[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7038-7039]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             END HUNGER NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have come to this floor once a week 
during the 113th Congress to talk about hunger--specifically, how we 
can end hunger now if we simply muster the political will to do so.
  Technically identified as food insecure by the Department of 
Agriculture, there are nearly 50 million hungry people who live in the 
United States, the richest country in the history of the world. These 
people don't earn enough to be able to put food on their table. Simply, 
they don't know where their next meal will come from.
  Now, let's be clear. This has not been a particularly kind Congress 
to those who struggle with hunger. We are seeing nearly $20 billion cut 
from our Nation's preeminent antihunger program, known as SNAP.
  SNAP is a lifeline for the 46 million Americans who rely on it to 
have something to eat each day. Yet this Congress decided that 
Americans who live at or below the poverty line can simply absorb 
massive cuts to SNAP.
  Sadly, Republicans and some Democrats joined together to cut a 
benefit that was already meager and didn't last through the month even 
before these cuts took effect.
  These cuts are bad and hurtful, but just as hurtful is how these 
Americans were described and depicted on the floor of this House during 
the debate about cuts to SNAP. During the debate on the farm bill, some 
Republican Members came to the floor to justify cuts to SNAP as a way 
to prevent murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from getting a government 
benefit.
  Poor people have been routinely characterized as ``those people,'' as 
part of a culture of dependency. They have been described as ``lazy.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am sick and tired of poor people being demonized. I am 
sick and tired of their struggle being belittled. We are here to 
represent all people, including those struggling in poverty.
  Unfortunately, insults continue.
  For the most part, we try to keep campaign rhetoric out of the debate 
on the House floor. However, today I want to highlight some rhetoric 
that is even more vile than even some of the language that was used on 
the House floor during the SNAP debate.
  A few weeks ago, a Republican candidate for United States Senate in 
South Dakota actually equated SNAP recipients to wild animals. That's 
right. We are now at a point where it is apparently okay for political 
candidates to denigrate our fellow citizens by comparing them to 
animals.
  Dr. Annette Bosworth shared a viral image on her Facebook page that 
said the following:

       The food stamp program is administered by the U.S. 
     Department of Agriculture. They proudly report that they 
     distribute free meals and food stamps to over 46 million 
     people on an annual basis. Meanwhile, the National Park 
     Service, run by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us, 
     Please do not feed the animals. Their stated reason for this 
     policy being that . . . the animals will grow dependent on 
     the handouts, and then they will never learn to take care of 
     themselves.

  The post continues:

       This concludes today's lesson. Any questions?

                              {time}  1015

  What an incredibly offensive thing for anybody to say.
  Mr. Speaker, I was taught to love my neighbor. I was taught to care 
about the people and to strive to make everyone's life better, and what 
is being tolerated as political dialogue violates those teachings and 
my core beliefs in humanity.
  We can all do better. Some of us may need a hand up in order to get 
by, but that doesn't mean that they are lesser people for it. They 
deserve our respect, and they deserve our help while they are 
struggling.
  It is hard to be poor, and because of many of the actions that have 
been taken by this Congress, it is even harder to get out of poverty.
  Dr. Bosworth should apologize to the 46 million of her fellow 
Americans who need SNAP to put food on their tables. She should 
apologize to the nearly 50 million of her fellow Americans who struggle 
with hunger and don't know where their next meal will come from, and 
Republicans should repudiate her disgusting remarks.
  I am an optimist. I believe we can end hunger, and I believe we can 
end poverty in America, if we just make the commitment to do so, but 
hurtful rhetoric like this simply divides us and does nothing to help 
us achieve the worthy goal of ending hunger now.
  Hunger is a political condition. We have the food, and we have the 
ability to make certain that nobody in this country goes hungry, but we 
lack the political will; and demonizing the poor, as so many in this 
Chamber have done and continue to do so, is a sad commentary on this 
Congress.

[[Page 7039]]

  Our government has a special obligation to the most vulnerable. It is 
time we lived up to that obligation. The war against the poor must 
stop.

                          ____________________