[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H33]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                     THE CONTINUING WAR ON POVERTY

  (Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my 
colleagues in marking the 50th anniversary of President Johnson's 
declaration of a war on poverty. This war was being won for 16 years, 
but since President Reagan's election 34 years ago, the free-marketeers 
and their Republican Party proponents have pressed the war on the war 
on poverty. The results are heart-wrenching. The rich are getting 
richer, while millions of middle-income families have been thrown into 
poverty.
  In my State of Georgia alone, almost 17 percent of households are 
food insecure, according to the Half in Ten Education Fund. Eighteen 
percent of people in Georgia earn less than $23,492 for a family of 
four.
  Republicans blame the poor for being poor, and even worse, Mr. 
Speaker, they blame the 27.2 percent of children, Mr. Speaker, who are 
living below the poverty line in Georgia.
  Republicans who ignore the desperate pleas to extend SNAP and 
unemployment insurance programs are hurting the people I represent in 
Georgia and millions more throughout this great Nation. It is a shame.

                          ____________________