[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H2245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MAKE COMMON SENSE CHANGES TO END HUNGER

  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, House Republicans, led by Budget Committee 
Chairman Paul Ryan, criticize our Nation's antipoverty programs. Some 
want to drastically change them, and others want to eliminate them 
altogether. Over the past 6 months, we have seen $19 billion in cuts to 
SNAP alone, our Nation's premier antihunger program.
  Participation in SNAP reached an all-time high a few years ago 
because of the Great Recession, the worst economic period since the 
Great Depression. That is because people were either unemployed or 
underpaid.
  If you want to reduce SNAP participation, it is simple: put more 
people back to work and better paying jobs. Yesterday, the Center for 
American Progress released a report showing how easy one step is. They 
found that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 would move about 3.5 
million people off of SNAP, simply because they wouldn't need it.
  We shouldn't arbitrarily cut antipoverty programs like SNAP. We must 
make commonsense changes like increasing the minimum wage if we are 
truly going to end hunger in this country.

                          ____________________