[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   PROPOSED CUTS TO THE SNAP PROGRAM

  (Mr. FOSTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOSTER. Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak out against the 
drastic cuts proposed to the SNAP program, a lifeline that millions of 
Americans rely on.
  The FARRM Bill being debated today would cut over $20 billion over 10 
years from SNAP, a program that ensures that children, seniors, and 
families struggling to make ends meet don't have to go without food.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that these cuts 
would leave 2 million Americans without essential food assistance and 
cut 200,000 children from the school lunch program.
  Food pantries in all corners of my district tell me that they are 
already struggling to keep up with the need. The Interfaith Food Pantry 
in Aurora, Illinois, provides food assistance to 750 families each 
week. Forty percent of those families also get SNAP benefits, which 
are, unfortunately, insufficient to meet their food needs.
  If these SNAP cuts are implemented, more families will be forced to 
turn to volunteer-run pantries, which are already stretched dangerously 
thin, and many people will have nowhere to turn.
  Madam Speaker, there is a long list of Federal programs for which the 
benefits are uncertain or for which the benefits are certain to be 
delivered to narrow groups for which the need is unclear. SNAP is not 
one of these, and I urge my colleagues to reconsider these drastic 
cuts.

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