SNAP, and school meals during one trip to the
Department of Human Services. For Steven, he was unemployed and looking
for work, he was struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, he had
experienced some serious family problems and was in sole custody of his
daughter, and he was desperate to turn his life around. The benefits he
received at this point in his life proved to be one of the major
catalysts that allowed him to get back on his feet. Now, he is in the
final process of finding a job, he has addressed his issues with drug
and alcohol use, and he is very thankful for the support he received
(both from SNAP benefits and other forms of support), to have the
strength to focus on the things he needed to do to get his life back
together and find a job. He couldn't have done this without the simple
and efficient process to receive TANF, SNAP, and school meals. If the
SNAP cuts go through, a person like Steven would not be able to qualify
categorical eligibility.
Source: St. Anthony's (San Francisco)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from Connecticut
(Ms. DeLauro) for a unanimous consent request.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Jennifer, a mother from New Mexico, a face of
hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Connecticut?
There was no objection.
``Just as my time in a domestic violence shelter was about up, I got
lucky. A spot opened up in a two-year transitional housing program in
Santa Fe. It felt like a second chance at life. Within a couple of
years of being there, I saved enough money to buy a mobile home. I had
a great full-time job at the Boys and Girls Club through AmeriCorps. I
was working my way through college to go into juvenile probation. It
felt like I'd gotten my independence back. Then the funding for my job
was cut and I became unemployed.
For months, I couldn't find a full-time job. I was willing to take
anything. I can lay cement and wait tables. I found enough part-time
work to pay the rent on the mobile home lot--that was my priority so we
wouldn't be evicted--but I didn't earn enough part-time to pay for
anything else. I don't know why the utilities weren't cut off--I didn't
pay those bills for months. Thank goodness I get food stamps.
Otherwise, we wouldn't eat.
I use my food stamps to buy things that I know will fill my kids up.
We drink a lot of milk and eat a lot of bread and buy a few cases of
ramen every month. I find `buy one get one free' sales so we can buy
some meat, throw it into a pot with cream of mushroom soup, and get
three days of meals out of it. My son gets a backpack snack sent home
with him once a week from school. That's really good.
By the last week of the month, we run out of food. That's when I
worry where our next meal is coming from. What am I supposed to do? I
do what I have got to do to feed my kids and have had to do things I'm
not proud of. There have been times where I've gone to the grocery
store and put a block of cheese or beans in my purse and gone through
the check out line paying only for eggs and a loaf of bread. If I
didn't do that, my kids would go to bed hungry and I'd never let that
happen. I remember when people used to send their kids to bed without
dinner, out of punishment, and that has stayed with me. I can't
knowingly let any child go without heat, go without food. I've taken
homeless children into the house and given them my son's bed. I've put
food in a Tupperware and shared it with others.
I don't know how I made it through the months, but I did. I recently
got a full-time job in retail, but every day is a climb. Food is still
a struggle. Paying for gas to get to work is a struggle. Having a
little cash so my son can have socks or we can have laundry soap is a
struggle. I know a lot of people that are struggling just like us. I
get so upset when I see the TV commercials asking us to help people
overseas--everywhere else, but here. Doesn't everybody realize we have
starving children in America? Shouldn't we take care of Americans
first?''
Source: Mazon
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North
Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into
the Congressional Record the story of Stephanie, a mother from Roanoke,
Virginia, a face of hunger in America.
[[Page H5674]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from North Carolina?
There was no objection.
Raising two young girls on her own after leaving a domestic violence
situation and spending six months in a shelter with her two young
daughters, 41-year-old Stephanie currently works full-time in a medical
office while her girls are in daycare/pre-school. She wants her kids to
understand the importance of hard work. She lives frugally, adhering to
a strict budget, using no credit cards. She also looks for fun things
to do that will not cost her a lot of money so her daughters can enjoy
life as much as possible. When they can afford to go out to eat as a
treat, she goes to Denny's because they have a deal where 2 kids eat
free with 1 parent. She was really grateful for that. SNAP is essential
for her to feed herself and her children and be able to cover (barely)
monthly expenses. This month was particularly hard because a window in
their home broke during a storm and they don't have extra money for
unexpected expenses. When things like that happen she has to scramble
to find the money. She has relied on the program on and off for years,
and believes without SNAP she and her daughters would be back in a
shelter. She wants elected officials to understand that SNAP helps
working families.
I worry about everything, I worry about my daughter growing up
stable. I especially worry about her getting the supplemental food
program at school, that helps a lot too. If it wasn't for these
programs I don't know what I would do. [I get] $300 a month in food
stamps, it tremendously.
Source: Share Our Strength
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee
(Mr. Cohen) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Naquila, a mother from Little Rock, Arkansas, just
west of Memphis, a face of hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Tennessee?
There was no objection.
Naquila has struggled most of her adult life to support her children.
She has 12-year-old twins and a 4-year-old boy. When her twins were
younger, she worked two jobs to support her family but barely got by.
(She did not qualify for any benefits at the time.) There were times
that her utilities/electricity was cut off because she failed to pay
the bills on time. She would skip breakfast and lunch and just eat a
small dinner to ensure there was enough food for her kids, but even
then, they had to improvise to make what little food supplies they had
last the week. Things finally started to look up when she got a job,
but she did not qualify for maternity leave when she had her third
child, so received SNAP benefits during her six week maternity leave.
Naquila worked two jobs to try and support her family; referring to a
time in her life when she did not benefit from SNAP or any other form
of assistance.
``I was making too much to get food stamps but I wasn't making enough
to keep a sufficient amount of food in my home when it was me with my
two kids. It was hard. It was really hard. We survived off of things
like grilled cheese, and noodles, things that I could afford to buy for
less than $1.
``Sometimes water would be turned off. We would have to go stay with
my mom until I got the money up to pay the water bill. Sometimes the
lights would get turned off and I would have the money to pay it but I
didn't have the time to pay it, because I was working.''
``I found somewhere where I could work from 8-4:30 and make it home
in time enough to cook a good meal. I would go and get family packs of
chicken or family packs of ground beef and cook that, cook large enough
amounts so we could eat on it for two days, or three days, or however
long it lasted. Before that we ate things like hot dogs, bologna
sandwiches, crackers and cheese. It wasn't really stuff with substance.
I knew one of my supervisors had her own garden, so she would bring
squash and things like that out of her garden that she had too much of
and we ate that, so that was good.''
``There were days when I would go and not even take lunch. I would do
things like I would fix them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but I
would make it on 1 piece of bread and fold it. I would do the little
cans of beanie babies and cut hot dogs up for them, and maybe I would
only have the hot dog. I would give them spaghetti and corn, and I
might only eat corn, or whatever it was that I would have to do to make
it so that they could have more.''
``There were a lot of nights that I came home and just cried. It was
a lot of times when I did not know where I was getting the strength to
keep going, but I knew that I had to.''
Source: Share Our Strength
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North
Carolina (Mr. Price) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to
insert into the Record the story of Nathan, a veteran from Rapid City,
South Dakota, a face of hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from North Carolina?
There was no objection.
``I joined the Army because it allowed us to pay our bills above and
beyond. There was comfort knowing that we had a savings account and if
something came up we could fix it. That's no longer the case.
I did a one-year tour in Iraq. I trained as a medic and dreamed of
becoming a doctor. But when I got injured, my dreams were slammed into
the ground. I always liked cooking, so the Veterans' Administration
sent me to the New England Culinary School in Vermont to become a
classically trained chef. I figured that by going to a pretty
prestigious school, people would fly out the doors to hire me. But in
this horrible economy, the only jobs I've been offered pay the same as
McDonald's. But I can't support my family on that. So when my wife was
offered part-time work, we decided that she should take it so I could
continue looking for a position as a fine dining chef.
Now I'm Mr. Mom. It's taxing on my pride, but even more taxing on my
pocketbook. My wife only makes about 75% of what we need to make ends
meet. To help us make up the difference, my mother-in-law has gone back
to work. And instead of using her retirement funds on herself, she's
putting them into our family.
It's horrible to think that I was protecting a country that can't
provide its citizens with good-paying jobs so they can afford their own
food. Our food stamps don't cover what we need, but if we didn't get
them, we'd be--for lack of a better word--screwed. We couldn't pay the
mortgage or our car payment; if our car broke down, we couldn't afford
to fix it. When I shop for food now, I buy what's on sale rather than
what I want. I can either buy one red pepper at $1.69 for one person's
fajita or 6 boxes of macaroni at $1.69 that feeds the whole family 6
times.
Macaroni is not what we'd like to give our kids, but for now, it's
about getting enough to eat rather than eating well. I know that what
they're ingesting today is going to cause them health problems down the
road. The kids have already gained weight by eating more processed
foods, which is kind of funny when you're talking about a lack of food.
I dream of making enough money so I can buy fresh, quality produce
with cash at the farmers market instead of buying Hamburger Helper with
food stamps. When I pull out the food stamp card, I think that everyone
looks at you funny. Well, I am not really sure that most people know
what the food stamp card looks like, but I do. Taking out the food
stamp card makes me feel poor.''
Source: Mazon
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida
(Ms. Castor) for a unanimous consent request.
Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert
into the Record the story of Lorraine, a mother from Sarasota, Florida,
and Gwendolyn Friedman, a senior citizen from Tampa, Florida, faces of
hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Florida?
There was no objection.
I was at the supermarket checkout line when the cashier asked me if I
wanted to make a donation for the needy.
I would have liked to, but instead, I flashed my food stamps card and
shook my head, saying: ``I can't. This time, I'm the needy.''
The poor guy blushed and mumbled an apology. I suppose he must have
felt bad for me.
``It's okay,'' I said. ``I'm glad to have the help.''
That day, almost three years ago now, I realized that I didn't look
like the type of person the cashier would have expected to be on food
stamps. On other trips to the grocery store I had begun to notice that
I was not alone. Well-dressed women ahead of me at the checkout would
try to swipe their EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card
inconspicuously, but I immediately recognized it. I wanted so badly to
tell them not to be embarrassed. We were among the additional 20
million Americans who have had to go on Food Stamps since the
recession. And my girls were among the 17 million children in this
country who could be labeled as ``food insecure,'' meaning they do not
know when or where their next meal will come.
RECESSION HITS HOME
I was a middle class hard-working professional, until my marriage
ended around the same time as the recession hit. The publications I
wrote for closed down or ran out of
[[Page H5675]]
funding. I suddenly became the unemployed single mami of two girls,
ages 4 and 7.
I moved out of our 4-bedroom family home with a pool to a small
rental apartment, with my kids. My ex-husband also had been out of work
and we'd gone through our savings. I had little income and a lot of
debt. In order to pay the bills and buy groceries while I job-hunted, I
had to resort to selling my jewelry, including family heirlooms, my
wedding band, and gifts that my girls received when they were born.
That was difficult and emotional. I held back the tears as the jeweler
appraised my belongings, while my 4-year-old entertained herself
admiring the sparkly gems in the store, unaware of what was happening.
SELLING OFF PRIZED POSSESSIONS
I sold my brand-name handbags, shoes, and clothes on eBay. Then I
discovered direct sales. I peddled everything from jewelry to
cosmetics, but it seemed these were difficult times for many. I
couldn't make enough income to cover the basics. I kept hoping I would
soon find work again as a writer and that things would get better.
But nothing changed despite my best job-seeking efforts. Newspapers,
which had been my bread and butter since arriving in the U.S. in 2004,
kept laying off staff. The recession was in full swing. I was forced to
accept handouts from friends and family. Around that time, I noticed
that my neighbor, a mom of three boys, kept inviting my kids over for
dinner. One day I discovered that it was because my girls had mentioned
that our fridge was always empty. I was running out of options. I
needed to feed my children.
A close friend suggested I apply for food stamps. His family had used
them when they arrived in the U.S. from Cuba a few years back, until
they got on their feet. At first I was appalled. I always imagined food
stamps were only for the poor and the homeless. I couldn't conceive
that someone like me could qualify. Then I realized: I was poor! That
night, thinking of my girls, I piggybacked off of the neighbors'
wireless signal and Googled ``how to apply for food stamps.''
A few weeks later, it was a huge relief to trudge up the stairs to my
apartment with my happy kids, carrying bags of fresh groceries. It felt
better than Christmas.
These are tough times, and I learned the hard way that pride doesn't
put a warm meal on the table, but that The United States Supplemental
Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) does.
Source: MomsRising
{time} 1315
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr.
Welch) for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the
Record the story of Marvin, a disabled man from Atlanta, Georgia--a
face of hunger in America.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Vermont?
There was no objection.
My name is Marvin and I live in Atlanta.
You should never let your disabilities get in the way.
[Marvin is partially deaf and blind. He supports himself by cleaning
windows for local businesses.]
Give me a cheap roll of paper towels and tell me how much you want to
pay me to do them--those windows will be spotless.
[Marvin was struck by a car while walking home from work.]
I thought my life was over with.
I had a lot of fear, but I had a lot of faith at the same time.
[He is unable to work as he recovers from the accident.]
I got on food stamps.
I don't know about everybody else but I did feel embarrassed about
it--having food stamps.
I had no choice. I . . . no choice at all. But once I tried it and
I'm not embarrassed anymore because I'm able to eat everything like
everyone else.
Well I'm going to keep going or give up. I refuse . . . It's not in
me. I can't give up.
Once I go back to work I'll be happy.
I think we're all blessed in many ways.
Source: Feeding America
Mr. McGOVERN. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my party and I do understand that our country has for 5
years gone through very difficult times. Our party and the American
people, through various ways, have been asking this administration and
the Democratic Party to please allow us to have an opportunity with
more jobs being available in the United States of America. The
Democratic Party, up to and including the President of the United
States, is more interested in an out-of-balance environmental policy
that is placing a demand on the consumers to pay double the prices that
they did before the President came into office for gasoline and double
the prices of food and the availability of jobs.
Just as we are here to talk about, in Arizona, 3,700 new jobs, we've
tried to do this with the XL pipeline, which would extend across a
number of States. I don't know if some of the faces of hunger were
included in those that could be hired as a result of the XL pipeline,
but, every day, there are Americans who are losing their jobs and who
are losing careers because of the policies of our President, Barack
Obama, and the Democrats--elected Members of Congress--who insist on
having rules and regulations, up to and including a government-run
health care plan, which is diminishing careers and opportunities for
people to have health care and full-time jobs.
If it weren't true, someone would say it was just a cruel joke; but
the bottom line is that the business community all across America is
now changing the rules of employment from 40-hour workweeks to 30 or
even 20. This is happening directly as a result of the policies of the
people who complain most about the middle class not having jobs. It is
perpetrated exactly on a partisan basis--with zero Republicans
participating--to have rules, regulations, and a government-run health
care system that is unemploying America, only to turn around later to
find out: so we've got to spend more money to take care of people who
don't have jobs.
Mr. Speaker, there are divides in our country. There are divides
between the parties, but, today, the Republican Party is on the floor
trying to say that we need to change the law so that local communities
that have forests in their backyards can share in the money, that
Washington can't have it only--you've got to share with them. We are
here to say that we are for a land swap that people in Arizona
completely agree with. They sent their elected Representatives here on
an elected citizenry basis to come and say: we'd like 3,700 more jobs
in Arizona, $60 billion worth of economic activity; and we are here
today to say: because we have such expanding roles of people who are
hungry in America and who are filing to get food stamps, we need to be
able to set a mark, and that mark is: as long as you're looking for a
job and you're able-bodied, then we understand, but the neediest of
Americans need what we're doing, and that we are not going to give up
on.
So the Republican Party is here with an open ear, a strong voice and
a kind heart; but what we are saying back is: Mr. President and
Democrat Party, you need to help us grow jobs in America. You need to
let loose the Keystone pipeline, which has been studied to death for
the last 5 or 6 years. You need to be with us today on the 3,700 more
jobs in Arizona. You need to be with us today because we're the ones
who are talking about jobs in healthy forests, with timber, back home
in rural areas because rural people deserve a chance to have a job and
to be taken care of, too.
The Republican Party is quite consistent in our behavior--we want
jobs; we want job creation; and we put legislation on the floor that
accomplishes just that. That's why we're here today. We are a party
that cares about people, and we are trying to make life better for the
middle class and for all Americans in this country.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my Republican friends don't like the President. We hear
it every day. I get it.
While you debate his policies, don't take it out on poor people. The
CBO says 3.8 million people will be thrown off this benefit, and
170,000 veterans will lose their benefits.
This bill is not a thoughtful bill--it is a thoughtless bill--because
it hasn't even gone through committee. This is more a political
statement than it is sound policy or even bad policy. It's just plain
politics. It's red meat for, I guess, the extreme right-wing base. I'm
hoping there are people on your side who will see through this and who
will stand with us and do the right thing, because it has been a
bipartisan tradition in this Congress to support efforts to prevent
hunger.
[[Page H5676]]
At this point, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut
(Ms. DeLauro).
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to protest this rule and these deep
and disastrous cuts to food stamps.
This $40 billion in cuts goes against decades of bipartisan support
for the fight against hunger in the United States. It will hurt our
economy, and it is, in a word, immoral.
If this cruel legislation were to become law, at least 4 million of
the Nation's poorest citizens would lose access to the food that they
need. We are talking about people on the edge: families whose
breadwinners just got laid off; veterans returning from service who are
looking for jobs, 170,000 of them; seniors struggling to make ends meet
after a lifetime of work and who will be forced to make the choice
between food and medicine; and millions of low-income children whose
futures will be irreparably harmed by these reckless cuts.
Don't take my word for it:
In working with Census data, the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities projects that, roughly, 170,000 veterans could lose access
to food stamps under the provisions of this bill;
The AARP called these efforts to cut antihunger programs an
``abandonment of the Nation's commitment to ensuring essential
nutrition access for many U.S. households'';
Two former Senate majority leaders, Republican and Democrat--Bob Dole
and Tom Daschle--have called this bill an ``about-face on our progress
fighting hunger.''
Senator Dole is right--the majority's leadership has lost its way on
this issue. For decades, there has been bipartisan support for food
stamps, our Nation's most important antihunger program.
They help over 47 million Americans--nearly half of them are
children--escape the scourge of hunger. Nearly all food stamp
recipients live below 130 percent of the poverty line, and 75 percent
of food stamp households include a child, a senior citizen, or a
disabled person. It also boasts one of the lowest error rates of any
government program.
Economists agree that food stamps have a powerful, positive impact on
the health of not just families but of the entire economy, and they get
money into the hands of people who spend it on the food that they need.
Cutting antihunger funding like this is not just immoral; it makes no
economic sense.
I might add that it makes no economic sense either to cut $40 billion
from food stamps for the poor while preserving $90 billion in crop
insurance for the wealthy, including that of 26 farmers, who made over
$1 million from the Federal Government. These are 26 wealthy farm
owners whom we are prevented from identifying. They won't tell us who
they are. They are protected. It is just plain wrong.
If the majority's leadership is serious about wanting to lower the
number of Americans on food stamps, increase the minimum wage. Taking
food out of the mouths of the hungry is not the answer.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman who served in the United States Air Force, from Gainesville,
Georgia (Mr. Collins), who serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the
Judiciary Committee, and the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform.
Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor, and I am getting ready to speak on
an issue that is very close on this rule. I support all of the rules
combined here, and I support the underlying legislation, but I have to
stop for just a moment and discuss some things that I've heard.
I agree with my gentlemen friends across the aisle in that it is
about political choices, that it is about political decisions that we
make on where we're going to spend money and how we're going to do that
and what we believe in with regard to jobs and how jobs are being
created. The Republican majority has been doing that. The Republican
majority is focused on jobs. The Republican majority is focused on
getting regulatory burdens off of businesses.
I just spent the last month and a half in my district, and the word
that I could use to describe everything was ``uncertainty.'' There is
uncertainty by the business owners--the ones who write on the front of
the checks--when they're saying, I want to be able to employ other
people and I want to be able to help others, but, right now, I do not
know if I can because I don't know. With the expanding regulation and
the upcoming health care law, I don't know if I can do that.
It is about political choices, and the Republican majority is making
it in favor of the working class, in favor of the middle class and of
those who are hurting in our country. We have the ear because we want
to grow jobs, and we want to get out of the way so those jobs can be
created.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in support of this rule for these reasons.
Because you know something? I have noticed something as a freshman in
here in Washington. There is one thing I've noticed that I don't see in
Georgia. I see a lot of condos going up up here in D.C. I see a lot of
new government buildings, and I see a lot of new government jobs. But
do you know what I say? That's great for inside the beltway. I'm happy
for those up here, but that doesn't translate in Georgia Nine. In
Georgia Nine, we're still recovering, and we're still needing help, and
we're still needing an economy that gets its budget balanced and that
gets its tax priorities in order so that we can have job creation.
That's where we need to have it all across the country, not here in the
wonderful land of government.
In this Chamber, we often hear talk about more fully developing
renewable resources. In fact, I hear it almost every night on this
floor. I believe that timber is the original renewable resource and
that we need to do a better job of managing it. While much of the
conversations today are related to western forests, I want to speak a
little bit about what the bill means for the eastern portion of the
country, specifically north Georgia.
The Chattahoochee National Forest covers almost 500,000 acres of land
in the Ninth District of Georgia, timber that was used for cabins long
before the national forest system existed. Much of the privately owned
forest nearby is actively managed and provides high-quality timber for
many uses. In fact, forestry is a $25 billion industry in Georgia.
Unfortunately, like the Western States, bureaucracy and red tape have
made it nearly impossible to harvest timber in the national forest. In
a country that is blessed with abundant natural resources and healthy
forests, we owe it to our ancestors and our descendants to be
responsible stewards of this valuable commodity. While we have not had
the catastrophic forest fires in Georgia that many of the Western
States have suffered through, we have dealt with cycles of extreme
drought, which put the forests in a dangerous position. Understanding
that many wildfires are caused by poor management is a good first step,
but we need to take a bigger step. By returning these forests to active
management, we will not only grow our forests, but we can grow our
economy as well.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. H.R. 1526 also includes a reform to the
supporting rural schools program. This is a program that clearly needs
to be reformed but in a thoughtful way that recognizes the unique
position that our rural schools are in. We can't continue to send
Federal dollars towards local schools through a system that can't pay
for itself. This bill provides funding sources for local schools that
have missed out on the revenue through federally owned forests. This
bill gives schools that have grown dependent on these funds a chance to
transition into a new system, one that is sustainable and one that
promotes investment in our natural resources and our forest resources.
As I said earlier, this bill is good for the economy, and I will stop
where I started: the Republican majority is about jobs. The Republican
majority is about having an upward lift for all in our economy, not
just for the ones we want to focus on through political choice.
{time} 1330
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 seconds to remind the
gentleman who just spoke that there are
[[Page H5677]]
36,000 households in his district in Georgia who rely on SNAP. I think
they're counting on him to vote a different way.
At this point, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Mr. McGovern, for yielding
time.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) who just spoke,
has finally acknowledged what so many other Republicans refuse to
acknowledge: that they have made a political choice. They've made a
political choice to defund the SNAP program. I'm glad that he publicly
acknowledged that.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose H.R. 3102. The Republicans are
determined to defund this program, a program that provides food
assistance to low-income families and to more than 20 percent of my
congressional district.
The Agriculture Committee reported a bill that cut $16 billion from
nutrition. The Speaker wouldn't schedule a vote. Why? Because the Tea
Party said ``not enough cuts.'' The Republicans then increased
nutrition cuts to $20.5 billion, and the Speaker crossed his fingers
and hoped for passage. It went down on this floor in defeat. Not a
single Democrat voted for it. Many Republicans said the cuts were not
enough.
Now here we are again today. The Republicans, driven by the
irrational Tea Party, bring us another nutrition title that now cuts
$40 billion from nutrition.
My friends, I know that cutting the deficit is important to all of
us, but do not reduce the deficit by depriving more than 3 million good
Americans of the opportunity to eat. That's not who we are as a Nation.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Hood River, Oregon (Mr. Walden), who is the chairman of the
Communications and Technology Subcommittee for Energy and Commerce.
Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his good work on
this legislation, and I want to thank my colleagues for what I hope
will be their support of passage of this legislation, specifically the
parts related to the Federal forest land. Federal forest land across
the Nation is rotting, it's dying, and it's burning because the Federal
Government has failed to manage our forests.
When we actively managed our forests and selectively logged our
lands, we had vibrant ecosystems and we had vibrant and healthy
economies. Now the forests are overstocked, they're diseased and
infested, and they go up in smoke. Communities are literally dying.
Counties are literally on the edge of bankruptcy. In my State, some of
those counties have 50 percent to 70 percent of the landmass in Federal
forest lands or grasslands.
Most forests are overstocked and disease infested, communities are
dying, mills are closing. You're talking about children living in
poverty? Misguided Federal policy on forest land management puts
children in my district into poverty and their parents out of work.
Local communities struggle to provide even basic services like law
enforcement and schools.
H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act,
returns more active management to our Federal forest lands. This
proposal has been crafted with input from Federal foresters, industry
representatives, and, most importantly, the residents of these local
communities who are living in poverty, subject to choking,
catastrophic, and sometimes deadly wildfires, and the choking smoke
that fills our valleys now every summer.
H.R. 1526 also includes a balanced and bipartisan plan for unique
Oregon forests. Oregonians have been managing forests since the times
of the Oregon Trail most likely, and we're proud of our Oregon Forest
Practices Act and its commitment not only to the economy but to the
ecology and to the environment, with protections for water, for
streams, and for regeneration of our forests for future generations.
Unfortunately, yesterday, we got word that the White House has issued
a veto threat on this urgently needed and balanced bill. The President
and his team clearly have no idea--none--on what's happening in our
rural communities with Federal forest lands surrounding them in the
West. Counties are literally going broke. Folks are facing double-digit
unemployment and double-digit poverty. Citizens call 911 for emergency
help and are told literally, ``Sorry, we can't help you. There's no one
to send.''
Fires are raging throughout our forests. Enough is enough. The system
is broken. This law will change that and fix that, and the White House
needs to understand that and be a partner for progress, not an enemy of
it.
Today, the House will act to provide relief for citizens in these
rural communities, and I urge my colleagues to choose jobs, safety, the
health of our rural communities and health of our forests for future
generations, to reject poverty and unhealthy forests, because that's
what we face today.
So I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule, a ``yes'' vote on the
underlying bill because our rural communities have waited too long for
this relief
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 seconds.
I just wanted to say to the gentleman from Oregon that there are one
in five Oregonians who are on food stamps as we gather here today. In
his district, there are nearly 60,000. You talked about trees, but
there are a lot of people that will be adversely affected.
Mr. WALDEN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McGOVERN. I have no remaining time to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California
(Mrs. Capps).
Mrs. CAPPS. I thank my colleague for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and the harmful
underlying bill.
Fifteen thousand families in my district on the central coast of
California rely every day on the SNAP program to help make ends meet.
These are our veterans, our seniors, people with disabilities,
hardworking parents, and kids going to school. They don't care if SNAP
cuts come from the farm bill or as a stand-alone bill. They do care
that the cuts create a gaping hole in our country's most basic safety
net.
We should all care because cuts to SNAP have a ripple effect in our
local communities and throughout our economy. Every SNAP dollar is
nearly doubled in economic impact. It helps pay the local grocery store
worker. It helps support truckers who haul the food. It goes to the
food producers and farmers who grow the crops.
I urge my colleagues to stop playing politics with our Nation's
hungry and those who provide the food we all rely on. Vote ``no'' on
this rule, ``no'' on the bill, and let's get back to passing a
comprehensive, inclusive farm bill.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Price).
(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition
to this rule and the underlying bill.
You may have noticed Fox News is trying to help the Republicans push
this mean-spirited legislation by focusing on a California surfer who
abuses the SNAP system. Well, it's time for a reality check. This isn't
about surfer dudes.
I'll tell you one group it is about: our Nation's veterans, 50,000 of
them to be exact. Let me clarify. These veterans, with an average
income of $2,500, would lose benefits immediately. As the bill's other
provisions kick in, as many as 170,000 veterans could lose their SNAP
assistance.
In Cumberland County, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg and of
thousands of veterans, our unemployment rate is nearly 11 percent. This
bill requires States to terminate the already minimal food aid
available to able-bodied but unemployed individuals living in such
high-unemployment areas. By the way, Republicans would also subject
these veterans to the added indignity of a drug test.
I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule and the underlying bill. It
dishonors our poorest veterans, and it disparages those the Gospel of
Matthew calls ``the least of these.''
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
[[Page H5678]]
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding and rise in opposition
to the rule, and say I will be so proud to vote today not to take food
away from children and veterans and the disabled and the unemployed.
Over half of these who receive these benefits are young children and
senior citizens. So this is one of those legislative moments of true
clarity between the leadership of both parties.
The Republican leadership's proposal will increase hunger across our
country by taking away SNAP benefits from millions of Americans. They
claim that restricting SNAP eligibility will encourage those who are
receiving benefits to take work. What this fails to recognize is that
there are about three unemployed workers for every job that is out
there in our country right now. In some places, it's even worse than
that. Even if an unemployed person filled every available job, roughly
two of every three unemployed individuals would still not have a job
because there aren't enough yet to go around in our country. People are
struggling.
I just want to say that this is one of those moments when I am so
proud to be a Democrat and stand with my colleagues today against these
cuts to the most fundamental requirements of a decent life--access to
sufficient, nutritious food.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I think we should have a standard of at
least being honest about what's in the bill. We are not throwing people
off who are disabled. It is an able-bodied standard, and the
gentlewoman knows that.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Hood
River, Oregon (Mr. Walden).
Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Texas because I
wanted to respond to my friend from Massachusetts, who didn't have any
more time to yield or talk about it after he talked about people in my
district on food stamps. Indeed they are, and they don't want to be. If
you'd support our legislation that's bipartisan on healthy forests,
they'd have dignity and a job, and they'd be able to take care of their
families, and they would have schools.
I know they have dignity when they're on food stamps. I understand
that. I also know they'd feel much better about their role in life if
they could go and be productive again as they were. We've seen 300
mills closed, 30,000 people lose their jobs, and there's a solution
here that doesn't raid the Federal Treasury and borrow money to pay for
it. It's called a job. And we wouldn't spend over half the Forest
Service budget fighting fire. Instead, we would replenish our forests,
we'd get them healthy again, we wouldn't choke our valleys with smoke
in the summer, which is occurring all over the country, because we'd be
managing these great Federal forest reserves.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just suggest to my Republican
colleagues that maybe they ought to deal with sequester, maybe they
ought to stop threatening to shut the government down, and maybe they
ought to bring the President's jobs bill to the floor to put people
back to work, and, in the meantime, they ought not to throw poor people
off food assistance.
I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
Ms. LEE of California. Mr. McGovern, I thank you so much for
yielding, and let me say I rise in strong opposition to this rule and
the underlying bill.
The $40 billion cuts to the anti-poverty SNAP program are immoral,
they're heartless, and they really are un-American. These cuts do not
reflect the compassion of the American people. The so-called
``reforms'' in this bill will only dramatically reduce access to vital
nutrition assistance all across America in rural and urban communities
and every single one of our congressional districts. In my own
district, over 22,000 households will be impacted and more than 1.6
million homes throughout California. Not only does SNAP help put food
on the table for struggling families, it also helps stimulate economic
growth.
Mr. Speaker, 76 percent of SNAP recipients are children, seniors, and
persons with disabilities. This is a cold-blooded cut. The majority of
people on food stamps want to work. I haven't seen the majority bring
any bill to the floor that really creates jobs for people, and I just
have to say, yes, I was on food stamps during a very difficult period
in my life, and I thank the American people for that lifeline as a
bridge over troubled waters.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlewoman from California an additional
15 seconds.
Ms. LEE of California. Let me just conclude by saying that while
we're recovering from this devastating recession, we cannot and should
not cast the most vulnerable aside.
There are many in the majority who are people of faith. I want to
remind you of the Scriptures which require us to feed the hungry.
There's something fundamentally wrong when we pray on Sunday and vote
to take away food from hungry people on Thursday.
{time} 1345
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I have a disabled child at home, a Down
Syndrome young man. I understand very well about the need for our
country to help and provide assistance to disabled people. It is not
true, and it's unfair for someone to characterize this bill as taking
someone who is disabled off the SNAP rolls.
And I'm sorry that we have Members who evidently have not read the
bill and do not understand what we're doing. But that's a fact; and we
should not pass along information that, in fact, is not true. I hope
that this body would stay away from that very emotional issue because
not only is it not fair, but it's not true.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend from Texas,
we know exactly what you are all doing here. What you are doing is
throwing 3.8 million people off of this program who, quite frankly,
rely on it to put food on the table.
And I just want to point out for the record, the average length of
someone on SNAP is about 9 months. There are people who work, who work
full time who are on SNAP because they don't earn enough. People do
want to work. People don't want to be on public assistance. But the
bottom line is that we have had a Congress here that has blocked every
major piece of legislation that might produce jobs. So let's get our
facts straight here.
At this point, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Pascrell).
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this rule and the
underlying bill.
My friends on the other side of the aisle like to act like 11 million
unemployed Americans are out of work because they want to be out of
work. This is a debate between two things, common sense versus no
sense. You even offer a jewel to the States. And you say to the States,
if you cut more people off your roles, we'll let you keep half the
money. And then you can do with it whatever you want. That is immoral.
That is totally nonsensical. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
We're talking about kids, we are talking about veterans, and we are
talking about the disabled. That's what we're talking about. And if you
don't think this bill cuts many of those people off the roles, then
you, obviously--to use your term--you didn't read the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. PASCRELL. Nearly 30,000 households in my current district benefit
from this program. I would ask you to examine the bill and examine your
conscience before you----
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
The Chair would remind Members to avoid references to other Members
in the second person.
Mr. SESSIONS. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
New York (Ms. Velazquez).
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and to this
unconscionable legislation. Make no mistake, if you support this bill,
you are voting to take food from the mouths of almost 4 million of our
fellow citizens next year. Who are these Americans? Nearly half of them
are children. They are seniors. They are our veterans. One in every
five veterans receives SNAP benefits. Is this the way we thank them for
their service?
Mr. Speaker, Congress does not agree on much these days; but I have
always assumed that we could at least support
[[Page H5679]]
the idea that in this country no child should go hungry. Have we gone
so far that we cannot even find bipartisan support for that? If so,
then we have truly lost our way.
Is this what my Republican friends call ``compassionate
conservatism''? I say to my colleagues, the whole Nation is watching.
You will be held accountable. Vote ``no'' on this rule and this
shameful underlying bill.
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself 30 seconds.
I would like to explain, if I can, ``compassionate conservatism.''
It's called 60 straight months of economic growth, 60 straight months
of this country growing stronger because people had jobs under a
Republican House, under a Republican President, under a Republican
Senate. Sixty straight months of economic growth that made our country
stronger and better. And that is compassionate conservatism. That's the
Republican Party. We're trying to get back to job growth, job creation,
and help the middle class of this country.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will just remind the gentleman that
compassionate conservatism also gave us the Great Recession.
At this point, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut
(Mr. Himes).
Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge the defeat of this rule
and of the underlying bill which will throw millions of Americans off
of food stamps at a time when they need it. And I urge that on behalf
of my constituent Jenenne Smalls, a 37-year-old formerly homeless
veteran with three children who my office helped get on food stamps.
I urge it on behalf of a semi-deity to the Republicans, Ronald
Reagan, who said, As long as there is one person in the country who is
hungry, that is one person too many. And I urge it on behalf of a real
deity, Mr. Speaker. Above my head are the words, ``In God we trust.''
In my Christian faith, the notion that we feed the hungry is
unimpeachable and nonconditional.
Matthew does not say, Feed the hungry, so long as you can do it with
100 percent efficiency. Mark does not say, Feed the hungry, so long as
you pass the XL pipeline. Luke does not say, Feed the hungry, so long
as you loosen environmental regulations.
Mr. Speaker, this rule and this bill, which is deeply, deeply flawed,
must not pass.
Mr. SESSIONS. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this point, it's my privilege to yield
2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to
revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the
gentleman for yielding the time, and I want to thank him for devoting
his entire political career to the idea of eradicating hunger in
American society and around the world, an outstanding record of
achievement, an outstanding record of compassion. And then today, it
runs into the Republican reality.
I know how you must feel, Mr. McGovern, after all these years of
work, to see them cavalierly suggest that they can cut $40 billion in
nutrition benefits to families, to children, to working people, to
people searching for work, and that somehow nobody will lose their
benefits, that somehow they're not throwing anybody off of the program.
It's not that we said, you are throwing people off the program. It's
that the Congressional Budget Office said that with the $40 billion
cut, some 3.8 million people would lose their benefits and an average
of nearly 3 million people each year over the coming decade. Over the
coming decade, those people will lose their benefits.
What does that mean? I specialize in education. I visit schools
almost every week. I talk to teachers every day that tell me about the
fact that when children come there that they are nutritionally
deprived, that they may not have had dinner, that they may not have had
breakfast, that they are not attentive in class, that they fall asleep
in class, that they're irritable. And we're going to cut the benefits
to these children. And yet we want these children to perform at a high
level. And they should be able to perform at a high level. We expect
them to achieve in school.
But that's not what this program is about. This program is about
cutting those benefits to those children in need. It's about cutting
those benefits to those families in need. It's just unconscionable that
they would think that somehow this is the road to prosperity, that you
get to the road to prosperity by attacking the most vulnerable in our
society who are in desperate need of these nutritional benefits for
their families. Do they not know that one in five children lives in a
home that experiences hunger on a regular basis?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Do they not know this? Are they not
aware of it? Or do they not care? Somebody has to answer that question.
Because when this Nation was shocked that they were going to cut $20
billion out of these nutritional benefits for these struggling families
and individuals, they came back and said, No, we're going to cut $40
billion out of these benefits. What, because they're angry that the
last measure didn't succeed? They're angry about what happened to the
Agriculture bill? Is it because of anger that they're striking out at
these families?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. It shouldn't be that way in this
country, and it shouldn't be that way in this Congress. These families
are entitled to better. They are entitled to jobs. They are entitled to
provide for their families, but some can't.
Those wonderful 60 months stripped trillions of dollars away from
these families and middle class families in this country.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are advised to heed the gavel.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Once again, the gentleman comes down and evidently is either
unwilling or has not read the bill to an understanding where the
statement was made about preventing 280,000 children from receiving a
free school lunch. Nothing in this bill makes changes to the school
lunch program.
The National School Lunch and the School Breakfast Programs
automatically qualify students who are enrolled in SNAP for free school
meals. The school meals programs are not authorized under this bill nor
are eligible for requirements under this committee's jurisdiction.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I need to qualify something here. I want
to respond to what the gentleman just said.
The fact of the matter is, when children's parents get cut from SNAP,
then children are no longer eligible for free breakfast and lunch in
school. That's where we get the number of 270,000 kids who will lose
their free breakfast and lunch programs. That's the connection. So it
is connected. So I would point that out because it is important. I
don't want anyone to be fooled by the fact that somehow this doesn't
affect school meals. It does, very directly.
At this point, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr.
Cohen).
Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and
the draconian cuts to SNAP, a lifeline that millions of Americans rely
on. Republicans want to slash nearly $40 billion from SNAP and take
food out of the mouths of nearly 4 million Americans, including 68,000
of my constituents. These drastic cuts will harm children, seniors,
veterans, and Americans living in cities like Memphis with chronically
high unemployment, all in the name of rooting out fraud.
It's interesting that Republicans see fraud and abuse in the SNAP
program sometimes, but they seem to ignore the billions of dollars of
fraud and abuse at the Pentagon. According to one estimate, hundreds of
defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military and taxpayers
received more than $1.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts during the past
decade. Where is the outrage across the aisle and the demands for
better oversight for defense contracting? Instead of fixing problems
for
[[Page H5680]]
the contractors who might be fraudulently taking billions of taxpayer
dollars, they're focusing on making it harder for the families who are
struggling to receive a little extra help. We need to be finding ways
to reduce poverty in our communities, not cutting programs that work,
like SNAP.
I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and oppose the bill.
Mr. SESSIONS. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this Republican ``let them starve'' bill
would undermine what Professors Miguel Ferguson, Stacey Borasky, and
Scott Harding recently described in an article as a ``modern
antipoverty marvel.'' SNAP, they report, ``improves access to healthy
meals for nearly one in three children. It also reduces chronic illness
and hospitalizations and significantly reduces poverty and the severity
of poverty.'' It ``keeps kids healthier, happier, and better prepared
to do their best in school.'' And SNAP ``is one of the most efficient
government programs, with a rigorous application process, high rates of
payment accuracy, and low rates of misuse (about a 1 cent on the
dollar).'' The main limitation is not that it helps feed too many
people or costs too much but that almost 30 percent of those eligible
get nothing.
We cannot snap our fingers and snap away poverty, but this bill will
snap a vital lifeline. It must be rejected.
Mr. SESSIONS. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Vermont (Mr. Welch).
Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this legislation.
Much has been said this morning about how 4 million people will lose
the safety net of food stamps. This is going to derail the effort to
pass a farm bill, and America needs a farm bill. But, you know, the
bottom line is this is a cynical piece of legislation. It is not about
work. Sixty-eight percent of the folks on food stamps are women with
kids. It's children. It's elderly. It's disabled. That's number one.
Number two, how is a person going to get into a nonexistent work
program? And work is great. It's not as though either side has a
monopoly on the desirability of advocating for work. But when there's
no work program that a person who is required to get food stamps can
enter into, it means they are without food stamps and are denied the
opportunity to work, both.
So this is a political statement, not a practical policy that is
going to get us to where we need to be. It's going to throw people off
food stamps who need it. It creates a cynical, nonexistent work
program; and it creates an incentive for States who are going to reap
the benefits of lower food stamp rolls, to throw people off even
further.
{time} 1400
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it's my privilege to yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my colleague.
Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Social Darwinism, survival of the
fittest at its worst. And what's ironic is it's a program that works.
Cutting $40 billion, 3.8 million Americans thrown off supplemental
nutritional assistance that works, that gives them a ladder to success,
children, the disabled, adults that find themselves in a difficult
period for a period of time. The distinguished ranking member of the
Rules Committee points out, 9 months is the average.
Don't do this.
In a different Congress at a different time on a different issue,
there was a famous lawyer who turned to Joe McCarthy and said, ``At
long last, sir, have you no decency?''
I ask that of this Congress, on this very important issue, have we no
decency?
Mr. Speaker, it was bad enough when the House majority tried to ram
through a Farm bill that cut SNAP by $20 billion and would have kicked
2 million people off nutrition assistance, including more than 200,000
children. Thankfully, a bipartisan group rejected that bill.
Rather than learn from that defeat, House Republicans have decided to
double down on this darwinian philosophy. The impact will be
devastating. In my district more than 13,000 families are at risk of
losing assistance.
Beyond the face of hunger, lost in this debate is a tragic irony. As
the majority moves to gut SNAP, Congress once again refuses to end
taxpayer handouts to big agribusiness, including some Members of this
Chamber.
The American public should be forgiven for smelling the stench of
hypocrisy. The very people who repeatedly call on this body to reign in
government and cut spending, seem to have no problem collecting tens of
thousands of dollars in farm subsidies.
To allay this conflict of ideology I have twice offered an amendment
to ensure Members of Congress do not receive farm subsidies. How can
elected officials ask taxpayers to cover their risk, and then tell
those at risk of hunger they are on their own? Yet the majority refuses
a floor vote. The silence is damning.
So I ask you Mr. Speaker, who are the real takers?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, my colleague just asked the question
about have we no decency. Have you no decency?
And these are good friends here. We're colleagues. We come to work
for America.
But all who can read, and all who can feel the pain of hunger should
ask the question and should beg and plead: don't cut SNAP; $40 billion,
3.4 billion in meals, and 24 meals a month for a family.
Unless you have the cure for poverty, 46 million Americans, then how
dare you come to the floor and eliminate a lifeline. Yes, school
breakfasts, but what about the children who are from zero to 3 to 4 who
are at home with parents, who are at home with the families, the
spouses of Active Duty soldiers who use food stamps?
And then the absolute insult: a State like Texas that is prosperous,
you give them the instruction to cut people off of food stamps, and
then give them a bonus--a bonus--for hurting people and taking their
life away.
This is a shameful act. Vote down this rule and this bill.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The gentleman from
Massachusetts has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Texas
has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. McGOVERN. Could I ask the gentleman how many more speakers he
has?
Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate the gentleman asking. I am down just to
the close, and I thank the gentleman for seeking that information.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, before I close, I'd like to insert into
the Record letters from the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, the United States Conference of Mayors, AARP, and a list of a
number of other groups that are opposed to the bill.
And I'd also like to insert into the Record a September 4 New York
Times story, entitled, ``On the Edge of Poverty, at the Center of a
Debate on Food Stamps.''
Committee on Domestic Justice
and Human Development,
September 11, 2013.
Dear Representative: As the House considers a proposal to
address nutrition programs apart from the Farm Bill, I write
to urge you to oppose harmful cuts and changes to the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The House
proposal would cut SNAP by $40 billion and harm hungry
children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who
are underemployed or unable to find employment.
Adequate and nutritious food is a fundamental human right
and a basic need that is integral to protecting the life and
dignity of the human person. SNAP is one of the most
effective and important federal programs to combat hunger in
the nation by helping to feed millions of persons in need
every year.
SNAP helps relieve pressure on overwhelmed parishes,
charities, food banks, pantries and other emergency food
providers across the country that could not begin to meet the
need for food assistance if SNAP eligibility or benefits were
reduced. The faith community and the private sector are vital
in the fight to combat hunger. But government has an
indispensable role in safeguarding and promoting the common
good of
[[Page H5681]]
all. This includes ensuring poor and hungry people have
access to adequate and nutritious food.
Struggling people are not seeking a life of government
dependency but rightfully deserve decent paying jobs to
provide for them and their families. Even with evidence of a
modest economic recovery, the economy still has not improved
the standard of living for many people, especially for the
poor and the working poor. More than four million people have
been jobless for over six months, and that does not include
the millions more who have simply lost hope. For every
available job, there are often five unemployed and
underemployed people actively vying for it. SNAP remains an
essential tool to help struggling individuals and families
avoid hunger and stay out of poverty.
Proposals to eliminate access to SNAP for people who have
at some point in their lifetime committed certain crimes are
counterproductive and an affront to human dignity. Persons
who have paid their debt to society and their families should
not be penalized for the sins of the past. A on-size-fits-all
approach to state waivers on SNAP work requirements is
unreasonable. States should continue to be afforded the
flexibility to assess and respond to local needs and economic
conditions. Ending state waivers will only harm vulnerable
people.
How the House chooses to address our nation's hunger and
nutrition programs will have profound human and moral
consequences. This is a crucial time for our nation to place
a circle of protection around programs that build a more just
framework and put poor and hungry people first. I
respectfully urge you to reject efforts to reduce or
restructure SNAP, and to pursue instead the common good in
agriculture and food policy that works from a genuine
preferential option for the poor.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire,
Bishop of Stockton, Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice
and Human Development.
____
The United States
Conference of Mayors,
Washington, DC.
To: The Mayor.
From: Tom Cochran, CEO & Executive Director.
The House of Representatives is set to debate its farm bill
this week. The bill, ``The Nutrition Reform and Work
Opportunity Act,'' contains $40 billion over ten years in
cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
food stamp program, and other nutrition programs. The cuts
would eliminate SNAP benefits for millions of needy people,
slash food benefits for additional participants, and undercut
states' ability to keep SNAP supports for certain jobless
people in cities with high unemployment.
In 2010, SNAP lifted nearly 3.9 million people out of
poverty, 1.7 of them were children. Over 47 million people
received benefits in 2012; the House bill would cut benefits
for 2 to 4 million poor and unemployed adults. Nearly half of
SNAP enrollees are children, and the program helps feed
roughly one in three children in America. Additionally,
almost 75 percent of SNAP participants are in households with
children, seniors, or a disabled individual.
For more information please contact Assistant Executive
Director Crystal Swann.
____
AARP,
September 17, 2013.
Dear Representative: AARP opposes HR 3102, ``The Nutrition
Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013,'' especially the
cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
and we urge you to vote against it. The new House nutrition
bill retains the provisions opposed by AARP and other anti-
hunger advocates in earlier House Farm Bill efforts while
adding more stringent conditions to discourage participation
in SNAP and generate cost savings that will harm millions of
documented hungry and food insecure Americans.
Removal of the nutrition title of the Farm Bill represents
an abandonment of the nation's commitment to ensuring
essential nutrition access for many U.S. households that face
a constant struggle against hunger and food insecurity daily,
as well as emergency food assistance in times of economic and
natural crises or disasters. SNAP helps states and
communities struck by disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes,
floods and earthquakes gain access to critical food
assistance where local supplies have been destroyed or
rendered inaccessible. Along with helping low-income persons
eat healthier, more nutritious food, the nutrition programs
also benefit the economy. For example, every $5 in new SNAP
benefits generates $9--nearly twice as much--in total
community spending.
The recent economic recession is testimony to the
importance of the Farm Bill nutrition programs in providing
food to assistance for families that would have otherwise
gone without food. Indeed, the major criticism of SNAP is
that the program is too successful in responding to the
increased need for assistance in difficult economic times.
Despite SNAP having reduced error rates and fraud to levels
that are the envy of every other major federal program, the
House of Representatives is now proposing to significantly
reduce its commitment to ensuring that food insecure
households will have adequate access to food based on
objective need. AARP believes any outdated rules that
encourage waste or fraud should be addressed, but not at the
expense of legitimately hungry families--which
disproportionately include children, seniors and persons with
disabilities.
Hungry children, seniors and families cannot and should not
have to wait on the economic and political sidelines for
access to an effective nutrition safety net. The slow
economy, higher prices for food and energy, and the impending
November 1, 2013 elimination of the SNAP benefit boost from
the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) have
made the situation acute for all concerned. Indeed, the
amount provided to feed the typical family is projected to
drop from about $4.50 to less than $4.00 per meal--a
scheduled reduction regardless of the outcome of this
legislation. We urge you not to punish food insecure
Americans, and to vote against HR 3102.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to call
me, or have your staff contact Ariel Gonzalez or Larry White
on our Government Affairs staff at 202-434-3770.
Sincerely,
A. Barry Rand,
Chief Executive Officer.
____
Groups With Letters in Opposition to HR 3102
Agriculture Groups
National Farmers Union, Rural Coalition.
Nutrition Groups
Feeding America, Feed the Children, (Center on Budget Pores
and Priorities, Share Our Strength.
Executives
U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Religious Groups
Mazon, Sojourners, National Association of Evangelicals,
Presbyterian Church (USA), US Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Christian Reformed
Church, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, American Baptist
Churches USA, Bread for the World, United Methodist Church
General Board of Church and Society, The Jewish Federations
of North America.
Homeless Organizations
California Association of Food Banks, Center for Community
Change, CSH, Feed The Children, Horizons for Homeless
Children, National Alliance to End Homelessness, National
Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth,
National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, National
Coalition for the Homeless, National Health Care for the
Homeless Council, National Law Center on Homelessness and
Poverty, National Low Income Housing Coalition, National
Network for Youth, National Network to End Domestic Violence,
Western Center on Law and Poverty, Western Regional Advocacy
Project, Goodwill Industries.
Justice Advocates
American Civil Liberties Union, The Bronx Defenders,
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at
Harvard Law School, Council on American Islamic Relations,
Face and Voices of Recovery, FedCURE, Grassroots Leadership,
Human Rights Defense Center, Human Rights Watch,
International Community Corrections Association, Justice
Policy Institute, The Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights, Legal Action Center, NAACP.
National African American Drug Policy Coalition, National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Association
of Social Workers, National Coalition for the Homeless,
National Council of La Raza, National Employment Law Project,
National HIRE Network, National Law Center on Homelessness
and Poverty, National Workrights Institute, One Million
Americans, Ltd., Oriana House, Inc, Reentry Central, Robert
F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps, Juvenile Justive
Collaborative, Safer Foundation, The Sentencing Project,
StoptheDrugWar.org, Treatment Communities of America,
WestCare Foundation, Inc.
Seniors Groups
National Council on Aging, AARP.
Healthcare Groups
American Public Health Association, Trust for America's
Health.
Education Groups
American Federation of Teachers, National Skills Coalition,
National Education Assocation.
Labor Unions
AFSCME.
Tribal Groups
Combined letter from National Indian Education Association
and National Congress of American Indians, National Indian
Child Welfare Association, National Indian Health Board,
Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, United South and
Eastern Tribes, Inc., Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians,
Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Inter Tribal
Council, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium,
Self Governance Communications and Education Tribal
Consortium.
[[Page H5682]]
____
[From The New York Times, Sept. 4, 2013]
On the Edge of Poverty, at the Center of a Debate on Food Stamps
(By Sheryl Gay Stolberg)
Dyersburg, TN.--As a self-described ``true Southern man''--
and reluctant recipient of food stamps--Dustin Rigsby, a
struggling mechanic, hunts deer, doves and squirrels to help
feed his family. He shops for grocery bargains, cooks budget-
stretching stews and limits himself to one meal a day.
Tarnisha Adams, who left her job skinning hogs at a
slaughterhouse when she became ill with cancer, gets $352 a
month in food stamps for herself and three college-age sons.
She buys discount meat and canned vegetables, cheaper than
fresh. Like Mr. Rigsby, she eats once a day--``if I eat,''
she said.
When Congress officially returns to Washington next week,
the diets of families like the Rigsbys and the Adamses will
be caught up in a debate over deficit reduction. Republicans,
alarmed by a rise in food stamp enrollment, are pushing to
revamp and scale down the program. Democrats are resisting
the cuts.
No matter what Congress decides, benefits will be reduced
in November, when a provision in the 2009 stimulus bill
expires.
Yet as lawmakers cast the fight in terms of spending,
nonpartisan budget analysts and hunger relief advocates warn
of a spike in ``food insecurity'' among Americans who, as Mr.
Rigsby said recently, ``look like we are fine,'' but live on
the edge of poverty, skipping meals and rationing food.
Surrounded by corn and soybean farms--including one owned
by the local Republican congressman, Representative Stephen
Fincher--Dyersburg, about 75 miles north of Memphis, provides
an eye-opening view into Washington's food stamp debate. Mr.
Fincher, who was elected in 2010 on a Tea Party wave and
collected nearly $3.5 million in farm subsidies from the
government from 1999 to 2012, recently voted for a farm bill
that omitted food stamps.
``The role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to
take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from
those in the country and give to others in the country,'' Mr.
Fincher, whose office did not respond to interview requests,
said after his vote in May. In response to a Democrat who
invoked the Bible during the food stamp debate in Congress,
Mr. Fincher cited is own biblical phrase. ``The one who is
unwilling to work shall not eat,'' he said.
On Wednesday, the Department of Agriculture released a 2012
survey showing that nearly 49 million Americans were living
in ``food insecure'' households meaning, in the bureaucratic
language of the agency, that some family members lacked
``consistent access throughout the year to adequate food.''
In short, many Americans went hungry. The agency found the
figures essentially unchanged since the economic downturn
began in 2008, but substantially higher than during the
previous decade.
Experts say the problem is particularly acute in rural
regions like Dyersburg, a city of 17,000 on the banks of the
Forked Deer River in West Tennessee. More than half the
counties with the highest concentration of food insecurity
are rural, according to an analysis by Feeding America, the
nation's largest network of food banks. In Dyer County, it
found, 19.4 percent of residents were ``food insecure'' in
2011, compared with 16.4 percent nationwide.
Over all, nearly 48 million Americans now receive food
stamps, an $80 billion-a-year program that is increasingly
the target of conservatives. Robert Rector, a scholar at the
conservative Heritage Foundation, argues that the food stamp
program should be overhauled so that benefits are tied to
work, much as welfare was revamped under President Bill
Clinton. He advocates mandatory drug testing for food stamp
recipients--a position that draws support from Mr. Rigsby,
who dreams of becoming a game warden and said it irritated
him to see people ``mooch off the system.''
But when benefits drop in November, the Rigsbys, who say
they receive about $350 a month, can expect $29 less.
``People have a lot of misimpressions about hunger in
America,'' said Maura Daly, a Feeding America spokeswoman.
``People think it's associated with homelessness when, in
fact, it is working poor families, it's kids, it's the
disabled.'' Hunger is often invisible, she said, and in rural
areas it is even more so.
Hunger was easy to see on a recent morning in Dyersburg.
Hundreds of people, many of them food stamp recipients, lined
up at the county fairgrounds for boxes of free food--21,000
pounds of meat, potatoes, grains and produce--that had been
trucked in from a food bank in Memphis. About 80 volunteers
set up an assembly line in a warehouse to distribute the
food.
More than 700 families get help each month from the
charitable program, Feed the Need, which was founded in 2009
by Mark Oakes, the chairman of the local Salvation Army,
after a string of nearby factories closed.
``We couldn't absorb the work force back into our
community,'' Mr. Oakes said, ``and people were hungry.''
Among the first in line at the fairgrounds was Kathy
Baucom, 61, a former welder disabled by lupus. She lives
alone in a trailer, hunts deer--``last year I bagged seven,''
she said--and makes burgers, roasts and jerky out of venison.
Her food stamp benefits for $125 a month were recently
reduced to $117.
``I don't buy milk because it's so expensive,'' she said.
``I don't buy cheese.''
Officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, or SNAP, food stamps have long been a cornerstone of
the federal safety net. Benefits, adjusted for income, are
loaded monthly onto a government-issued debit card.
Recipients say the money typically lasts a little more than
two weeks.
``We don't splurge,'' Ms. Adams said, ``and it doesn't
last.''
She shops at Save-A-Lot and cooks frequently with pasta,
because it is filling. One recent evening, she baked a tray
of mostaccioli, an Italian pasta, with meat and cheese.
Hoping it would last for two meals, she had none herself.
``You hate to tell your child, `You can't eat this, you
have to save it for another day,' '' she said.
For the Rigsbys, both 20, the priority is three meals a day
for their son, Drake, who is 1. Some months they run out of
milk. Mr. Rigsby, who is out of work with a knee injury,
recently sold his truck for cash; his wife, Christina, works
part time as a clerk at J. C. Penney. On the refrigerator in
their sparsely furnished apartment is a calendar marked with
the date--the 6th--that their card is refreshed. ``FOOD!'' it
declares.
``When we got married, we told each other that we want to
be able to sit down at the table and eat as a family,'' Mrs.
Rigsby said. ``But we don't really get to do that.''
In Washington, House Republicans propose cutting $40
billion more in food stamps over the next 10 years by
imposing work requirements and eliminating waivers for some
able-bodied adults. The cuts would push four million to six
million low-income people, including millions of ``very low-
income unemployed parents'' who want to work but cannot find
jobs, off the rolls, according to the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research organization.
Even if approved in the House, the cuts would face strong
opposition from Democrats in the Senate. But the arguments of
Mr. Rector, the Heritage Foundation scholar, are gaining
traction with conservatives on Capitol Hill. ``I think food
stamps have in the Republican mind become the symbol of an
out-of-control, means-tested welfare state,'' Mr. Rector
said.
Here in Tennessee, Mr. Fincher embraces that view. ``We
have to remember there is not a big printing press in
Washington that continually prints money over and over,'' he
said in May.
Mr. Rigsby said his family would find a way to make do.
``The way I was raised,'' he said, ``it's, `Be thankful for
what you've got.' We're not the worst case out there. But
somebody else? How is this going to affect them?''
This article has been revised to reflect the following
correction: in earlier version of this article misstated the
given name of the 1-year-old son of Dustin and Christina
Rigsby. It is Drake, not Blake.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.
Mr. Speaker, in an era of billion-dollar defense overruns and bank
bailouts, the Republican leadership wants to nickel-and-dime poor
people. This is a rotten thing to try to do.
But it's not too late, Mr. Speaker. We can defeat this bill and still
go to conference on the farm bill.
We can defeat this bill and make it clear that the United States
Congress still has a conscience.
We can defeat this bill and reestablish the long and proud tradition
of bipartisanship on this issue. Remember Bob Dole working with George
McGovern and Bill Emerson working with Tony Hall.
We can defeat this bill and get back to the work of actually ending
hunger in America, rather than making hunger worse by passing a bill
that cuts $40 billion out of this program and throws 3.8 million people
off the program.
And to suggest that this bill won't hurt people, that it will not cut
people from SNAP is just plain wrong. Read the bill. Read the bill, the
109-page bill that didn't go through committee that's before us under a
closed rule. Read the bill.
This will impact not just people who are trying to look for work and
can't find it; it will impact senior citizens; it will impact children;
and it will impact veterans. 170,000 veterans will be cut from this
program. Shame on us if we do this.
I would say to my colleagues on the Republican side, I know, I know a
lot of you believe as I do that it's important that we maintain a
safety net for the most vulnerable. I know you believe that it's
important that we should end hunger in America. I know you believe that
it's wrong to cut $40 billion from this program. And I urge you--and I
would plead with you--stand with us on this. Stand with us and reject
this move, this harsh move, this rotten thing to do to poor people. I
think you will be proud of standing up against this bill. This is the
wrong thing to do.
So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill. Do the right
thing. Let's
[[Page H5683]]
do something in a bipartisan fashion that we can be proud of. And
defeating a $40 billion cut to the food stamp program is the right
thing to do.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, today we follow the pattern that we did
yesterday in talking about the needs of this great Nation, not only men
and women who are unemployed, but who also need the benefits of the
food stamp program.
And today, the Republican Party, as a result of the work we did in
the Rules Committee, is bringing several bills in this rule, two of
them talking directly about jobs and job creation.
One, Hood River, Oregon; the gentleman, Greg Walden coming to talk
about, please, give us a chance to have jobs. Our people want jobs.
They don't want to be on food stamps. They want jobs. A narrow,
political, shrill agenda, environmentalist agenda, is the reason why we
don't have that--the Democrats and Barack Obama.
Secondly, Arizona. Arizona is asking for 3,700 jobs, $60 billion
worth of economic activity right in this bill. They are jobs bills.
We are trying to do the things that the Republican Party talks about;
that's the middle class of this country, jobs, and job creation.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule, ``yes'' for jobs,
``yes'' for the underlying legislation, ``yes'' so that we can employ
people back at home, rural areas, people who don't have jobs, ``yes''
for the opportunity for the Republican Party to, once again, stand on
this floor and say, we believe the legislation that is here is better
for America than the policies that we have today, the policies of
unemployment, the policies of less than a 40-hour workweek, now to a
30-hour workweek, the policies of taxes and spending.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the
rule for H.R. 3102, the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act.
I am in opposition to this bill for four reasons: hunger is a real
problem in the United States; the solution for reducing dependence on
government subsidized food programs is full employment, this bill will
hurt the poor and most vulnerable in our country and finally the bill
is too draconian and pointedly anti Urban.
September has been declared hunger action month--1 in 6 Americans are
going without enough food to sustain a healthy life.
The United States is considered to be the world's wealthiest nation
but 14.5 percent or almost 49 million Americans do not get enough to
eat.
17 million children live in food insecure households. Children with
inadequate nutrition are affected by cognitive and behavior development
problems.
The majority of SNAP recipients, about 68 percent, do not work; they
are children, elderly, disabled or those caring for a disabled family
member in their home or for a child less than 6 years of age.
To qualify for SNAP benefits in Texas, a person cannot have more than
$2,000 in a bank account and they can make more than $14,079 annually.
The annual income limitations increase by nearly $5,000 for each
additional person living in the household.
To qualify for SNAP benefits, the combined income for a family of
four cannot exceed $28,665.
According to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Texas has the third-highest rate of food insecurity in the
nation--18.5 percent of households struggled to acquire enough healthy
food in 2011. 14.7 percent of U.S. households had difficulty affording
healthy food at some point in 2011.
More than 3 million Americans, including 302,800 Texans, will lose
food stamp benefits in 2013 if the U.S. Congress approves proposed
federal cuts to the SNAP, according to the federal Office of Management
and Budget. About 8.5 percent of Texans were enrolled in the program as
of June 2012.
Based on the estimates from the OMB, the Texas Food Bank Network
calculated the number of Texans that would lose food stamp benefits in
2013 by county.
2 million rural households experience food insecurity. The counties
in the United States with the highest disproportionately high rates of
food insecurity are rural not urban or suburban.
We should pass the American Jobs Act
Prior to the financial crisis, 26.3 million individuals a month on
average received SNAP benefits, getting an average of $96 per month in
benefits. Over the course of the ``Great Recession'' SNAP spending has
increased from $33.2 billion for fiscal year 2007 to $78.4 billion for
fiscal year 2012. The Congressional Budget Office says the economy is
the cause of the nearly 65 percent increase in SNAP spending between
2007 and 2011.
The Congressional Budget Office said in its May 2013 baseline update
estimate that SNAP participation would begin to decline as the economy
continued to recover, falling to an average of $34.4 million per month.
SNAP benefits also help those who earn 130 percent of the federal
poverty guideline. 83 percent of SNAP households have gross income at
or below 100 percent of the poverty guideline. This translates into
incomes of $19,530 for a family of 3 in 2013. These households receive
about 91 percent of all benefits.
Unemployment remains at 7.3 percent with about 11.3 million people
unemployed. There are 6 million long term unemployed people who have
been searching for work 27 weeks or longer.
In July, unemployment percentages by state: Texas 6.5 percent,
California 8.7 percent, Nevada 9.5 percent, North Carolina 8.9 percent,
South Carolina 8.1 percent, Rhode Island 8.9 percent, Tennessee 8.5
percent, Michigan 8.8 percent, Arizona 8.0 percent, and Arkansas 7.4
percent.
In August 2013, there were still 2 million fewer jobs than when the
``Great Recession'' began in 2007. There are still 3 unemployed people
for every new job created by the private sector. 60 percent of the jobs
lost were mid-wage occupations--people who did not need Federal or
State food assistance or housing assistance programs.
Mid-wage good paying jobs make up only 22 percent of the new jobs
created during the recovery. Low-wage jobs represented 21 percent of
the jobs lost but now make up 58 percent of the new jobs.
The need for SNAP is greater because the recovery is not as strong as
it should be nor reaching the people it should reach.
Over the last decade the number of households that were working or
had no income while receiving SNAP more than tripled, from 2 million in
2000 to about 6.4 million in 2011.
This bill will hurt the most vulnerable
Having SNAP funds does not guarantee access to nutritious food. The
Department of Agriculture says that food deserts make it difficult for
urban, suburban and rural poor to find nutritious food.
A food desert according to the Department of Agriculture is a ``low-
access community,'' where at least 500 people and/or at least 33
percent of the census tract's population live more than one mile from a
supermarket or large grocery store.
The USDA defines a food desert for rural communities exists where the
distance to a grocery store is more than 10 miles.
In Harris County, Texas, 149 out of 920 households or 20 percent of
residents do not have automobiles and live more than one-half mile from
a grocery store.
Hunger is silent--most victims of hunger are ashamed and will not ask
for help, they work to hide their situation from everyone.
In 2009-2010 the Houston, Sugar Land and Baytown area had 27.6
percent of households with children experiencing food hardship.
In households without children food hardship was experienced by 16.5.
Houston, Sugar Land and Baytown rank 22 among the areas surveyed.
The bill is too draconian and pointedly anti-Urban
The bill creates a nationwide ``pilot program'' that directs states
could impose new work requirements on SNAP recipients, including on
parents of young children. The bill authorizes states to conduct drug
testing of SNAP applicants as a condition of receiving benefits.
The bill is blatantly anti-urban in calling for a pilot program to
reduce retailer fraud be conducted in a large urban area that
administers its own SNAP program.
The bill requires that SNAP recipients receive at least $20 or more
in aid from the state through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program (LIHEAP) before they could receive an increase in SNAP
benefits.
The bill before prohibits states from telling someone about SNAP food
programs. The bill defines this type of communication as recruiting
SNAP participants by advertising the SNAP program.
The bill eliminates states' ability to waive work requirements. In
addition the bill would impose new work requirements on parents of
young children.
The bill would restrict ``categorical eligibility'' this would impact
people who qualify for other low-income aid.
The bill requires that SNAP benefits be used by beneficiaries within
60 days of being posted to an account. If they have the benefits then
the benefits should be there when the opportunity to go to a store is
available to them--which may be more than a 2 to 4 week period.
People who are poor are not criminals and we should stop trying to
treat them as if they
[[Page H5684]]
committed a crime. This bill is right out of the 47 percent playbook
that was defeated last year during the Presidential Election and this
bill needs to be defeated as well.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would reduce
net SNAP spending by 39 billion over 10 years and that 2.8 million
people on average would lose their benefits while 850,000 would see
benefits cut.
SNAP benefits help the disabled, which include men and women who have
served our nation during times of war. It is reported that nearly $53
million in food stamps had been cashed in by people eligible to shop in
base commissaries, including disabled veterans. The use of food stamps
in commissaries increased 9 percent from 2012 to 2013. Military
commissaries sold about $31 million under the Women, Infants and
Children program in 2012 and nearly $15 million by June of this year.
Food is not an option--it is a right that all people living in this
Nation must have to exist and to prosper.
Next year if this bill become law the nearly $40 billion cuts in the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs also known as SNAP that is
proposed by this bill 4 million Americans would fall though our
Nation's food safety net.
In 2011, according to Feeding America: 46.2 million people were in
poverty, 9.5 million families were in poverty, 26.5 million of people
ages 18-64 were in poverty, 16.1 million children under the age of 18
were in poverty, 3.6 million (9.0 percent) seniors 65 and older were in
poverty.
In the State of Texas: 34% of children live in poverty in Texas, 21%
of adults (19-64) live in poverty in Texas, 17% of elderly live in
poverty in Texas.
In my city of Houston, Texas the U.S. census reports that over the
last 12 months 442,881 incomes were below the poverty level.
In 2011: 50.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households,
33.5 million adults and 16.7 million children. households with children
reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those
without children, 20.6 percent compared to 12.2 percent.
More Facts on Child Hunger
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 16.7
million children under 18 in the United States live in households where
they are unable to consistently access enough nutritious food for a
healthy life.
Food Insecurity
16.7 million children lived in food insecure households in 2011. 20%
or more of the child population in 37 states and D.C. lived in food
insecure households in 2011. In 2011, the top five states with the
highest rate of food insecure children under 18 were New Mexico, the
District of Columbia, Arizona, Oregon, and Georgia.
Emergency Food Assistance
Nearly 14 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding
America, over 3 million of which are ages 5 and under. 54 percent of
client households with children under the age of 3 participated in the
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC).
Poverty
In 2011, 16.1 million or approximately 22 percent of children in the
U.S. lived in poverty.
Participation in Federal Nutrition Programs
In fiscal year 2011, 47 percent of all SNAP households contained
children. During the 2011 federal fiscal year, more than 31 million
low-income children received free or reduced-price meals through the
National School Lunch Program. Unfortunately, just 2.3 million children
participated in the Summer Food Service Program that same year.
As elected representatives we should see our Nation's vital interest
to be to feed hungry children and all hungry Americans.
At the core of our vital interest is a stable and thriving economy, a
strong and healthy population that is able to contribute to the
economic engine that fuels our economy.
I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and restore fully the food
programs to the farm bill.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________