[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9449-9454]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             END HUNGER NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time to address my 
colleagues about one of the most important issues that we face in this 
country, and that is hunger.
  We have a problem in the United States of America, I'm sad to say, 
where we have 50 million of our fellow citizens who are hungry; 17 
million are kids. This is the case in the richest, most powerful Nation 
on the planet.
  We should be ashamed of ourselves. Food is not a luxury. It is a 
necessity, and everybody in this country ought to have a right to food, 
and that should not even be controversial.
  Yet, we have a FARRM Bill that we will begin debating tomorrow that 
cuts SNAP, which used to be the food stamp program. It cuts it by $20.5 
billion. That's billion with a B.
  What does that mean?
  It means that 2 million people who currently receive the benefit 
today, tomorrow will lose it. It means that over 200,000 kids who are 
eligible for free breakfast and lunch at school today will lose that 
benefit tomorrow.
  Those aren't my numbers. Those aren't the numbers of some liberal 
think tank. Those are the numbers by the Congressional Budget Office, 
CBO. They say that if the FARRM Bill passes, and if those numbers stay 
in, 2 million of our fellow citizens will lose their food benefit.
  Mr. Speaker, I find that unconscionable. We are trying to emerge from 
one of the worst economic recessions in our history. Record job losses 
over the last few years. We've had people of all backgrounds lose their 
jobs, find themselves working now in jobs that don't pay very much, 
struggling, trying to keep their families afloat.
  And one of the lifelines during this difficult economic time has been 
the SNAP program. It has enabled many families to be able to put food 
on the table.
  You can't use SNAP to buy a flat-screen TV. You can't use SNAP to buy 
a car. You can only use SNAP to buy food. That's what this is all 
about.
  And in the FARRM Bill, for whatever reason, it was decided that, 
rather than looking for savings in the crop insurance program, which we 
know is rife with abuse, rather than looking for savings in some of 
these special kind of giveaways to agribusinesses, these sweetheart 
deals, rather than trying to find savings there to put toward balancing 
our budget, it was decided to go after, almost exclusively, this one 
program, SNAP.
  Mr. Speaker, I heard up in the Rules Committee, during our 
consideration of the amendments today, people, a number of people say, 
well, all we're doing is eliminating categorical eligibility.
  A lot of people don't know what categorical eligibility is. A lot of 
people who are supporting these cuts don't know what categorical 
eligibility is.
  Basically, this was a Republican idea to kind of streamline a lot of 
bureaucracy and paperwork at the State level. So if you qualified for 
welfare, then you would automatically be enrolled in the SNAP program. 
It doesn't mean you would automatically get a benefit. It means you 
would be enrolled in the program, and if you qualified for the benefit, 
you would get it.
  It was kind of one-stop shopping for people who were poor, for people 
who found themselves experiencing a difficult situation.
  It has saved States lots and lots and lots of money. It has made it 
easier for people, during these economic difficulties, to be able to 
get the benefits that, quite frankly, they're entitled to.
  And so when you eliminate categorical eligibility, what do you is you 
put an extra burden on States. States will end up having to pay more 
for additional bureaucracy. There'll be more paperwork. There'll be 
more confusion.
  The other thing that happens when you get rid of categorical 
eligibility is that you will make it more difficult for people who are 
eligible to get the benefit and, therefore, many people who are still 
experiencing tough times, who are eligible for a food benefit, will not 
be able to get it.
  Mr. Speaker, this used to be a bipartisan issue. And I remember, 
during the 2008 farm bill, you know, one of the things that saved that 
farm bill was the food and nutrition part of the farm bill. 
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, whom I'll yield to in a few minutes, 
working with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and I was happy to play a 
little bit of a role in it, helped fight to up the nutrition program in 
the farm bill in 2008.
  As a result of that, we were able to pass a farm bill. And as a 
result of that, we were able to help millions and millions and millions 
of families. That's a good thing.
  But, for whatever reason, in 2013, programs that help poor people 
have become controversial. My Republican friends have diminished and 
demeaned this program called SNAP. They have diminished the struggle of 
poor people.
  I said in the Rules Committee today, I reminded my colleagues in the 
Rules Committee today that the average food stamp benefit, the average 
SNAP benefit is $1.50 a meal, $1.50 a meal, and $4.50 a day. That's 
like one of those fancy Starbucks coffees. That's what this is.
  This is not some overly generous benefit. This is not even an 
adequate benefit, quite frankly. But in some cases it is a lifeline for 
many families. That's what it is.
  A number of us, over this last week, have been trying to dramatize 
the fact that this is a modest benefit, so we have lived on a food 
stamp budget for this last week. I've got two more days to go, but I've 
lived on $1.50 a meal, $4.50 a day. It's hard.
  It's hard to be poor. It's hard to shop when you're poor. It's hard 
to plan meals when you're poor. Given the opportunity between being 
poor or being able to be self-sustaining, to be able to buy whatever 
food you want, whenever you want it, you would prefer the latter. 
Nobody enjoys being on this benefit.
  Some of my friends say that this creates a culture of dependency. 
Well, I remind those people who think that that there are millions and 
millions and millions and millions of people in this country who work 
for a living who earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP. They 
rely on SNAP to put food on the table.
  And by the way, that's not enough, so they go to food banks and food 
pantries to be able to add to their ability to be able to put food on 
the tables for their families.
  In 1968, there was a CBS documentary entitled ``Hunger in America,'' 
and it created quite a stir, because a lot of people in this country 
looked the other way and didn't realize that hunger was as bad as it 
was.
  George McGovern, a liberal Democrat from South Dakota, and Robert 
Dole, a conservative Republican from Kansas, got together and helped 
create the food stamp program, now known as SNAP, helped create WIC, 
helped expand school meals for kids in schools, made sure that poor 
kids had access to meals during the summer.
  They worked in a bipartisan way, and proudly, in a bipartisan way, 
doing what they could to make sure that nobody in this country went 
hungry. And in the late 1970s, by the late 1970s, we almost eliminated 
hunger in America. I mean, this kind of bipartisan coalition produced 
incredible results that almost eliminated hunger in this country.
  And then in the 1980s we started taking steps backwards, and today we 
have 50 million of our fellow citizens who are hungry.
  I would say to my friends who are thinking about how to vote on this 
FARRM Bill, you know, we should not have to choose between a good and 
adequate nutrition part of the FARRM Bill and good and adequate farm 
programs. They should go together.

                              {time}  1910

  In fact, the only thing you can buy with SNAP is food, so who 
benefits

[[Page 9450]]

from food purchases? Well, farmers grow food, so farmers benefit from 
those purchases. So they're not separate and distinct. In fact, they're 
very, very much related. And this marriage between nutrition and farm 
programs has resulted in the passage of many important farm bills over 
the years. But for whatever reason, we find ourselves in a situation 
where that kind of coalition is breaking apart, and I regret that very, 
very much.
  I want a farm bill. I represent a lot of agriculture in my part of 
Massachusetts. But I want a farm bill. I want a good farm bill. But I'm 
not going to vote for a farm bill that makes hunger worse in America. 
That's not the legacy I think we want to have here in this Congress. I 
think what we want to be able to do is to tell our constituents that we 
passed a good farm bill that not only helps our farmers but also helps 
people who are struggling.
  There is nothing wrong--in fact, there is everything right--about our 
dedication to helping the least fortunate among us. Those who have said 
that, well, we don't want to be known as the food stamp Congress, I 
would respond to them as follows: I am proud to live in a country that 
has a social safety net. I am proud to live in a country where we don't 
let people starve. I am proud to live in a country that has programs 
like SNAP, like WIC and like school feeding to make sure that our 
citizens have enough to eat. Why is that all of a sudden controversial?
  I'm going to tell you that SNAP is not a perfect program. Yes, there 
has been some abuse in the program to be sure. And to the credit of 
USDA and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, under his leadership, there 
has been a concerted effort to go after those who abuse the program. 
Anybody who abuses this program, in my opinion, ought to have the book 
thrown at them. These are taxpayer dollars going to support a program 
to help people get enough to eat. And when people abuse the program or 
misuse it, we ought to throw the full extent of the law at them. They 
ought to be fined and, in some cases, even arrested when they abuse 
taxpayer dollars.
  But I will also say to my colleagues that SNAP, according to the 
General Accountability Office and according to a whole bunch of other 
studies, has one of the lowest error rates of any Federal program. I 
only wish some of the missile programs under our Pentagon's 
jurisdiction had as low an error rate and had as low a record of abuse 
of taxpayer dollars as the SNAP program has.
  This is a good program. This is a good program. It can be better, and 
we should make it better. But let me say this: if you want to make it 
better, then maybe what we ought to have done in the Agriculture 
Committee is actually have a hearing. When people say that there are 
reforms in the FARRM Bill with regard to SNAP, I kind of cringe because 
how did you get to that number? How did you get to this so-called 
``reform'' when there wasn't a single hearing in the Subcommittee on 
Nutrition? There wasn't a single hearing in the full Committee on 
Agriculture.
  It is important that we make this program as perfect as it possibly 
can be. It is important that we try to make sure that every bit of 
abuse and fraud is taken away from this program, but there's a right 
way to do it. We deliberate. That's what we're supposed to do in 
Congress. You hold hearings, you listen to all different sides, you 
listen to how you can improve the program, and then we come together 
and we make those improvements.
  But we ought to also understand that we need a larger discussion in 
this country on how to end hunger. We need to understand, as we debate 
the FARRM Bill, that SNAP is one tool in the anti-hunger toolbox. It 
doesn't solve everything. It doesn't solve everything. What it is is 
one program to help alleviate hunger. What we need, and I've called 
for, is the President of the United States to bring us all together 
under the auspices of a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. 
Let's talk about this issue holistically. Let's take on some of these 
big issues of how do you end hunger in America.
  Let's deal with that. And in convening such a summit, the President 
could bring all the different agencies in our Federal Government that 
have a piece of the pie in terms of battling hunger in America because 
not all of these programs fall into one agency. They fall into multiple 
agencies. Let's bring them all together. Let's figure out how we can 
better connect the dots. Let's call in our State and local governments. 
Let's call in businesses, the philanthropic community, our hospitals, 
our schools and our nutritionists. Let's call in our food banks, our 
food pantries and all the NGOs that have been out there struggling to 
end hunger for decades. Let's get everybody in a room together and lock 
the door until we have a plan.
  If you want to end hunger, the first thing is you ought to have a 
plan. We in this country, quite frankly, do not have a plan. So until 
we get to that point where we get a plan, what we ought not to do is 
take away from these programs that at this point do help alleviate 
hunger. We ought not to undercut the importance of SNAP. We ought not 
to throw 2 million more people off the program and hundreds of 
thousands of kids off free breakfast or lunch programs.
  What do we do? I asked a question when I was reading the CBO numbers 
about how many people would lose their benefits. My question is, Where 
do these people go? What do they do? What do they do without a food 
benefit? Do they just show up at food banks, 2 million more people just 
show up at food banks? Talk to your local food banks. Talk to your 
local food pantries. They're at capacity. They can't take any more 
people. This notion that somehow charity will just pick up all the 
slack is a bunch of nonsense. Talk to the charities. Talk to the 
churches. Talk to the synagogues. Talk to the mosques. Talk to the food 
banks and food pantries. They can't handle what they're dealing with 
right now.
  Just one final thing, and then I'm going to yield to my colleague 
from Connecticut. I also want my colleagues to understand another 
thing. Over the years, we have used SNAP as kind of an ATM machine to 
pay for other programs. As a result, come November of this year, if we 
cut nothing else, if we cut nothing else, people's benefits are going 
to go down. The average family of three will lose about $25 to $30 a 
month. That may not seem like a lot of money to some of my colleagues 
here in Congress, but $25 or $35 a month might be a week's worth of 
groceries. It might be what keeps somebody afloat for a week. It is a 
big deal to somebody who is in poverty, and we ought not to diminish 
that. We ought not to diminish that.
  I'd also say that it really troubles me when I hear people demonize 
these programs and again diminish the struggle of those who need to 
take advantage of these programs. Listening to some of my colleagues 
testify before the Rules Committee today, you would think that our 
entire Federal deficit and our debt is all because we have programs 
like SNAP. They are wrong. They are wrong. SNAP didn't cause the debt 
that we have right now. What caused the debt are two unpaid-for wars 
that are in the trillions of dollars, tax cuts for wealthy people that 
weren't paid for, a Medicare prescription drug bill that wasn't paid 
for, and bad economic policies. Not this. Not this. This is a safety 
net; and it's a safety net that, yes, can be improved, but it's a 
safety net.
  One of the things that we in Congress are supposed to be focused on 
is how we help people, help people who are in need. Donald Trump 
doesn't need our help. He's got all the money in the world. He's fine. 
But there are lots of people who don't live on Wall Street, but who 
live on Main Street who are just holding on by their fingertips, who, 
in some cases, their Sundays are spent trying to figure out how to just 
put food on the table for their families. There is not a congressional 
district in America--not a single one--that is hunger-free. There is 
not a community in America that is hunger-free.

[[Page 9451]]



                              {time}  1920

  If you've ever met a child who is hungry, it breaks your heart. And 
it just shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be. We are a better country 
than that.
  So rather than going after this program, rather than going after WIC 
and SNAP and programs to help poor people put food on the table, we 
ought to be talking about the larger question about how to end hunger 
now.
  Having said that, let me yield some time to my colleague from 
Connecticut, who's been a leader on this issue and who, in 2008, helped 
boost up the nutrition components of the farm bill, which made it a 
better farm bill and helped millions of people. So I yield to 
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I want to thank my colleague, Congressman McGovern.
  And I want to say a thank you to you. You have been steadfast and 
courageous on this issue. I know the strong and personal relationship 
that you had with Senator McGovern, who, with every fiber of his being, 
was devoted to making sure that both in the United States domestically 
and overseas that people, and particularly children, had enough to eat. 
And I think it was so special that he partnered with Bob Dole of 
Kansas.
  When you take a look at the federally commissioned report that you 
spoke about, when you take a look at the people who were involved, the 
strength of that commission on hunger in America was its 
bipartisanship. Since this effort has begun, Members of both sides of 
the aisle have focused on this as a substantial problem. Therefore, as 
a Nation, we have to come together to try to address it.
  Unfortunately today, in the environment, in the atmosphere, in this 
body, in this institution, in the Congress, there seems to be not much 
view that this is a problem and one that we have the opportunity, the 
capacity, and the ability to do something about. What we lack, as 
you've said so often in the past, is the will, the political will to do 
something.
  We are highlighting tonight the severe, the immoral cuts made to 
antihunger and nutrition programs, particularly the food stamp program 
in the House FARRM Bill. Again, as you pointed out, millions of 
families are struggling in this economy.
  We've had the worst recession since the Great Depression, and people 
are trying to survive. We're looking at an unemployment rate that is 
7.5 percent. We are looking at incomes which are not increasing, but 
wages that are decreasing. Why we would pick this moment really to 
throw more people into poverty?
  You can take a look at all kinds of statistics, and I'll quote some 
in a few minutes, that talk about the food stamp program and how it has 
kept people from falling into poverty and how it has kept kids from 
going hungry. And we would choose this moment to increase that poverty 
number and to say to children and disabled and seniors, I'm sorry, 
you're on your own. That's what this is about. It is immoral.
  You know, you talked about the 50 million Americans--almost 17 
million children--suffer with hunger right now. It's a problem across 
the country.
  You talk about my district, the Third District of Connecticut. 
Connecticut, statistically, is the richest State in the Nation. We have 
a very affluent portion of the State, which is known as Fairfield 
County, sometimes referred to as the ``Gold Coast.'' Lots of people on 
Wall Street come to live in Fairfield County in Connecticut. Yet, in my 
congressional district, the Third District, one out of seven go to bed 
hungry at night. They don't know where their next meal is coming from.
  One out of seven individuals nationwide take part in the food stamp 
program. People today who never thought they would have to rely on food 
stamps are having to do so because they lost their job, they lost their 
income, and they're looking for a way to feed their families.
  I was at the Christian Cornerstone Church in Milford, Connecticut, 
just a few days ago. A young woman, Penny Davis, she was working, 
taking care of herself, taking care of her family. She lost her job. 
She didn't think much about it. She would get another job. She hasn't 
been able to get another job in this economy. In the meantime, in the 
interim, she's become separated from her husband. She is now 
responsible for herself and her family.
  She didn't know what she was going to do. She called on the Christian 
Cornerstone Church. She called on the food bank to help her, to see 
what she could do. She spoke eloquently about wanting to work and not 
being able to find a job. So today she has accessed a program that she 
never thought she would have to use--the food stamp program.
  Why can't we be there to help people bridge that gap? Because the 
genius of this program is that, in difficult times, the numbers of 
participants go up, but when the economy gets better, those numbers 
come down. And the numbers are coming down. So why, at this moment, 
would we jeopardize these folks' livelihoods, their well-being, and 
their ability to eat and to feed their families?
  We've got a wonderful, wonderful phrase these days that we use about 
people being ``food insecure.'' Plain and simple--and you know this, 
Congressman McGovern--this is people being hungry. They're hungry. It 
makes you feel good to talk about food insecurity, but it's hunger. I 
talked about my district, but let's take a look.
  Mississippi, 24.5 percent suffer food hardship. They're hungry. 
Nearly one in four people. West Virginia and Kentucky, that dropped to 
just over 22 percent, one in five. In Ohio, nearly 20 percent. 
California, just over 19 percent. The estimates of Americans at risk of 
going hungry here in the land of plenty are appalling, and we have a 
moral responsibility to do something about this.
  Our key Federal food security programs become all the more important 
at this time, which, as you know and I know and so many others know, it 
is true of the food stamp program. It is the country's most important 
effort to deal with hunger here at home, and it ensures that American 
families can put food on the table--47 million Americans, half are 
kids.
  This is about helping low-income children's health and development, 
reducing hunger in America, and continuing to have an influence so that 
those youngsters can have positive influences and opportunity into 
adulthood.
  You stated it. Food stamps has one of the lowest error rates of any 
government program at 3.8 percent. I was upstairs at that Rules 
Committee meeting as well. You know, I loved the discussion about 
program integrity. Many, many times in the Agriculture Appropriations 
Committee, where I did serve as chairman for a while--I'm still a 
member of the committee, probably 16, 18 years on that committee--
program integrity. Let's cut back on the waste, the fraud, and the 
abuse. The only programs that get debated in those efforts are WIC, 
food stamps, other nutrition programs. No one bothers to take a look at 
the defense bill. No one bothers to take a look within the FARRM Bill 
of other instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.

                              {time}  1930

  We believe in program integrity for every program in the Federal 
Government, not just one or two or pick out the programs that you don't 
like and focus in on them.
  I sat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture for the last 
16 or 17 years. I chaired that Appropriations Subcommittee. I was part 
of a conference committee on the farm bill in 2008. In fact, as you've 
heard me say in the past, appropriators don't usually get onto a 
conference committee. But the then-speaker, Nancy Pelosi, appointed me 
there, particularly for the nutrition issues. Some of the conferees 
were a little nervous. As I've said, they thought I was some sort of 
invasive species in this context.
  We worked hard on that farm bill. You know it because you worked hard 
on it. We said it was a safety net, and it is a safety net. The farm 
bill is a safety net, but it is a safety net for American farmers and 
for American

[[Page 9452]]

families. We need to have that safety net. With then-Speaker Pelosi's 
strong support and leadership we passed a farm bill. We supported 
nutrition and antihunger programs. We made investments in the programs 
that targeted specialty crops and organic production. We were there and 
we voted for that bill.
  I am for a farm bill, but that's not the case this time around. It's 
a different set of circumstances and a different environment, which is 
why, like you, I cannot support this farm bill.
  The changes that you talk about, in addition to the $20 billion in 
cuts to beneficiaries, you talk about the eligibility program and the 
tool that States use to streamline the administration of the program; 
went back years in working this system out. They would unravel all of 
that.
  Then they would like to talk about the food stamp program and the 
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. They are two separate 
issues--categorical eligibility and the tie with food stamps and the 
LIHEAP program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. They'll 
say that if you get LIHEAP, then you're automatically on the food stamp 
program. That's not true. You have to qualify. I want to get to a 
couple of points that talk about qualifying and what people are forced 
to qualify and those who are not forced to qualify for the benefits 
that they receive in this farm bill.
  It's important I think to note that we were able to get funding for 
the food stamp program in the Economic Recovery Program. You worked 
hard at that, I worked hard at that, the chair of the Appropriations 
Committee at that time, Mr. Obey, fought for those dollars. That has 
come to an end, the Economic Recovery Program.
  Come the beginning of the next fiscal year every single recipient of 
food stamps will see it is $37--we got confirmation--$37 a month in a 
cut. What's happening in this farm bill will only add on.
  It is important to note that our colleagues will say: Well, we have a 
deficit and we are going to use this money and we are going to pay down 
the deficit. Very interesting to know. In the past 30 years, every 
major deficit reduction package signed into law on a bipartisan basis 
was negotiated on the principle of not increasing poverty or inequality 
in deficit reduction.
  Simpson-Bowles, the latest iteration of a deficit reduction package 
which so many people said went too far in changing the aspects of the 
social safety net, did not cut the food stamp program to achieve its 
deficit reduction. We need to follow this bipartisan effort in the same 
way that we did in these instances on deficit reduction and follow that 
bipartisan road, the same way we did in the recognition of the problem 
and the willingness to do something about it.
  I've got two other points. You may hear from some that the direct 
payments--they'll say, well, we're cutting direct payments in the farm 
bill, and that the bill also makes very real reforms to the crop 
support programs. The bill finally ended direct payments, saving about 
$47 billion over 10 years. The commodity title of the bill only says 
that they're saving $18.6 billion. Why? Why the differential?
  Because the rest of those savings are being plowed back into the 
commodity support programs. It creates a brand new program, which is 
called a ``price loss program,'' to protect these commodities if prices 
change. In essence, that safety net is working for farmers. I don't 
begrudge that. If you want to provide a safety net for farmers, fine.
  But where's the safety net, where's the safety net for the benefits 
of the food stamp program? They're not there. The food stamp 
beneficiaries have nowhere else to go, as you pointed out, nowhere else 
to go in the farm bill to be made whole. Those who were receiving 
direct payments, they're going to be held harmless, if you will, 
through crop insurance and a new program, a shallow loss protection 
program that protects them if the commodity prices begin to fluctuate.
  Where is the protection for the food stamp beneficiaries? It's not 
there. The only people who are going to lose benefits are the most 
vulnerable in our society today. It's wrong and, again, it's immoral.
  The bill, as I said, expands the crop insurance program. I think it 
is important for people to understand that crop insurance--again, 
safety net, useful, good concept, very good, I wish it applied to our 
part of the country as it does to other parts of the country--but I 
don't know that the American taxpayers know this about the crop 
insurance program: taxpayers, U.S. taxpayers, foot the bill for over 60 
percent of the premiums for beneficiaries, plus U.S. taxpayers pick up 
the tab on administrative and operating costs for the private companies 
that sell the plan, including multinational corporations, some of whom 
trace back to companies in tax havens. Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, 
Bermuda, that's where these companies have their headquarters, so 
they're making out like bandits. We pick up the tab, they don't pay 
their fair share of taxes in the United States. It really is quite 
incredible.
  You and I talked about, Congressman McGovern, that $4.50--there's an 
income threshold, there's a cap on the amount of money they can receive 
on the assets that they hold. This program on crop insurance where 26 
individuals received at least $1 million in a subsidy, at least $1 
million, they're protected statutorily and we can't find out who they 
are. We don't know who they are. They have no income test, no cap, no 
income threshold, no asset test that they go through. They just get the 
money--they get the money. Do you know what? They're eating and they're 
eating more, more than three squares a day I bet, but not our kids, not 
our kids.

                              {time}  1940

  Our kids are going to bed hungry, and this program, by the way, does 
not even require the minimum conservation practices that other farm 
programs have on the books. It is pretty extraordinary when you think 
about a family of four when you have to qualify for this program for 
eligibility. It is at less than 130 percent of poverty, which means 
that a family of four has to live on $2,200 a month. As for our 
colleagues in this institution who are taking the food stamp challenge 
and doing it for a week--some may do it less, and some may do it more--
do you know what? They're not doing it every single day with their 
kids.
  There are serious problems with this FARRM bill. There really are 
very, very serious problems, and they need to be addressed. It should 
never have come out of the committee with $20 billion in cuts--never. 
It shouldn't have happened. I might also add that the President, as my 
colleague knows, has issued a veto threat primarily because of the food 
stamp cuts.
  There are just a couple of quotes that I think are important.
  The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said last year:

       We must form a circle of protection around programs that 
     serve the poor and the vulnerable in our Nation and 
     throughout the world.

  Catholic leaders last month wrote:

       Congress should support access to adequate and nutritious 
     food for those in need and oppose attempts to weaken or 
     restructure these programs that would result in reduced 
     benefits to hungry people.

  We received a letter today asking us and asking Representatives--my 
God, there must be 80 or 90 organizations, probably over 100 
organizations, that are saying don't do this, including the bulk of the 
medical profession. We've got Bread for the World, Children's 
HealthWatch, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, First Focus, 
Network, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health 
Association, Share Our Strength, and the list goes on.
  Harry Truman said:

       Nothing is more important in our national life than the 
     welfare of our children, and proper nourishment comes first 
     in attaining this welfare.

  I will close with the piece that was put out today by the Center on 
Budget and Policy Priorities:

       New research shows that the food stamp program is the most 
     effective program pushing against the steep rise in extreme 
     poverty. One reason the SNAP program is so effective in 
     fighting extreme poverty is that it focuses its benefits on 
     many of the poorest

[[Page 9453]]

     households. Roughly 91 percent of monthly SNAP benefits go to 
     households below the poverty line, and 55 percent go to 
     households below half the poverty line. That's about $9,800 
     for a family of three. One in five SNAP households lives on a 
     cash income of less than $2 per person a day.

  Earlier in the article, it reads that the World Bank defines poverty 
in developing nations as households with children who live on $2 or 
less per person per day.
  This is the United States of America. This is not a debate about 
process. It is not a debate about deficit reduction. It's not about 
politics. This is a debate about our values and our priorities in this 
great Nation. Let's go back to the days of George McGovern and Bob Dole 
and of those who came forward to say, There are those in this country 
who are starving. There are those who are without food.
  We sit in the most deliberative body in the world. We can do 
something about it. Let's do something about it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I thank my colleague from Connecticut for her eloquent 
remarks. I think tomorrow, hopefully, we can do something about it. I 
will have an amendment, I hope, if the Rules Committee makes it in 
order, to restore the SNAP cuts, to reverse the $22.5 billion worth of 
cuts. Members on both sides of the aisle will have an opportunity to 
vote up or down on it. I think how we vote on that is a statement of 
our values and whether we think that government has a role and, indeed, 
whether our community has a role to be there for the least among us.
  I tell people all the time that hunger is a political condition. You 
can't find anybody in this place who is pro-hunger or who at least will 
admit it, but somehow the political will doesn't exist to end this 
scourge once and for all. We can end it. The maddening thing about this 
problem is that it is solvable. When people say to me, Well, we can't 
spend any more money, my response is, The cost of hunger is so 
astronomical that we need to figure out a way to end it. If that means 
spending a little bit more in the short term to help extend ladders of 
opportunity for people to be able to get out of poverty, then we ought 
to do it.
  Hunger costs. I mean, kids who go to school who are hungry don't 
learn. They can't concentrate. They don't learn. Senior citizens who 
can't afford their medications and their food and who take their 
medications on empty stomachs end up in emergency wards. One of the 
pediatricians at Boston Medical Center told me about young children who 
have gone without food for periods of time who end up getting something 
that is nothing more than a common cold, but their immune systems are 
so compromised that they end up spending several days in the hospital.
  So if you're not moved by the moral imperative to end this problem, 
then you ought to be moved by the bottom line, which is that it costs 
us a lot of money to not solve this problem.
  There was this great film that just came out a couple of months ago 
called, ``The Place at the Table.'' Two great young filmmakers--Kristi 
Jacobson and Lori Silverbush--directed this film. It documents hunger 
in urban, rural, and suburban America. It shows the face of hunger in 
America--young, middle-aged, old. I mean, it is there and it is 
heartbreaking.
  We brought up to our Democratic Caucus in a meeting a few weeks ago 
some SNAP alumni, people who grew up and were on food stamps and who 
came back to say thank you for investing in them, for helping them get 
through a difficult time. Many of them now are doctors and lawyers and 
engineers and professors and have been very successful in paying back 
much more than we invested in them.
  We want success stories. This place, this Congress, should be about 
lifting people up, not telling us how bad things have to be, not 
telling us that we have to put people down in order to move forward--
trample over people--because that's what we do when we cut programs 
like this. We ought to be thinking big and bold about ``how do you end 
hunger?'' and ``how do you end poverty in this country?'' There is a 
way to do it. We saw what happened in the 1970s with George McGovern 
and Robert Dole. Things have obviously changed.
  Let's perfect this program, but let's connect the dots so that we are 
creating a circle of protection that actually helps lift people out of 
poverty. I would like to think the goal of those of us on the 
Democratic side and the goals of those on the Republican side are to 
help people become self-sufficient--to succeed. That's what we want, 
but you are not helping people succeed when you take away food. That's 
what is at stake in this FARRM bill.
  I know the gentlelady agrees with me, and I know she feels very 
strongly about this, but we will have an opportunity, hopefully 
tomorrow, to be able to have a debate and a vote up or down on whether 
we should cut this program in a very draconian way--to throw 2 million 
people off the benefit, hundreds of thousands of kids off free 
breakfasts and lunches. What happens to those people? What do we tell 
them to do--go to your local charity?

                              {time}  1950

  Ms. DeLAURO. You were talking about the effect. It's about growth and 
development. There is wonderful material which we sent out to our 
colleagues from Dr. Deborah Frank, who talks about what happens to 
children. It isn't just concentrating, but it is their ability to grow, 
to develop, to be physically well. And the cost of dealing with what 
happens to the health issues only adds to our health care costs. I'm of 
the view that if you can't deal with humanity, let's deal with the 
economics of this. The studies are so clear about what happens with the 
absence of food, particularly with children.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I would say to the gentlelady that the points she 
raises are very important because the health of our children should be 
first and foremost, and we are now experiencing in this country a 
record level of obesity. There is a tie-in between food security, 
hunger, and obesity.
  People who are struggling in poverty do not have the resources to be 
able to buy nutritious food. Sometimes they live in food deserts and 
they rely basically on food items that just kind of fill them up with 
empty calories. So now we're dealing with that.
  So if we looked at this issue holistically, we could solve a whole 
bunch of problems in this country. I'd like to think that there is a 
lot of bipartisan consensus on what we can do in ending hunger and 
promoting better nutrition and trying to build those ladders of 
opportunity to help people get out of poverty, perfecting these 
programs to go after the waste, to go after the abuse, to go after 
those who are outliers in this program who choose to try to basically 
rob the American taxpayer. Let's go after them, but let's not throw the 
baby out with the bathwater here. Let's not just turn our backs on the 
success stories.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I would just say this to the gentleman. The program has 
worked very hard, as you know, over the years to decrease that error 
rate in this program. I don't see the same concentration and the same 
effort in other programs.
  And I mentioned here the crop insurance program. There's an article 
in the paper today that talks about the program is rife with fraud. Why 
aren't people interested in looking at that effort and the billions of 
dollars that we are losing every year? For the life of me, I don't 
understand it. People who view themselves as fiscal hawks, that we have 
to watch every dime and every dollar, they are only focused on 
nutrition programs and antihunger programs.
  I think you may have alluded to this earlier, Congressman McGovern. I 
think so many times that those who would cut these programs and do it 
in such a savage way just don't have much respect for the people who 
find themselves in a position to have to participate in the food stamp 
program. They think they're dogging it. They think they don't want to 
work, and they think they're looking for charity. It is such a 
misconception and a lack of understanding of the difficult economic 
times that people find themselves in today.
  Sometimes we ought to walk in people's shoes and understand the lives

[[Page 9454]]

that they're leading and what they're trying to do, like those of us 
here who believe we work hard and care and et cetera. People work hard. 
They care about their families. They want to make sure their kids are 
eating. Quite frankly, when it comes to feeding your kids, you'll do 
whatever you have to do in order to make that happen.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Let me say to the gentlelady that I couldn't agree 
more.
  I've met with countless parents who have tearfully told me the 
anguish that they experience when they're not quite sure whether 
they'll be able to put food on the table for their children's dinner or 
for their breakfast or for their lunch.
  I'm the parent of two children, an 11-year-old daughter and a 15-
year-old son. I can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to 
provide them food. I think as a parent nothing could be worse because 
your kids are your most precious and important things in your life.
  This is for real. This is real life.
  Ms. DeLAURO. In Branford, Connecticut, a woman with three boys, 18, 
14, and 12, said that they eat one meal a day. In Hamden, Connecticut, 
there's a woman who says that she has just enough food to feed her 
children, but she has to say ``no'' if they want to invite someone 
over. She said sometimes she feeds the boys a little bit more because 
they're hungrier than the girls. We've heard about this internationally 
where the girls get short shrift when it comes to both education and 
food. My God, it's happening here. It is happening here.
  We have the obligation--and I know you take it seriously. Our 
colleagues need to have that sense of moral responsibility to turn this 
around and do something that's better, do the right thing. Say ``no'' 
to $20 billion in cuts to the food stamp program.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlelady for her comments and for her 
passion and for her efforts on this issue.
  I hope that my colleagues, in a bipartisan way, will indeed say 
``no'' to these terrible cuts.
  It's hard for me to believe that we're going down this road, that 
we're going down a road where 2 million people are going to lose their 
food benefits, hundreds of thousands of kids are going to lose their 
access to a free breakfast and lunch, and we're all just kind of 
saying, ``It is what it is.'' Well, it isn't. This is a big deal.
  I don't quite know why it's easier to pick on programs that help poor 
people versus programs that help rich people. You outlined earlier all 
these kind of little sweetheart deals and special interest kind of 
giveaways that kind of go untouched, such as how crop insurance 
oversight is not what we all think it should be. Yet a lot of times 
lucrative interests get those monies and get those benefits. Maybe 
there's a political consequence if you take on a powerful special 
interest. Maybe they won't show up to your fundraiser. Maybe they'll 
contribute to a super PAC and say that you're bad.
  By contrast, poor people don't have a super lobby, don't have a super 
PAC. So maybe there's a debate going on of where will I get the most 
heat and not what is the right thing to do.
  Ms. DeLAURO. The most disingenuous thing is there are a number of 
people in this body who talk about this issue and themselves are 
getting subsidies and they have commodities or whatever it is. That's 
been information that's been in the paper. They will deny food stamps 
to families who have no wherewithal, but they're taking in sometimes, 
in some cases, several million dollars in subsidies that are coming 
from the Federal Government. Then it's okay.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Where's the justice in that?
  Ms. DeLAURO. There is no justice in that.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I received a postcard from a young mother who is on 
SNAP and who is kind of watching this entire debate unfold. She sent a 
very simple message to me that said, ``Don't let Congress starve 
families.''
  We should be about lifting people up. This is not about a handout. 
It's about a hand up. This is not about a culture of dependency. This 
is about making sure that there is an adequate safety net in this 
country to deal with people who have kind of fallen on hard times.
  Ms. DeLAURO. With farmers and with families.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Absolutely.
  We want a farm bill that supports our farmers, that supports small- 
and medium-sized farmers in particular, that helps promote good 
nutrition, that helps deal with the challenges that farmers all across 
this country face, but it cannot sacrifice the well-being of some of 
the most vulnerable people in this country.
  I thank the gentlelady for her participation, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.

                          ____________________