[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11192-11193]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        RURAL HUNGER IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, nearly every week that this House has been 
in session this year, I've come to the floor to talk about the need to 
end hunger now. Fourteen speeches later, I still hear from some of my 
colleagues who doubt that hunger is a problem in the 21st century here 
in this country, the richest, most prosperous Nation in the world.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope that anyone who doubts that we have a 
hunger problem in America has a chance to read the article by Eli 
Saslow in Sunday's Washington Post, titled, ``Driving Away Hunger,'' 
subtitled, ``In Rural Tennessee, a New Way to Help Hungry Children, A 
Bus Turned Bread Truck.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is a heartwrenching story of hunger, where children 
of all ages have trouble getting enough food in the summer months in 
rural Tennessee. It breaks your heart.
  The article may focus on a small area in rural Tennessee, but it 
really tells the story about the 50 million hungry Americans in this 
country, and more specifically, the 17 million kids who are hungry in 
this country.
  And the blame shouldn't be cast on these poor Americans who are doing 
their best to make ends meet. Consider the Laghren family portrayed in 
this article. Jennifer, a mother of five, works full-time as a cook at 
a nursing home. Yet her kids don't have enough to eat because Jennifer 
only makes $8 an hour.
  SNAP helps during the school year when kids get to eat two meals a 
day at school. Combined, these five kids, ranging from 14 years old to 
9 months old, ate a total of 40 free meals and snacks at school every 
week, but there's very little help during the summer months when school 
is out of session.
  While the $593 food stamp allotment lasted throughout the month 
during the school year, Jennifer only had $73 in food stamps left, with 
17 days to go in the month that she was interviewed for this article in 
The Washington Post.
  And if that weren't enough to convince people about this ugly side of 
hunger, consider this heartbreaking paragraph from the article.

       Desperation had become their permanent state, defining each 
     of their lives in different ways. For Courtney, it meant that 
     she had stayed rail thin, with hand-me-down jeans that fell 
     low on her hips. For Taylor, 14, it meant stockpiling 
     calories whenever food was available, ingesting enough 
     processed sugar and salt to bring on a doctor's lecture about 
     obesity and the early onset of diabetes, the most common 
     risks of a food stamp diet. For Anthony, 9, it meant moving 
     out of the trailer and usually living at his grandparents' 
     farm. For Hannah, 7, it meant her report card had been sent 
     home with a handwritten note of the teacher's concerns, one 
     of which read, ``Easily distracted by other people eating.'' 
     For Sarah, the 9-month-old baby, it meant sometimes being fed 
     Mountain Dew out of the can after she finished her formula, a 
     dose of caffeine that kept her up at night.

  Mr. Speaker, this is all taking place in rural Tennessee. That's 
right, Mr. Speaker. Hunger doesn't just exist in urban areas. According 
to USDA statistics, rural areas are poorer than urban areas. And 
according to the latest USDA data, households in rural areas were more 
likely to be food insecure. While 14.9 percent of all households were 
food insecure in 2011, 15.4 percent of households in rural areas were 
food insecure.
  And let's look at the SNAP statistics. While 16 percent of all 
Americans live in nonmetropolitan areas, 21 percent of SNAP 
beneficiaries live there. Ten percent of the rural population relies on 
SNAP, compared to 7 percent of the urban population. Children under

[[Page 11193]]

18 make up 25 percent of the rural population, but they are 40 percent 
of the rural population using SNAP.
  These statistics show empirically that hunger is a problem in rural 
America. Sunday's article paints a terrible and disturbing picture 
about hunger in rural America. And together, they show why we must 
commit ourselves to end hunger now.
  That's why it is so disturbing to me that so many of my Republican 
friends seem hell-bent on cutting huge amounts from the SNAP program, 
literally throwing millions of Americans off the program. It shows a 
stunning ignorance of current reality, and it shows a callousness that, 
quite frankly, is beneath this institution.
  During the recent debate on the farm bill, I had heard a number of my 
colleagues from the other side of the aisle demean the poor in this 
country and diminish their struggle. I heard rhetoric from some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle characterizing these 
Americans who are struggling in poverty in inappropriate and demeaning 
ways. It was offensive, some of the rhetoric that was spouted here on 
this floor.
  I urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to 
reject any assault on the SNAP program.
  Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity to end hunger now, but we must 
take it. We need some leadership. We need leadership in this House, but 
we also need leadership from the White House in order to get this done. 
We need the White House to host a conference on food and nutrition. We 
need the President to bring the best and brightest minds from any and 
every corner of this Nation together, lock them in a room, and direct 
them to come up with a plan. It is not hard.
  We need the political will to end hunger now. This issue needs to be 
more of a priority.

                          ____________________