[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FOOD INSECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the Republican leadership has 
decided we will adjourn for the holidays. Notwithstanding the fact that 
we haven't done immigration reform, we haven't passed a jobs bill, we 
haven't extended unemployment insurance, they have all decided it is 
time to go home and enjoy the holidays. So on Friday, we will all leave 
and go back to our districts.
  The one thing we will all have in common, Democrats and Republicans, 
is we will go back and we will enjoy the holidays, and we will partake 
in many celebrations. And the one thing that we will not have to worry 
about is whether or not we will have enough to eat. Our concern, quite 
frankly, will be overeating.
  But the fact is, for millions of our fellow citizens, close to 50 
million Americans, they will have to worry about whether they will have 
enough to eat for them and their families. Fifty million people in this 
country, the richest country in the history of the world, are hungry; 
17 million are kids. All kinds of people fall in that category. Sadly, 
close to 1 million of our veterans rely on food assistance programs 
because they don't have enough to eat.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact that so many people in the United States of 
America are hungry is a national disgrace. We should be outraged. There 
should be outrage in this Chamber. There should be a sense of urgency 
that we need to solve this problem. Yet what we see is indifference 
and, in some cases, outright hostility toward those Americans who 
happen to be poor.
  The House of Representatives recently passed a farm bill that cut the 
SNAP program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is 
designed to ensure people have enough to eat. They cut that program by 
$40 billion. In the Senate version, they cut it by about $4.5 billion. 
There is now a conference committee going on, and press reports say 
that maybe they will decide on an $8 billion cut.
  Eight billion dollars, what does that mean? That means that 850,000 
families in this country will be impacted in a negative way by that 
cut; 1.7 million people.

                              {time}  1030

  For those people who would be impacted by that $8 billion cut, it is 
about a $90 cut per month in the benefit that they get. Every single 
person on the SNAP program received a cut. That cut that happened on 
November 1 for an average family of three would be about a $30 cut. So 
you add the $30 plus the $90 that we are now talking about, that is now 
a $120 cut per month for these families. That is a lot of money.
  The fact of the matter is the SNAP benefit, as it stands, is not 
overly generous. In fact, I would say it is too stingy. It doesn't 
provide enough for people to be able to afford food, never mind 
nutritious food. A lot of the people who show up at our food banks and 
our food pantries are on the SNAP program. But to cut an average family 
of three's benefits by about $120 per month is outrageous. We don't 
have to worry. No one in this Chamber has to worry about whether or not 
they can afford to put food on the table for their families. Why aren't 
we more concerned with the fact that there are so many people in this 
country who are food insecure and who are outright hungry? We need to 
do something about this.
  Mr. Speaker, I have heard my colleagues say, Well, we are not really 
trying to cut people's benefits; all we are trying to do is reform the 
program. We are trying to combat a culture of dependency. When you cut 
this program that provides food to poor people, what you do is you 
don't deal with an issue of a culture of dependency. What you do is 
make their lives more miserable. The fact of the matter is the majority 
of people on SNAP are children, senior citizens, and disabled people. 
Of those who can work, a majority of them work. There are people who 
work full time and still are so poor they qualify for SNAP assistance.
  And the response of this Congress is going to be to make their lives 
more miserable? I ask my colleagues who support these cuts, is that 
what you came here for, to make the lives of the most vulnerable in 
this country more miserable? Is that what you are here for? Is that the 
purpose of your service in the United States Congress? Give me a break. 
We need to solve these problems.
  The fact of the matter is that increasing hunger in America costs us 
a great deal. Hungry kids don't learn in school. Senior citizens who 
can't afford their food and their medication and take their medication 
on an empty stomach end up in our emergency rooms. There is a cost to 
hunger. In fact, it is more expensive to tolerate the hunger in America 
than it is to solve the problem. We were elected to solve problems, to 
lift people up, and not put people down.
  I would just finally close, Mr. Speaker, by saying I urge the White 
House to get more involved in this issue, to get involved in this 
fight. There are some things worth fighting for. Ending poverty and 
ending hunger in America is worth fighting for.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to reject cuts in the SNAP 
program that will increase hunger in America.

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