[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 1, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1078-H1081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HUNGER IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Abraham). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 30 minutes.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight our important
Federal nutrition programs, and I rise today to remind my colleagues
that we have a hunger problem in the United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, there is not a single congressional district in this
country that is hunger free. Every community--whether urban, suburban,
or rural--faces hunger. One in seven Americans experience hunger,
including 16 million children. We are the richest, most powerful
country in the history of the world. It is shameful that even one child
goes to bed hungry.
In every community across the country, there are dedicated,
passionate local antihunger organizations that do incredible work to
provide food assistance and support those struggling with hunger, from
food banks to food pantries, to faith-based organizations, to community
centers, to hospitals, and on and on and on. Charities do important,
wonderful work, but they cannot do it alone. The demand is simply too
high. Charities need a strong partner in the Federal Government if we
are ever going to end hunger.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which used to
be known as food stamps, is our Nation's premier antihunger program. It
is effective and it is efficient, with an error rate of less than 4
percent, which includes both overpayments and underpayments.
By the way, underpayments are when a recipient receives less than
they are eligible for, and that happens often.
Find me a Pentagon spending program with such a low error rate. The
fact of the matter is SNAP is one of the most successful--if not the
most successful--Federal programs that we have.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and
Children, or WIC, provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy
eating, and breastfeeding support to more than 8 million low-income
women and children at nutritional risk. WIC gives infants and young
children the healthy, nutritious start that they need for critical
early development and lifelong learning. It is an incredibly vital
program.
The National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and the Summer Food
Service Program provide nutritious foods for millions of children and
teens in educational and community settings. These important programs
ensure that our young people are ready to learn and that they can
succeed.
The Meals on Wheels program provides home-delivered meals to millions
of homebound seniors. Not only does Meals on Wheels improve senior
nutrition, it also enables seniors to live independently longer while
receiving daily check-in visits from volunteers.
These are just a few of the vital Federal antihunger programs that
are the backbone of our fight to end hunger once and for all in this
country. But, Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons why I am coming to this
floor today is I am deeply worried that they are coming under attack by
the Republican majority in this House.
Unfortunately, it is fashionable right now to demonize Americans
living in poverty and to belittle their struggles. We hear that all too
often on this House floor. We hear that all too often in this
Presidential campaign that is going on. The fact of the matter is it is
hard work to be poor in America. It is not easy. Yet millions of
families are struggling, trying to raise their kids and living on a
paycheck that doesn't provide enough to put food on the table.
Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago, I spent a night at a homeless
shelter in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the Interfaith Hospitality
Network. It is a family homeless shelter. As you know, there are not
enough shelters that accommodate entire families. Usually families get
split up. But what I wasn't prepared for when I spent the night at this
shelter was that every one of these families had at least one adult
that was working. They were working in a job. They all had unique
situations that put them in a very difficult situation. But the fact of
the matter is they were working. They were earning just enough that a
lot of their benefits were reduced, but they were not earning enough to
be able to put a down payment on an apartment and afford rent.
These are parents that love their kids every bit as much as I love my
kids and my colleagues love their kids. They want to be good parents,
but they are struggling. They are looking for a hand up, not a handout.
They are looking for a little bit of assistance so they can get back on
their feet.
The bottom line is that their plight is not unique. I will tell my
colleagues that their plight does not fall into a neat stereotype. Too
often when people here in this Chamber talk about the homeless or the
hungry, they talk about people who are addicted to drugs, or they talk
about people who don't work or who don't want to work. That is not the
reality. That is not the face of poverty in this country. It is much
more complicated than that. And yet, to justify deep cuts in programs
to actually help people get back on their feet, we hear the false
narrative repeated over and over and over again, the demonization of
these people who are struggling in poverty.
[[Page H1079]]
The rhetoric that we hear on the floor all too often is hurtful, and
it is sometimes hateful. It is seeping into the discourse in this
Congress, and it is seeping into some of the decisionmaking that is
going on by the current leadership in this Congress.
It seems like just now Republican leaders are finally coming around
to the idea that they need to talk about poverty. We heard the Speaker
say that he wants a national conversation about poverty. But I have got
to tell you I am a little worried, because while we need this
conversation and while we need to come up with solutions, I have this
sinking feeling that something else is going on, that this so-called
conversation on poverty is really kind of a masquerade for cutting
deeply into programs that will help put food and nutrition on people's
tables and provide people the shelter that they need when they are
struggling. I worry that this congressional task force that the Speaker
announced, when I look at it, is made up of Members, all of whom have
supported block-granting SNAP.
What block-granting means is that States can do almost whatever the
heck they want to do with the SNAP benefit. They don't necessarily have
to use it to provide people food. They can use it for other things;
and, therefore, it puts that benefit at risk, especially during
difficult economic times.
But every one of the people who is on this task force has voted for
Republican budgets that support block-granting. Every one of the people
on this so-called poverty task force voted to cut SNAP by $40 billion
during the last farm bill--$40 billion.
Now, they would say: Oh, we are just trying to trim the program and
make it more efficient. I would just say to my colleagues that the
average SNAP benefit is $1.40 per person per meal per day--$1.40.
I bet most of my colleagues who are calling for deep cuts in SNAP
have no idea what the benefit is. They have no idea how inadequate the
benefit is. In fact, it is so inadequate that most families who are on
SNAP end up having to rely on food banks, having to rely on churches,
synagogues, and mosques at the end of the month to be able to put food
on their table. It is $1.40 per person per meal per day. That is the
average benefit. Yet my colleagues, those who are on this so-called
poverty task force, almost unanimously, on the other side of the aisle,
voted to cut the program by $40 billion.
I would ask my colleagues, what are you thinking? What are you
thinking? We have an obligation to be there for the most vulnerable in
this country. That is what government is supposed to be for. Donald
Trump doesn't need government. He is a zillionaire. He doesn't have to
worry about where his next meal is going to come from. Yet there are
millions of people, millions of families in this country who do. They
are looking for a little compassion. They are not looking for a
handout. They are looking for a hand up so they can get their lives in
order and they can progress.
Mr. Speaker, we need to do better.
I will just say one other thing, and then I am going to yield to my
colleague from Virginia.
There is another kind of nasty discussion going on by my Republican
colleagues. They have a new proposal to drug-test SNAP recipients. The
fact of the matter is this proposal has no basis in reality. It is
nothing more than a mean-spirited attack on poor people to fire up
their rightwing base. It is insulting. It is insulting.
We have seen drug test laws in Florida and Georgia struck down as
unconstitutional and end up wasting taxpayer dollars to identify very
few drug users. In fact, those receiving public assistance test
positive for illicit drugs at a lower rate than the general
population--at a lower rate than the general population. It doesn't fit
into the rightwing narrative of who comprises those who live in poverty
in America, but it is the fact. It is the fact.
Why aren't Republicans in this bill calling for drug testing for
wealthy CEOs and oil company executives who receive taxpayer subsidies?
Why aren't they calling for Members of Congress to undergo drug tests?
After all, our salaries are paid by the taxpayers in this country. Why
don't you call for all Members of Congress to undergo drug tests? Maybe
that might explain why we do some of the things we do here in this
Congress.
But, instead, again, they only pick on one sector of the population--
poor people. They are the ones who are being blamed for the economy.
They are the ones who are being demonized, and they are the ones who
are being belittled. It is beneath this Chamber and this House to
engage in that kind of discussion.
We need to be making real, meaningful progress to end hunger and
poverty in this country. First and foremost, we need to protect and
strengthen our important Federal nutrition and antihunger programs. We
need bold action that will help people rather than make hunger and
poverty worse. That is why I continue to call for a White House
conference on food, nutrition, and hunger to develop a holistic plan to
end hunger in America, because I think we can do better. I think we
need to get all of our Federal agencies and our State agencies to work
better together and to connect the dots so that we can deal with this
so-called cliff that so many people struggling to get out of poverty
hit when they start to make a little bit of money.
{time} 1615
We need to figure out a holistic plan with benchmarks that will
actually end hunger. We have a lot of programs, quite frankly, that
deal with different aspects of hunger, but I am not sure we have a plan
that will actually end it.
Here is the deal. Hunger is a political condition. It is solvable. We
have everything to solve it except the political will. One of the
things we should be doing is developing that political will and not
going down the road of demonizing some of the most vulnerable people in
this country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the
ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the
gentleman from Massachusetts not only for yielding, but also for his
years of work fighting hunger. He is one of the strongest advocates we
have in Congress in fighting the scourge of hunger. I want to thank him
for all of those years of good work.
It is my privilege to be the ranking member of the Committee on
Education and the Workforce. In that perspective, we played an integral
role in the reduction of food insecurity and lowering the prevalence of
debilitating health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and
others.
Our committee is tasked with making sure all children have an equal
shot at success. One important way is to ensure that by providing
healthy, nutritious meals.
There is a Federal role in ensuring that every child has access to a
quality education, regardless of where they live or their family's
income, and nutrition is a part of making sure they can get that
education.
More than 60 years ago, when Congress enacted the first Federal child
nutrition program--the National School Lunch Program--Congress
acknowledged that feeding hungry children was not only a moral
imperative, but also an imperative for the health and security of our
Nation.
The National School Lunch Program was actually a response from the
military community who were complaining that so many of our young
military age youth were unprepared for military service because they
were malnourished.
Regrettably today, we are faced with the same crisis that impacts our
Nation's national security. Too many of our children are now obese, too
obese to enlist in our Nation's military. One-third of the children in
this country are overweight, and childhood obesity has tripled in the
last 30 years.
While all segments of the population are affected, low-income
families are especially vulnerable to obesity and other chronic
diseases because they end up eating unhealthy food.
Unfortunately, the poorest among us have the least access to healthy
foods, many times without a full-service grocery store or farmer's
market in their community.
We still have a long way to go, but there have been positive signs of
progress through the implementation of our child nutrition programs.
Thanks to the introduction of stronger standards brought about by the
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, enacted just a few years ago, students
[[Page H1080]]
across the country are experiencing healthy school environments with
more nutritious meal options.
One area in dire need of increased access to child nutrition programs
and nutritious meals they provide is Flint, Michigan. As everybody
knows, the residents of Flint are struggling with the consequences of
exposure to high levels of lead as a result of the city's contaminated
municipal water supply.
Lead exposure is especially damaging to infants, toddlers, and
expectant mothers and can cause behavioral and cognitive problems that
last a lifetime.
Although there is no cure for lead poisoning, research shows that a
healthy diet, including zinc, vitamin C, iron, and calcium, can
mitigate some of the harmful effects.
Federal supplemental funding for nutrition programs, especially the
WIC program, would allow access to healthier diets.
Funding for a nutrient-rich third meal, an extension of WIC benefits,
to 10 years of age for all eligible children would go a long way to
help the residents of Flint, Michigan, deal with lead poisoning.
Mr. Speaker, our committee is now working on a child nutrition
reauthorization bill. With this reauthorization, we have a great
opportunity to continue to improve the way that children eat, to expand
access to nutritious meals, and to end the crisis of childhood hunger
in this country.
These efforts do not end with the school year or even the school day.
Whether in schools, childcare settings, or summer programs, our goal
should be to provide high-quality and nutritious food to all of
America's children.
We have a choice to make. We can put money into these important
programs now and support healthy eating in our schools and other
settings or we can cut corners and spend more money down the road on
chronic diseases and other social services, putting the well-being of
our children and our Nation's security at risk. Make no mistake. Either
way, we will spend the money.
A few years ago medical expenditures to treat obesity in the United
States were estimated to be $147 billion, 16.5 percent of all U.S.
medical expenditures.
Investing in the front end, by maintaining strong nutrition standards
and increasing access to healthy meals, is obviously a better choice
for our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my fellow Members of Congress to continue to
invest in our Nation's future by moving forward, not backward, on
issues of food insecurity and child nutrition.
I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts again for his
longtime advocacy, for his efforts to reduce hunger and to provide
better nutrition for our Nation's children.
Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for his comments and for his
leadership, and I thank him for pointing out the links between good
nutrition and good health.
We actually will save money in the long run if we provide our people,
our young people in particular, nutritious food. We can prevent
diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
If people aren't moved by the human aspect of feeding the hungry and
all they care about is the bottom line, they ought to join with us to
make sure that these nutrition programs are adequately funded.
In addition, you can't learn in school if you are hungry. A breakfast
and a lunch to a young child who is hungry is every bit as essential to
that child's ability to learn as is a textbook.
We need to understand that. We need to stop nickel-and-diming these
nutrition programs and understand that every dollar we invest, every
penny we invest, pays us back in ways that can't even be quantified,
quite frankly.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms.
DeLauro), a leader on this issue, a woman who is on the Appropriations
Committee, who, again, has been a champion for many, many years on this
issue of combating hunger in America.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman, and I thank my colleagues. I am
so proud to join with you tonight
And to Congressman McGovern, your unrelenting efforts to address the
issue of ending hunger and doing it now, you have been singularly an
individual who has never missed a beat in trying to address this issue
and bring it to the floor and the public.
And to my colleague from Virginia, who has taken his platform of the
Education and the Workforce Committee and have had a focus on how, in
fact, we improve the opportunities for our children and whether it is
their health or their education, he is at the forefront.
I see we have been joined by Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin,
someone who can talk about her own deep personal experiences with
hunger and with the food stamp program and what it means to be able to
work your way out of these efforts. She has done it to a fare-thee-
well.
Mr. Speaker, over 50 million people--nearly one in four--live in
hunger in the United States. Don't ever let anybody use the terminology
``food security.'' It is plain and simple hunger.
Kids are hungry in the United States of America. Hunger exists in
virtually every community in this country. Social safety net programs
are vital tools for reducing the prevalence of poverty and hunger.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP--food stamps,
yes--is one of the most powerful programs that we have for ending
childhood hunger in the United States. It helps millions of hardworking
American families every year.
SNAP works for those who need it most. It has been incredibly
successful in alleviating hunger, lifting people out of poverty, and
supporting our economy.
SNAP continues to do more than any other government assistance
program to lift Americans out of poverty. The numbers speak for
themselves.
In 2014 alone, the program lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty,
including 2.1 million children. SNAP also lifted more than 1.3 million
children out of deep poverty. What is deep poverty? It is 50 percent of
what the poverty line is in this Nation.
The program impacts children well beyond their childhood years.
Research shows that, among children who grow up in disadvantaged
households with access to SNAP, there is an 18 percentage point
increase in the likelihood of completing high school.
There has also been evidence of significant improvements in overall
health and economic self-sufficiency among women.
SNAP is an extremely efficient program. More than half of all of the
benefits go to households in deepest poverty, and over 70 percent of
all benefits go to households with children.
Despite what some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
would say about fraud, waste, and abuse, the food stamp program has the
lowest error rate of any Federal Government program, the lowest error
rate.
Based on this anecdote that it is rife with fraud, waste, and abuse,
they would deny children food. The data speaks loud and clear about the
lowest error rate of any Federal program.
Of course, it is not just children. SNAP helps millions of seniors,
people with disabilities, veterans, low-wage workers, and others.
However, Speaker Ryan and other Republican House Members say that we
spend trillions of dollars on these programs and, yet, the poverty rate
does not change. This is simply not true.
I talked about the statistics earlier on in my comments. Without
these critical safety net programs, more Americans would go hungry. As
we have said, SNAP kept about 4.8 million people out of poverty,
including 2.1 million children.
The data belies what their conversation is and the stories they want
to tell and, quite frankly, fabricate around the food stamp program.
The Republican proposals for SNAP include a push to enact block
grants, which my colleague, Mr. McGovern, mentioned before, an idea
that Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Biden
called ``one of the most destructive ideas in poverty policy.''
Let me mention some of the statistics that have been compiled by
Children's Health Watch in Boston, Massachusetts.
If the SNAP benefits were reduced either through block granting or
some other mechanism to reduce food stamp benefits so as to create
instability in these households, this is what they say would be likely
to occur: 23 percent would be more likely to have households that are
food insecure; 70 percent
[[Page H1081]]
more likely children would be food insecure; 36 percent more likely to
be in poor health if this happens; 70 percent more likely to be at risk
for developmental delays--this is about our kids, about our children--
12 percent more likely to be hospitalized; children in kindergarten
through third grade would be more likely to have measurably lower
reading and math test scores; and reduced SNAP benefits would decrease
the likelihood of mothers having a baby with a healthy weight and of a
low-birth-weight baby surviving.
This is not Jim McGovern or Gwen Moore or Bobby Scott or Rosa DeLauro
making up these statistics. They come from an organization which tracks
all of these measures.
{time} 1630
My colleagues, it would include drug testing policies for SNAP
recipients and prohibitions for certain food purchases.
What kind of priorities are these?
We can't continue to wage a war against food stamp recipients. Nobody
is asking for any other recipients who get Federal subsidies to be drug
tested. Let's start with the Crop Insurance people. Let's start with
that. Let's take all of the programs at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture where there is a subsidy and a recipient to that subsidy.
Let's get them all drug tested.
We are going to continue to stand up against unconscionable attacks
on America's poor working families. I urge my colleagues to stand with
us in ensuring that the Federal budget does not harm working families
and children by decimating the hunger programs in this Nation.
Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlewoman for her eloquent statement.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).
Ms. MOORE. I thank the gentleman so much for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in praising Mr. McGovern for his
leadership on this issue.
Of the many people who are hungry, none of them have the money to
lobby folks--the kids, the disabled people, the seniors, the elderly--
but we have a champion in this House, Jim McGovern.
With the few seconds remaining, I want to talk a little bit about our
economy. We have a capitalist economy, and it is countercyclical. The
SNAP program works to provide a safety net so that when we have a
Hurricane Katrina or when we have a Hurricane Sandy, the food stamp
rolls go up, and when there are jobs, the food stamp rolls go down. It
ain't broke, you all, so let's not try to fix it.
I am very, very disturbed that when the Budget Committee meets next
week, it will try to make structural changes to the SNAP program, to
throw it into a reconciliation process where only 51 Members of the
Senate have to vote for it, out of this body, in order to change the
structure of it so that it is not responsive to people during economic
distress.
I am concerned about the numbers of people who are going to ask for a
waiver to limit the number of benefits, in a 36-month period, that
those who are unemployed can receive. People who are unemployed don't
have any control over our economy. When unemployment is up, the SNAP
program, as it is currently structured, is responsive to unemployment,
and we ought to stick to that.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________