[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 15 (Monday, January 27, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H1425-H1428]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SNAP CUTS IN THE FARM BILL
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hudson). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for 30 minutes.
Ms. DeLAURO. First, let me say thank you to my colleagues who are
leaving the floor for your great work on the issue of wage stagnation
and the inability for upward mobility for people in this Nation. You
have done a great service here tonight with laying out what the facts
are. What we need to do is to be able to increase people's income and,
therefore, give them the economic wherewithal to take care of
themselves and their families and have a road to economic security. So
I thank you very, very much.
I also want to say a thank you to my colleague from Rhode Island,
Congressman Cicilline, who will join me in this 30-minute Special Order
for tonight.
Tonight, I want to talk about the severe and immoral cuts being made
to anti-hunger and nutrition programs, and particularly the
continuation of devastating food stamp cuts being made in the proposed
conference farm bill. We have said here that food stamps--food stamps--
are an economic safety net.
As written, the farm bill would force 850,000 households--1.7 million
men, women, children and veterans across America--to go hungry, even
while wealthy agri-businesses continue to get generous crop subsidies.
Low-income seniors, working poor families with children, and
individuals with disabilities would be particularly impacted by the
cruel cuts in this bill.
Meanwhile, the conference has decided to reopen the loopholes that
the House of Representatives, in a bipartisan way, closed; and those
loopholes as they reopen them will make sure that millionaires and
billionaires are getting crop subsidies. One has to ask the question,
Who are we working for here? In effect, this is reverse Robin Hood
legislation. It steals food from the poor to help pay crop subsidies to
the rich. And when I see Members supporting the immoral cuts in this
legislation, Mr. Speaker, I have to wonder if some people in this
institution have really lost their perspective and understand why we
are here and what our moral responsibility is.
Across this country--this great country--nearly 50 million Americans,
including over 16 million children, are
[[Page H1426]]
struggling with hunger right now. Think for a moment about what that
means. In 1974, a writer at Time magazine explained it this way:
The victim of starvation burns up his own body fats,
muscles and tissues for fuel. His body quite literally
consumes itself and deteriorates rapidly. The kidneys, liver
and endocrine system often cease to function properly. A
shortage of carbohydrates, which play a vital role in brain
chemistry, affects the mind. Lassitude and confusion set in,
so that starvation victims often seem unaware of their
plight.
That is what we are talking about here. Hunger is agonizing. It is a
curse. We are talking about men and women experiencing real physical
torment, children who cannot concentrate in school because all they can
think about is food. Seniors are forced to decide, in this virulent
winter season, this polar vortex that we talked about, whether or not
they will go hungry or whether or not they will go cold.
This is a problem all across this land. The estimates of Americans at
risk of going hungry, here in the land of plenty, are appalling. In my
Connecticut district, nearly one in seven households is not sure if
they can afford enough food to feed their families. In Mississippi,
24.5 percent suffer food hardship. That is nearly one in four people.
In West Virginia and Kentucky, 22 percent, one in five people, suffer
food hardship; in Ohio, nearly 20 percent; and in California, just over
19 percent.
The continued existence of hunger in America is a disgrace and, quite
frankly, an indictment of this institution. As the late Senator George
McGovern, a champion against hunger, wrote:
The Earth has enough knowledge and resources to eradicate
this ancient scourge. Hunger has plagued the world for
thousands of years. But ending it is a great moral imperative
now more than ever before, because for the first time
humanity has the instruments at hand to defeat this cruel
enemy at a very reasonable cost. We have the ability to
provide food for all within the next three decades.
{time} 2030
Or as President John F. Kennedy put it:
We have the ability, we have the means, and we have the
capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the Earth. We
need only the will.
Mr. Speaker, that will seems to be lacking in the Congress right now.
Instead of working to end hunger for good, this farm bill takes food
from the plates of 1.7 million Americans. And again, we are talking
about seniors, veterans, children, families who are playing by the
rules and many of whom are working full-time, all the time.
The farm bill, this one that is being proposed, would force Americans
to go hungry. And at the same time, the conference has chosen, against
the will of the House and the Senate, to reopen loopholes and strip out
payment limits so that millionaires and wealthy agribusinesses can
continue to get handouts.
It is unconscionable what has happened here. On its own cognizance,
and in violation of the congressional rule that provisions passed by
both bodies should not be changed, the conference more than doubled the
annual dollars on primary payments. They said you now get $50,000 for a
primary payment for your commodities, we are now going to raise that to
$125,000. That loophole was closed. They then reopened the loophole
closed in the House and the Senate that allows large wealthy farmers to
collect far, far more than that nominal payment limit. And they did
this while they cut $8.5 billion from food stamps.
What is interesting, what is very interesting and cruel, if you will,
is that those folks who are upper-income scale, the wealthiest of
farmers, they don't have to have any income threshold or test to see
how much they make before they qualify for these payments. They don't
have to tell us about what assets they have before they qualify for
these payments. We don't have a cap on the payments that we give them.
These are millionaires. And yes, for food stamp recipients, we have an
asset threshold, an income threshold. We say, if you make so much
money, you are not eligible for $1.40 per meal. You are not eligible.
But if you are a millionaire, all bets are off. All bets are off. And
you know those folks at the top rung, they are eating well. They are
getting three squares a day. They are feeding their kids. And what we
are going to do is to take food away from food stamp recipients--men,
women, seniors, children, and veterans.
Where are the values of this great Nation? We have lost our way. We
have lost our way.
In the past, there has been a strong tradition of bipartisanship on
fighting hunger and supporting nutrition, from the left, leaders like
George McGovern, and from the right, leaders like Bob Dole who would
come together to make a difference for families in need. In fact,
Senator Dole called the egregious cuts to food stamps in the House
version of the bill ``an about-face on our progress fighting hunger.''
This is because food stamps is our country's most important effort to
deal with hunger here at home and to ensure that American families can
put food on the table for their kids. They help over 47 million
Americans, nearly half of them children, meet their basic food needs,
and they make a tremendous difference for the health and well-being of
families. Food stamps have been proven to improve low-income children's
health and development, reduce food insecurity, and have a continuing
positive influence into adulthood.
Children's Health Watch researchers found, after collecting 14 years'
worth of data on over 20,000 low-income families, that when families
experience a loss or reduction in food stamp benefits, they are more
likely to be food insecure, be in poor health, and their children
experience intensified developmental delays relative to their peers.
Food stamps also have one of the lowest error rates of any government
program. It is around 3.8 percent. That includes overpayments and
underpayments. I defy to go to any other agency--let's look at the crop
insurance program and find out what their error rate is all about.
Food stamps are good for the economy, a positive impact on growth,
because food stamps not only help to feed the hungry, they get
resources into the hands of families who will spend them right away.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows that every $5 of
Federal food stamp benefits generates nearly twice that in economic
activity.
Most importantly, of course, they are the right thing to do. Ninety-
nine percent of food stamp recipients have incomes below the poverty
line. It is the job of good government to help vulnerable families get
back on their feet. In the words of Harry Truman:
Nothing is more important in our national life than the
welfare of our children, and proper nourishment comes first
in attaining this welfare.
That is why, when he declared that ``the moment is at hand to put an
end to hunger in America,'' Richard Nixon called for a significant
expansion of the food stamp program to ``provide poor families enough
food stamps to purchase a nutritionally complete diet.''
This is something we all used to agree on. But now we are seeing a
farm bill that cuts deeply into food stamps, and I ask again, how can
anyone possibly support this?
Keep in mind, food stamps have already seen deep and dangerous cuts.
If you look at the fridge in the picture that I am holding up, this
represents where we should be in terms of access to food. But because
of the recent expiration of the Recovery Act provisions, food stamps
have already been cut by $5 billion next year, and they will be cut by
$11 billion over the next 3 years.
On November 1, 2013, SNAP benefits were reduced, about $36 less for a
family of four each month. This means that a family of four loses $36,
or 16 meals a month, in support. That is the difference between health
and hunger.
Now this Congress wants to enact another $8.5 billion in cuts,
meaning an additional $90 per month, and that much more food taken away
from 850,000 households. This is the proposed farm bill. SNAP cuts
would result in 850,000 households, 1.7 million people, losing almost
$90 a month in monthly benefits.
And already, for far too many Americans, the last few weeks of the
month, this is what their fridge looks like. Why would we put any more
hardship on the most vulnerable families in our Nation, families who
are already battling food insecurity and hunger? They will have an
empty refrigerator. No one should go hungry due to food stamp cuts.
However you cut it, this is a terrible policy. Cutting food stamps
will cause more hunger and health problems. These cuts are a
dereliction of our responsibility as Members of Congress
[[Page H1427]]
and our moral responsibility to help the least fortunate among us.
As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said:
We must form a ``circle of protection'' around programs
that serve the poor and vulnerable in our Nation and
throughout the world.
Or in the words of Pope Francis:
The scandal that millions of people suffer from hunger must
not paralyze us, but push each and every one of us to act--
singles, families, communities, institutions, governments--to
eliminate this injustice.
Mr. Speaker, this farm bill takes us in the wrong direction. Instead
of helping to end hunger, it cuts food stamps by $90 a month for 1.7
million people. It forces poor families to choose between food on the
table or warmth, and it does all of this while preserving loopholes and
maximizing handouts for wealthy farmers and agribusinesses. We have to
do better.
I hope all of my colleagues in both parties will stand up against the
outrageously misplaced priorities in this farm bill. I hope we can
rekindle the strong bipartisan support that existed for decades for
ending hunger in America.
The astronaut Buzz Aldrin once said, ``If we can conquer space, we
can conquer childhood hunger,'' and we can. This institution has the
power. It has the potential to make that transformative change. We have
the ability. We have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate
hunger in America. We only need the will to do what is right.
With that, I would like to yield to my colleague from Rhode Island,
who is such a strong supporter of families in this Nation and who has
seen the ravages of families who have lost their unemployment benefits;
and now what we intend to do is not only have they lost their
unemployment benefits, we want to make sure, with this farm bill, what
it would mean is that they are hungry and that they are cold. I thank
the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for being here tonight.
Mr. CICILLINE. I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro)
for her extraordinary work and for her incredible passion on this very,
very important issue and for giving me an opportunity to speak on this
serious issue tonight.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Connecticut has been a great
champion for policies that fight hunger and protect a crucial safety
net for our Nation's most vulnerable children and families. I am very
proud to stand with her tonight against these devastating cuts to the
SNAP program. You don't end hunger by cutting nutrition programs; you
make it worse.
We should be working together to find ways to end hunger in America.
We can do that. This is the greatest country on Earth. We should be
certain that no man, woman, or child in this country goes hungry.
Unfortunately, some of my colleagues filed the farm bill conference
report that would be absolutely devastating to families struggling to
get by. For just a moment, I would like to walk through some of the
cuts being proposed.
In States like mine with cold winters, many working families already
struggling to buy food face the additional burden of expensive monthly
utility bills to heat their homes. Faced with this reality, some
parents are forced to decide what is more important for their child: a
good, nutritious meal or a warm home. For decades now, the SNAP program
has worked to provide additional benefits to struggling families facing
both food insecurity and high heating or housing costs.
For example, in my home State of Rhode Island, individuals who
receive even nominal assistance through the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, are also eligible for additional
assistance under SNAP. This policy, often called Heat and Eat, makes
sense for two reasons. First, this kind of policy helps prevent some of
our most vulnerable families from having to face the difficult choice
between a warm home and a good meal. Let's not forget, these families
are living in the worst kind of poverty, the poorest and most needy
members of our community, and they very often face the real threat of
hunger and a freezing home.
The second reason this program is important is because it makes both
programs more efficient and streamlines the application process.
Without this policy, the same family would be forced to navigate a maze
of bureaucracies to access resources in a time of tremendous need.
Instead, under this policy, struggling families can access critical
resources more easily and focus on the things that matter, like getting
back on their feet or finding work. In a time of limited Federal
resources for the poor, Heat and Eat helps. It helps States coordinate
assistance programs and leverages funding from SNAP and LIHEAP so no
family is faced with that impossible choice.
Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle have called this a
loophole, but it is not a loophole. This is a policy, an effective
policy, designed to address a real problem for families facing
especially hard times. The conference report that was filed tonight
cuts and undermines States' efforts to coordinate food and heating
assistance, and it will make the lives of our neediest families even
more difficult.
I know many of my colleagues will think that this is an easy pill to
swallow. Why? Because it places the burden of further reductions to
nutrition problems on the backs of a smaller group of individuals in a
limited number of States. Only 16 States administer Heat and Eat
programs, primarily cold weather States like Rhode Island and
Connecticut, and it is a cruel twist that my colleagues have decided to
target cold weather States right after many parts of the country faced
record-breaking cold and incredibly high heating costs.
{time} 2045
According to the previous estimates of this policy, the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office said that about 850,000 households would
see their benefits cut by an average of about $90 a month. Of course,
many of the households affected by this cut will be low-income seniors,
veterans, people with disabilities, children, and the working poor. In
total, this cut impacts 1.7 million people struggling to put food on
the table, and it imposes all of these cuts on only those families
living in 16 States.
The same people that are proposing these cuts in nutrition programs
are more than happy to provide agricultural companies with extremely
generous subsidies to purchase crop insurance. They are happy to spend
$40 billion over the next 10 years in commodity programs. They are
happy to undermine payment reform, like limits on total commodity
payments for personnel, reforms that were approved and voted on by the
full House last June and that could result in even higher subsidies for
the wealthiest farmers.
In fact, one of the architects of this bill has tried to make the
case for maintaining certain agricultural subsidies by saying, ``The
safety net still has to exist.'' Apparently, to protect the safety net,
the wealthiest farmers, children, and families in 16 States will be
forced to struggle even harder to put food on the table. It is a sad
day in this country when the safety net for wealthy farmers is more
important than the safety net for hungry families.
I thank the gentlelady for all of the work that she has done and for
the information she just shared about how effective and important this
program is.
I just want to end with two quotes from important religious groups
who have spoken to this issue that I hope my colleagues will hear and
rethink this decision and reject this proposal and speak to our values
as a country.
The National Association of Evangelicals said:
As you determine the policies and appropriations for the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, please maintain
this vital program at or near its current level of funding,
and refrain from enacting policies that could damage our most
vulnerable citizens.
And a U.S. Catholic bishop said:
How the House chooses to address our Nation's hunger and
nutrition programs will have profound human and moral
consequences.
I hope we will all hear those words and do what is right for
families, will speak to our values as a country and protect those most
in need from any additional cuts that will adversely impact their
families and their ability to feed themselves.
I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Ms. DeLAURO. I can't thank the gentleman enough for your eloquence
and
[[Page H1428]]
what clarity you brought to the discussion around the connection
between the low-income energy assistance program and the food stamp
program and taking it out of the realm of what people are trying to do,
which is to demean it and talk about it as a scheme or a loophole, none
of which is true. We can talk about some schemes and some loopholes in
this bill, but they don't apply where it has to do with the food stamp
beneficiaries.
I want to pick up on a point that you made about the safety net. The
farm bill--and I had the opportunity to work in 2008 on the farm bill,
and particularly the nutrition piece--has always been a safety net for
farmers and for those who are the beneficiaries of the nutrition
programs. That is the link that was established, so that the benefits
would go nationwide, not to a particular region of the country, not to
a particular population, but a safety net so that we could make sure
that people in bad times, in difficult times, could be able to sustain
themselves. That is what has been broken apart here with this farm
bill.
The point is that where the farm bill conferees will say that they
are cutting back on these payments to farmers, what they have done is
to create a series of other programs where these folks can make
themselves whole through crop insurance, through putting more farm
managers on the land and no restrictions as to how many you can put at
$125,000 a pop. So they found ways in terms of which they make these
folks whole.
The only beneficiaries in the farm bill who have no place to go when
you cut back on that $90 a month are the food stamp recipients. So you
have yanked the safety net away from them and you have done it to
benefit the wealthiest farm interests in the Nation. It is wrong.
That bipartisan support we had in the past for a safety net is what
created strength. I am sad to tell you that that has been rent asunder,
and we cannot let that happen.
I am going to encourage my colleagues--and I know you will--that we
will defeat this effort to leave people without sustenance in this
Nation.
I thank the gentleman for participating tonight.
I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________