The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“HUNGER AND THE RYAN BUDGET” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1898-H1905 on April 17, 2012.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HUNGER AND THE RYAN BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, in tonight's Democratic Special Order, we will be highlighting the severe and immoral cuts made to antihunger and nutrition programs in the House Republican budget.
Right now, millions of American families and children are suffering from food insecurity. As the map here clearly shows, food hardship is a national tragedy. It is present in each and every congressional district. The districts that are highlighted in pink and in red have the most food hardships, while the districts in yellow are not far behind. Districts highlighted in blue have the lowest food hardship, but the national average is that nearly one in five Americans struggles with food hardship. Simply put, they are at risk of going hungry.
According to a study done by the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities, the Republican budget, composed by Chairman Paul Ryan and endorsed by Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, would ``impose extraordinary cuts in programs that serve as a lifeline for our Nation's poorest and our most vulnerable citizens.'' Not the least of these are America's critical antihunger initiatives like food stamps and the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, program, all of which the Ryan Republican budget threatens to slash by as much as 19 percent.
That means, for example, that over 8 million men, women, and children could be cut from food stamps, and 2\1/2\ million pregnant and post-
partum women, infants and children may be slashed from the WIC program. The Ryan budget slashes these antihunger initiatives while preserving subsidies for Big Oil, tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. It is a reverse Robin Hood budget that, in the words of Robert Greenstein, the head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would ``likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times and possibly in the Nation's history.''
As many religious and ethical observers have noted this week, the decisions made in this budget are antithetical to our basic moral values. Last Friday, 60 Catholic leaders and theologians wrote a letter to Chairman Ryan arguing that his budget was ``morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation, and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly, and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can't be justified in Christian terms.''
This Ryan Republican budget is particularly cruel when you consider the scale of need in the current economy where 13 million are unemployed and one in six are living below the official poverty line.
As another group of Christian leaders, the Circle of Protection, has urged, Congress should ``give moral priority to programs that protect the life and the dignity of poor and vulnerable people in these difficult times.''
Our antihunger initiatives like food stamps and WIC are just such programs. Tonight, I'm proud to be joined by my colleagues. We will discuss the profound impact the Ryan-Romney Republican budget will have on these programs.
With that, I am so pleased to ask my colleague from California (Mr. Farr), who is the ranking member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, to continue our dialogue for this evening.
Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I call you Chair because you were chair when I was on the committee, and I always respect your leadership in this field.
As was stated, I am ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, and that is responsible for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. The entire budgets of those administrations are bigger than the budget of all of California. It is a very important program, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for food policy. Most of our food policy in the United States is about health care. It's about feeding people and assisting those who don't have adequate access to fresh fruits and vegetables through creation of farmers markets and things like that.
I'm here tonight because I'm deeply disturbed by the attention and sort of the media satisfaction that some are getting when they hear about the Ryan budget cut, squeeze, and trim; and I want to talk tonight a little bit not only to the families that receive the benefits but to the farmers who grow the food in this country.
The Ryan budget is one you ought to look at before you leap, because if you look at it in detail, you will find that it has a lot to do with knowing about the price of everything and the cost of everything, but very little about knowing the value of what these programs are all about.
Look, food in America is very important, and we wouldn't be having all these health care debates and issues if it weren't for the issues of health care. Health care begins with food. If you're going to grow healthy people, it has to do with what they eat, and we also know it has to do with the exercise that they participate in.
Of about a $100 billion budget, $65 billion of that is in food and nutrition. It's about feeding people. We feed a lot of people in the government. We certainly feed everybody in the military. We feed people in public institutions. We feed children in schools, and we also give families a choice of what they want to buy with the old food stamp program, now known as the SNAP program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
In my district, one out of every five families is receiving this assistance. And what do they do with that? They can buy, because we produce so much fresh fruits and vegetables, a much healthier diet than they would have otherwise. Indeed, if we're going to prevent illness in America, we have to keep people healthy.
Who grows this food? Who produces this food? It's the farmers of America. They don't give it away. We buy it from them.
A huge percentage of the income to farmers in this country comes from the food they produce for our institutional feeding and for our health care programs. The Ryan budget devastates that. He cuts, squeezes, and trims the farmers in this country, the growers, the people that create the food security in America.
So look before you leap. This budget does a lot more harm than good.
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And, frankly, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program is a very good program. We even have spouses and children of military families that are receiving this because at some locations the pay isn't great enough to be able to give them all of the nutritional foods that they need.
So if we're going to grow a healthy America, we've got to keep this program, and we've got to avoid falling in love with the Ryan budget which will do everything but create a healthier, safer, sounder and more fiscally capable government. I urge the defeat of that budget and the support of the American farmers.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman from California. And as this is, as I said, an issue that is coast to coast, I'd like to recognize our colleague from Massachusetts, someone who has been an unbelievable champion of eliminating hunger in the United States, Jim McGovern from Massachusetts.
Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague from Connecticut for her passion and for her leadership on this issue, and for reminding us all of a terrible truth, and that is, there is not a single community in the United States of America that is hunger-free; that there are millions of our fellow citizens, men, women and children of every age and every background you can imagine, who are hungry or who are food insecure. They don't have enough to eat, can't put a nutritious meal on the table for their families. They go without meals on a regular basis.
This is happening in the United States of America, the richest country on this planet; and every one of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, should be ashamed of that fact.
I tell people all the time that hunger is a political condition. We have the food. We have this incredible natural resource in this country that we're able to produce enough food to be able to feed our population. We have this incredible agriculture community, wonderful farmers from coast to coast who can grow our food. And yet millions of our citizens go without.
We have the food, we have the infrastructure, we know what to do. We have everything but the political will to eradicate hunger in America.
Now, look, we all agree that we have a problem with our debt, and we need to get our budget under control. But it's hard to believe that the first place the Republicans are looking to balance the budget are on the backs of the poor and the most vulnerable in this country, on the backs of people who are hungry, because tomorrow in the Agriculture Committee, following in line with the Ryan budget, the Republican leadership is going to ask that the Agriculture Committee cut $33 billion out of the SNAP program.
That's how they're going to balance the budget. First thing out of the box, going after the SNAP program, a program that has worked to keep millions of people not only out of hunger, but out of poverty.
I will insert an article into the Record that appeared in The New York Times talking about how the SNAP program has prevented millions of Americans from going into poverty.
Food Stamps Helped Reduce Poverty Rate, Study Finds
(By Sabrina Tavernise)
Washington.--A new study by the Agriculture Department has found that food stamps, one of the country's largest social safety net programs, reduced the poverty rate substantially during the recent recession. The food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reduced the poverty rate by nearly 8 percent in 2009, the most recent year included in the study, a significant impact for a social program whose effects often go unnoticed by policy makers.
The food stamp program is one of the largest antipoverty efforts in the country, serving more than 46 million people. But the extra income it provides is not counted in the government's formal poverty measure, an omission that makes it difficult for officials to see the effects of the policy and get an accurate figure for the number of people beneath the poverty threshold, which was about $22,000 for a family of four in 2009.
``SNAP plays a crucial, but often underappreciated, role in alleviating poverty,'' said Stacy Dean, an expert on the program with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based research group that focuses on social programs and budget policy.
Enrollment in the food stamp program grew substantially during the recession and immediately after, rising by 45 percent from January of 2009 to January of this year, according to monthly figures on the U.S.D.A. Web site. The stimulus package pushed by President Obama and enacted by Congress significantly boosted funding for the program as a temporary relief for families who had fallen on hard times in the recession.
But the steady rise tapered off in January, when enrollment was down slightly from December, a change in direction that Ms. Dean said could signal that the recovery was having an effect even among poor families.
The program's effects have long been known among poverty researchers, and for Ms. Dean, the most interesting aspect of the report was the political context into which it was released.
In a year of elections and rising budget pressures, social programs like food stamps are coming under increased scrutiny from Republican legislators, who argue that they create a kind of entitlement society.
In an e-mail to supporters on Monday, Representative Allen B. West, a Florida Republican, called the increase in food stamp use a ``highly disturbing trend.'' He said that he had noticed a sign outside a gas station in his district over the weekend alerting customers that food stamps were accepted.
``This is not something we should be proud to promote,'' he said.
Kevin W. Concannon, the under secretary of agriculture for food, nutrition and consumer services, argued that since the changes to the welfare system in the 1990s, the food stamp program was one of the few remaining antipoverty programs that provided benefits with few conditions beyond income level and legal residence.
``The numbers of people on SNAP reflect the economic challenges people are facing across the country,'' Mr. Concannon said. ``Folks who have lost their jobs or are getting fewer hours. These people haven't been invented.''
The study, which examined nine years of data, tried to measure the program's effects on people whose incomes remained below the poverty threshold. The program lifted the average poor person's income up about six percent closer to the line over the length of the study, making poverty less severe. When the benefits were included in the income of families with children, the result was that children below the threshold moved about 11 percent closer to the line.
The program had a stronger effect on children because they are more likely to be poor and they make up about half of the program's participants.
``Even if SNAP doesn't have the effect of lifting someone out of poverty, it moves them further up,'' Mr. Concannon said.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to take on a myth that some of my Republican friends have been propagating that somehow the SNAP program is a wasteful program. I've heard over and over and over again that the amount we've spent on SNAP has risen over the last decade. It has, in part, because we've gone through a terrible economic crisis. More and more of our fellow citizens have fallen into poverty, have had to rely on SNAP.
CBO tells us that they expect what we spend on SNAP to go down as the economy gets better. And this is a social safety net. This is a program that provides protection for people when they hit difficult economic times. So that is why spending has increased. It has nothing to do with fraud or waste or abuse.
In fact, the GAO and the USDA have reported time and time again that SNAP is one of the most efficiently run programs in the Federal Government. Less than 3 percent error rate, and that includes people who get underpaid what they're entitled to.
I dare anybody here to find me a program at the Pentagon that has such a low error rate in terms of the utilization of taxpayer money.
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is this: what we're talking about here is not just a program, is not just numbers. We're talking about people. We're talking about our neighbors. And we're talking about not just people who are unemployed. We're talking about working people. Millions of working families benefit from SNAP. They're out there working trying to make ends meet, but they don't earn enough. So because of that, we have this program called SNAP to help them get by and to put nutritious food on the table for their children.
Mr. Speaker, we can talk all we want about our budgetary problems. I want to close with this. You know, people say to me, well, we can't afford to spend any more on hunger programs because, you know, things are tough and the budget need to be tight.
But I would counter, Mr. Speaker, by saying we can't afford not to. There is a cost to hunger in America and that cost we all pay for: avoidable health care costs, lost productivity in the workplace. Children who go to school without enough to eat can't learn in school. That all adds up. That is a huge cost of billions and billions of dollars that we all have to pay. And that doesn't even count what we invest in programs like SNAP and WIC and other programs designed to provide nutrition and food for our fellow citizens.
So I would say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the battle against hunger has historically been a bipartisan one. We've been able to come together, Republicans and Democrats, and be able to stand together to support programs that provide a circle of protection for our most vulnerable citizens.
And all of a sudden, you know, my Republican colleagues and some of the Presidential candidates are using hunger as a wedge issue, calling President Obama the Food Stamp President. Well, I'm proud that in this country we care about our fellow citizens, especially when they fall on hard times.
I urge my colleagues, especially on the Republican side, to stand up against your leadership and to stand with us and to stand with people who are in need. If government is not there for the neediest, then I'm not sure what good government is.
Mitt Romney doesn't need government. He's a multi-millionaire. Donald Trump doesn't need government. But there are millions of our fellow citizens who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a difficult economic situation who rely on these programs.
It is beyond comprehension to me that tomorrow the Republicans want to cut $33 billion out of SNAP. With all the places they could look for savings, they're going after programs to help the most vulnerable. That is unacceptable and unconscionable, and I hope that the majority in this House stand up strongly against that.
I thank my colleague for yielding the time.
Ms. DeLAURO. I want to thank my colleague. I want to thank him for his eloquence. He makes a comment that these are not just statistics about the people who are being hurt. The fact of the matter is last week in my district during our district break I did an event on hunger in our community. And there I had the head of the Connecticut food bank, the woman who heads up the End Hunger Connecticut organization, and a young woman, her name was Susan Vass from Branford, Connecticut. She stood up and with tears in her eyes talked about her circumstances. Out of a job, that's someone who is a former pension adviser, a human resources director who's now unemployed, cannot find a job. She has three boys 18, 14 and 10 years old. They eat--she stood there crying--
one meal a day. If we cut back on food stamps, and because she's now not eligible, she can't get them because her unemployment benefits take her over the mark, so she relies on the Connecticut food bank.
And when the food stamps are cut, the food banks don't get the emergency assistance program funding. So her ability to feed her family will continue to drop.
It's wrong. It's immoral in a land that has plenty and we are bountiful with food in this Nation.
I'm so delighted that our colleague, Jackie Speier from California, has joined us tonight for this conversation.
Ms. SPEIER. I thank my colleague from Connecticut, who says it better than any of us and with such great fervor and passion.
You know, there are times here when I am elated, and there are times here when I'm sick to my stomach. And tonight is one of those times when I am sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed for this body.
I'm embarrassed that the Republicans want to stuff polar bears and bring them back to this country as trophies for their hunters, but they do not want to stuff the bellies of poor kids in our country. There is something fundamentally wrong, and I say that with a great deal of remorse, really.
One in seven Americans now is in poverty and needs to be part of the SNAP program. You know, I think it's really important for us to say it over and over again. This program is not filled with fraud.
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This program is one of the best programs that we run in the government, where the error rate and the fraud is less than 3 percent.
Now, I took the Food Stamp Challenge last fall, and I've got to tell you that it was a humbling experience. And for every one of my colleagues who want to cut the food stamp program by $33 billion, I challenge them to live on the equivalent of food stamps for just 5 days. I did it for 5 days, $4.50. There were no lattes in my diet. There were no Big Macs in my diet. There was no sushi in my diet. My diet consisted of canned tuna, eggs, one head of lettuce, and tomatoes for 5 days, and a can of instant coffee from the dollar store. That's how I survived. At the end of 5 days, I thought to myself, I just did this for 5 days. How about the family that needs to do this day in, day out, month after month.
What we don't say often enough on this issue is that you are only eligible for the SNAP program if you are a family of four making less than $22,000 a year. If you make more than $22,000 a year, you are not eligible, and the only place you can go to is the food banks.
So if we really are going to be a country that thinks about the poorest among us, we cannot reduce this program. We cannot say to those who are just making it, who are making less than $22,000 as a family of four, that we're not going to help you put food into the bellies of your kids.
I say to my Republican colleagues: Don't do this. If you are, in fact, going to vote for this budget, then you take that Food Stamp Challenge for 5 days. You see what it's like and then vote for it. I thank my colleague.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentlelady. Your words are poignant. If anybody would like to do this, they really should walk in people's shoes and understand what it's about. When the American people say that they don't believe Congress understands what their lives are about, in this instance you bear it out. Thank you.
Someone whom we are deeply going to miss in the next session of this Congress, there hasn't been a greater champion for women and their families in the House of Representatives than our colleague from California, Congresswoman Woolsey.
Ms. WOOLSEY. I thank the Congresswoman from Connecticut for this Special Order and for those kind words. Thank you very much.
So let me see, do I have this right? Am I getting it? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle think it's just fine for the wealthiest Americans to avoid their fair share of the tax burden, that it's fine for a millionaire to pay a lower Federal tax rate than his secretary. So, tell me who they believe should make do with less in order to close the budget deficit. Just who do they want to sacrifice? Oh, of course, those Americans who are barely getting by, who can't afford life's basic necessities without support from the Federal Government.
Mr. Speaker, to convert SNAP into a block grant program and cut nutrition assistance would cut a giant hole in the social safety net. Actually, the SNAP program is a smart investment in Americans who need help the most. It stimulates the economy, it increases worker productivity, it's good for our children's development and academic performance. At this very moment, when a harsh economy is threatening the security of so many families, we should be increasing these investments. We shouldn't be standing here talking about scaling them back.
You know, Mr. Speaker--you probably don't know--I know what it's like to be working and still not earn enough to put food on the table. I was a single mother, it was 45 years ago. I had three small children, they were 1, 3, and 5 years old. Their dad was ill, he abandoned us. I went back to work to support my family. In fact, I had to lie about my marital status and about my childcare arrangements just to get a job--
remember, that was 40 years ago. My salary was not enough to provide for the four of us, so to help my paycheck cover the basic needs of my family I went on public assistance--kept on working--and that was how I could make ends meet. But without food stamps, we never could have made ends meet. As I said, my children were 1, 3, and 5 years old. They had needs.
Eventually, we got through the rough patch and my children grew up to be healthy, successful adults--they're amazing, by the way--but I don't know what we would have done or how we would have survived without that help. In fact, isn't that what America is about? When our fellow citizens fall on hard times, don't we pitch in to help them? Well, that's not what the Republican philosophy is. It's quite different than that. I believe that they believe every man and woman is on their own and should be fending for themselves.
Millionaires and billionaires deserve the special breaks that they don't need. And more hardship for Americans who are suffering enough already is just what they have to do when they happen not to be very wealthy, or in need. It's appalling, and it's shameful.
Mr. Speaker, you don't need to have my personal experience; nobody needs to. I didn't have to do the food stamp test for 5 days--I know what it's like to live on food stamps. But we, as Americans, as Members of Congress, have to fight with everything that we have to protect the nutrition programs that we have in this country because families in America depend on it.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentlelady for her words, and for her telling about her personal experience.
I'd like to recognize the vice chair of our Democratic Caucus, the Honorable Xavier Becerra of California--which, by the way, has over a 19 percent food hardship rate.
Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut, my good friend Rosa DeLauro, for not just this evening, but for the years of work that she has done in committee, for her district, and simply in Congress as being one of the champions of not just children and families who are in need, but the fight to make sure that all these families have an opportunity to have access to real nutrition, not just food, but real nutrition. Because there were days when ketchup was called a vegetable. And some people made the fight to make sure that nutrition really meant good food, so that if we were going to help Americans--as we want to, as good Americans, help our fellow Americans--then let's be sure we're doing it so that they end up healthy Americans as well.
So we're here to talk about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP. SNAP is the acronym. But really what we're here to talk about is the fact that in America children still go to bed hungry. It's hard to believe, but that's the way it is for too many families in our country.
Now, the numbers are staggering. They're staggering because of the Bush recession which left so many Americans in a place they had never been before. In fact, you had to go back some 70, 80 years to find a situation similar, when we saw the Great Depression in America.
We went from somewhere in the mid-twenties, some 26 million Americans who qualified for SNAP assistance, to over 45 million, around 45 million families during the height of this Great Recession who qualified for benefits. Most of those folks who qualified included families with children, or seniors, or persons with disabilities. It should come as no surprise. But what's really disheartening is to see how many Americans live in extreme poverty, a life that most of us would not recognize.
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When we talk about extreme poverty, we are talking about Americans who are living on less than $2 a day. The number of Americans who were living on less than $2 a day doubled during the Bush recession. The number of poor children who were in extreme poverty doubled during the Bush recession. Most of the people we're talking about, as my colleagues have said earlier, are living on less than $22,000 a year as a family of four. Those in extreme poverty are living on, obviously, far less. With an individual, not a family but just an individual, we're talking about someone who would have to have an income of $11,000 or less to be able to qualify for any assistance with the SNAP program.
What probably makes it the most difficult for many of us here in Congress and for most Americans to really grapple with as to this issue of food insecurity and children in America going to sleep hungry is the fact that this Congress is taking on legislation which would actually provide tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires at this very moment that we speak about food insecurity. So it is difficult to comprehend how we could say to Americans today, who are working hard but earning very little and who are trying to figure out how to keep their kids from going to sleep hungry at night, that we still have the money to provide tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires but that we can't figure out a way to continue a great program called SNAP that relies on our farmers to grow this food and then to make some of it available at a discounted rate to American families who are having a tough time.
This is all about values. This is all about the American family. It's all about whether we believe in the better days still to come for our country.
I happen to be someone who grew up in a very tiny house--about a 600-
square-foot home--with my three sisters. My father got about a sixth grade education. My mother came from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, when she married my father at the age of 18. They came to Sacramento, California, with only the money they had in their pockets. They never once had to ask for assistance. They worked very hard. They were fortunate that they always found a way to make ends meet. I never had the Converse or the Keds or the Levi's jeans. My first bike was a bike that my friend was willing to sell to my father and me because he had just gotten a new one, but I never went to sleep hungry.
So I will tell you right now that it's a different thing to experience something where the thing you want the most before you go to sleep is a bite to eat. Too many of our kids are upset that they didn't get to watch that television program or didn't get to play on the computer very much at night. There are still too many American children who are concerned that, when they go to bed, they wish they'd have something else in their stomachs. I believe America has the moral fiber to say that we're going to deal with this problem.
I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut for, once again, continuing the fight, because the reality is that we could figure out a way to help millionaires and billionaires continue to be successful and create the next wave of wealthy and successful Americans. At the same time, we should be able to figure out a way to make sure that the SNAP program is there for Americans who, through no fault of their own, find themselves without work and who, through no fault of their own, are trying to figure out how they will let their children go to bed with full stomachs. If we do this the right way, we'll get it solved.
I sat on the Bowles-Simpson Commission a year and a half ago, which found a way to save $4 trillion in our budget. It did not touch the SNAP program. I sat on the supercommittee, which was supposed to also fashion a budget deficit reduction deal, and that task force was also going to come up with a deal that would not have touched the SNAP program. We can certainly do far better than what we see in the House Republican budget, which is going after the SNAP program. I encourage all of my colleagues to stand up, not just for the SNAP program but for Americans today, because there are some families who tonight are trying to figure out how they can keep their children from going to bed hungry.
So I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut for all she has done for so long to champion this issue.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman.
I think one of the most important things that you commented on tonight was the number of U.S. households living below the World Bank measure of severe poverty in developing nations. That means they're living on less than $2 a day per person. At the start of 2011, we had 1.4 million households, 2.8 million children--that's 800,000 households--who were living on $2 a day, and we have colleagues in this institution who want to take food out of the mouths of those children.
Mr. BECERRA. Some people don't believe that that's the case. That is America.
Ms. DeLAURO. That is.
Now I would like to say ``thank you'' to our colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Holt, and ask him to join our conversation this evening.
Mr. HOLT. I thank my friend from Connecticut. I thank Mr. Becerra for his heartfelt and very moving remarks, and I thank Ms. Speier from California.
Look at this. Look at this map: 46 million Americans rely on SNAP. More than 9 million others rely on WIC, which is the Women, Infants, and Children food assistance. In New Jersey, my home State, more than 1 million residents rely on SNAP benefits to keep food on the tables. Then the budget, the Republican-Ryan budget, endorsed by Mitt Romney, would shred our social safety net while cutting taxes for the wealthy. It would cut food stamps, as these are generally known, by $133 billion over 10 years.
The authors of this or anyone who voted for it should walk a little bit in those shoes. I've walked in the shoes. More specifically, I've walked down the supermarket aisle with beneficiaries, with people who work in the food assistance programs, with food bank representatives. How does it go? Well, you can't buy that. No, you can't afford that. Oh, Mommy, can I have this? No. We're going to have to put that back on the shelf.
$31.50 a week. Nobody is doing this to have a little taste of luxury. Yet we have people come to the floor here in the House and say, before any of these millions of people get this assistance, they should have drug tests or means tests. I call them suspicion tests. Somehow they're trying to rip us off.
No, these are not welfare queens. Look, the average recipient is on these benefits for less than a year. More than half of them go to households where the income is below half the poverty line. The poverty line is low enough, but half of these recipients are at half that rate. Nearly 75 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children, and about half are working. These are working families who are trying to make it.
Is anybody who voted for this budget suggesting that the millionaires who might get an extra $100,000 on average submit to a drug test? submit to a means test? Are we suspicious of them? How about the executives of the oil companies who are getting billions of dollars of benefits in this? Are we going to subject them to drug tests or to means tests in order to show that they're deserving?
My friend from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) already mentioned the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They wrote:
As pastors and teachers, we remind Congress that these--meaning the budget decisions--are economic, political and moral choices with human consequences.
Please, respectfully, they urge the rejection of any efforts to reduce funds or to restructure programs in ways that harm struggling families and people living in poverty.
I thank my colleague so much for shedding a bright light on this heartbreaking subject.
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Ms. DeLAURO. It is a heartbreaking subject. And when you think about in that budget when we talk on averages, the number is a $150,000 or a
$187,000 tax break to the wealthiest people in the Nation. They don't worry what they're picking up at the grocery store. They're eating well. Their kids are eating well. Their grandkids are eating well, as ours are in this institution. But it's the people that we represent who are in difficulty, and they need to know to look to us to help them when it is so tough out there economically. This program is working in the way that it should.
I thank the gentleman.
Now someone who knows what is going on really in the heartland of our country where they have suffered severe economic depression, and that is in the State of Ohio. Let me welcome to this conversation, our colleague, Congresswoman Fudge.
Ms. FUDGE. I thank the gentlelady so much, and I thank you for your passion on this subject.
Mr. Speaker, there is a cold and cruel war being waged on the poor and hungry in America. I stand today with my colleagues as a voice for the more than 46 million Americans who depend on the food stamp program. I cannot and I will not stand by as my Republican colleagues attempt to balance the budget on the backs of these Americans.
Yesterday, the House Agriculture Committee unveiled the Reconciliation Act of 2012. The drafters of this legislation could have proposed cuts to any program within the Agriculture Committee's jurisdiction; yet they decided to satisfy reconciliation targets by cutting only one program: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. The proposal would cut more than $33 billion from SNAP over 10 years.
Some may try to make you believe these cuts only apply to administrative costs, or they will say that the proposal is an attempt to reduce fraud or waste. They are misleading the public, Mr. Speaker. A majority of the cuts will come from benefits. These cuts will take food out of our seniors' refrigerators and food from the mouths of babies.
Nearly half of all SNAP participants are children. The Republican proposal would not only affect children being fed at home. Oh, no. That would probably be bad enough. This proposal goes further. The Congressional Budget Office predicts this proposal would prevent more than 280,000 children from receiving free meals in school. A school lunch is the only meal many poor children have every day. Millions of children already go to school hungry, Mr. Speaker. Now my Republican colleagues want to exacerbate the problem. I wonder, what did children do to deserve these proposed cuts? Of all the programs that could be cut, why attempt to balance the budget on the backs of schoolchildren?
In Ohio, more than 1.5 million people depend on the SNAP program. These are our neighbors and our friends who live in rural, suburban, and urban Ohio. SNAP is a powerful antipoverty program that has helped make our economy stronger. SNAP is the safety net for millions of people who find themselves unemployed for the first time in their lives. Without SNAP benefits, the disabled would suffer. Without SNAP benefits, seniors would be forced to make the choice between food or a roof over their heads. Without SNAP, children would go hungry. The hungry and the poor and the most vulnerable people cannot afford these cuts. Mr. Speaker, they cannot pay all of our bills by themselves.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentlewoman, and I also recognize the gentleman from Ohio who as well understands what the effects of this recent recession have been to his community, his State, and the people that he represents, Mr. Ryan.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentlelady, and I'm glad I have the opportunity to follow the gentlelady from Cleveland because my district is just south of her district.
As you can see from the map of Ohio, there is severe poverty and food insecurity in the northeastern part of Ohio, but all the way down, as you can see, all the way into the south. And the SNAP program is one program that we're highlighting here tonight.
But I think it's important for us to recognize how this fits into the context of an overall budget that also cuts the Medicaid program by a third. Think about the stress, A, regarding the SNAP program if you're utilizing it. What is that family going to do if a third of the Medicaid budget is cut and early childhood is cut and Pell Grants are cut and student loan rates go up and all the way down the line? We're talking about putting a huge squeeze on the poorest people in our society when we only have 300 million or 400 million people and we're trying to compete with 1.4 billion people in China and 1.3 billion or 1.4 billion people in India. How are we going to be a competitive country? That's the question that we have to ask here if you can't even get enough food in a kid's belly before they go to school.
We need to look at this in the context of what are the investments we need to make in order to be a successful country, period. We've heard a lot of amazing stories here tonight, heart-wrenching stories of people who ended up being Members of Congress because of some of these programs. Who is the next generation of leadership? Are we going to invest in them, or are we going to say, You're on your own?
We have now on the other side, Mr. Speaker, the nominee of a major political party in the United States of America saying: ``I'm not concerned about the poor,'' and making light of us asking people with the Buffett rule to maybe pay a little bit more. You know what? They say, oh, that's not that much money. It's only 11 hours of government spending and blah, blah, blah. You know what? That Buffett rule can help put food in people's bellies. For the 175,000 people in my congressional district in northeast Ohio that are living in poverty, that Buffett rule would help pay for the SNAP program. Is it insignificant now?
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman.
My God, what we could do if we had the will to do it. That's what this is about. It's a question of our values and where our priorities are. Is it about our kids, or is it about the richest 1 percent of the people in this Nation getting $150,000 or $187,000 in a tax break?
The gentlewoman from California has been extraordinary in her fight for the food stamp program, and she hasn't been afraid to take on anyone in any party on this issue of making sure that the food stamp program is secure. I recognize the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).
Ms. LEE of California. Thank you very much.
First, let me thank my colleague, Congresswoman DeLauro, for yielding and those kind words. But let me just thank you for not only organizing this Special Order, but for really continuing to beat the drum so that the country can understand how important nutrition programs are to our Nation. This is not just a job for Congresswoman DeLauro. This is about her life's work. So I just have to thank her for her leadership.
Republicans are preparing to attack families on food stamps. They are planning to take an axe to one of the most important protections for the poor, children, seniors, the disabled, which is, of course, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. They are attempting to cut up to $33 billion from critical, anti-hunger programs even, mind you, as they bring up this bill, H.R. 9, the Small Business Tax Cut Act, which is another $46 billion tax holiday for the very wealthy. They are trying to bring this up at the same time.
When Republicans target programs that protect vulnerable Americans from massive cuts that risk making millions of children suffer hunger and depravation, they are doing so unfortunately in the name of fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. Yet in the very next breath when they want to give away tax breaks to the already wealthy businesses, then those same deficits don't seem to matter.
Mr. Speaker, making cuts on struggling families during hard times is not only heartless and mean and immoral, but it also makes no sense because it doesn't reduce the deficit, nor create jobs. Critical programs like SNAP and WIC not only feed hungry children and families, but they support the overall economy. Every single dollar of SNAP benefits generates a $1.84 in economic activity, and the Congressional Budget Office rated an increase in SNAP benefits as one of the two most cost-effective of all spending and tax options it examined for boosting growth and jobs in a weak economy.
Let me tell you today I really had the privilege to speak--and, Congresswoman DeLauro, I want to say to you thank you again for this because I know, as I said earlier, this is your life's work. This is not just about your job, okay. This is about you as a human being. This is about us and our values.
But let me tell you, many years ago while I was raising my two small children, two little boys as a single mother, I fell upon some very difficult times like Congresswoman Woolsey. She encouraged me to talk about this when I came here because, you know what, I was so embarrassed I never talked about it until Lynn Woolsey encouraged me to begin to share my story.
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But I had to go on food stamps to help me just feed my kids during that very difficult period in my life, and it was hard. Again, I was very embarrassed. But to this day, mind you, to this day I want to thank my government and the people of the United States for extending this helping hand to me as a bridge over troubled waters.
Even though I was embarrassed and didn't want to be on public assistance, I had to for a while, and it was not that I was a welfare queen, but this was a very difficult time. Most families, 95, 98 percent of the families, don't really want to be on food stamps. They want to trade their book of food stamps for a living-wage paycheck. That's what they want.
Cutting SNAP, it simply doesn't make any sense. There are still four job seekers for every one job in America, and so we can't cut the benefits that help to keep food on their tables and provide that bridge over troubled waters until they can get their job.
For the life of me, it's really hard, it's really hard to understand how people of faith have forgotten what the Scriptures say, that we are our brothers' keepers, we are our sisters' keepers. This is the United States of America. This is not a poor developing country.
What the Republican budget proposes is that we will create a country that we won't even recognize, one that says go for what you know, one that says I got mine, you get yours. This 11 percent cut in food stamps, which the Republicans propose, it says you're on your own, mind you. You're on your own, unless you are very wealthy.
I know the American people aren't going to go for this. Our values as a country won't allow this kind of cut in the SNAP program. Americans care about the common good, and so I am confident that the Republicans, the Tea Party Republicans, they are going to hear from the American people on this.
Congresswoman DeLauro, once again I just thank you for giving us the opportunity to do this. I thank you because it is a privilege to be able to stand up for the 46 million people who need this helping hand, as one who needed a helping hand at a point in my life, and it helped me to live the American Dream for myself and for my family.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentlewoman from California, and I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to hear from three more of our colleagues and our colleague from New York, Congressman Tonko. Thank you for being here tonight. And then we will hear from Congresswoman Schakowsky and Congressman Larson.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative DeLauro, and thank you for leading us in what is a very important hour of discussion as we address some of the critical choices before this House. As my good friend and colleague, Rosa DeLauro, from Connecticut indicated, our budget, our budget outcomes are a sum total of our priorities, what has value in our society. What are those sensitivities that we express? What are those outright requirements, basic foundational requirements of our society?
I would suggest to you that one of those basic needs is to enable people to have the soundness of nutrition, to enable us to feed families that have stumbled across difficult times. What we have at risk as we speak here this evening on this House floor is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The SNAP program touches one in seven Americans. That is a staggering statistic, and for every $5 in new SNAP benefits that we offer, they generate as much as $9 in economic activity, almost a two-time economic factor. In my home district in upstate New York, in the Capital Region, some 23,000 households are utilizing SNAP funds. One in four of those SNAP recipients are 60-years-old and older.
Then we also have situations where three and four have had at least one member of the family out of work in the past 12 months. We have many children; one in two on SNAP are under 18 years of age.
This tells us there's a growing need out there. We have had a tough economy, and people have stumbled across tough times. Why is this so important to discuss right now? Because before the end of this month there will be an effort made through this House--they are asking that the Ag Committee come up with cuts that are brutal.
They are asking for the Ag Committee to come up with a sum total of
$33.2 billion. Put right onto the chopping block are SNAP funds. So we are affecting the weakest amongst us, the most hungry amongst us, and we're not recognizing that those dollars invested in these families will recirculate into our regional economies.
This is a sound program that ought to be continued. There needs to be sensitivity shown, there needs to be prioritization of a very important factor here. That is sound nutrition for our American families. I have seen it, I have witnessed it firsthand in our district. It works, it works well. We need to set this as a high priority, and I thank Representative DeLauro for allowing me a few moments of time to share concerns on behalf of the good people that I represent in the 21st District of upstate New York.
Ms. DeLAURO. You represent them well. I thank my colleague.
I want to be in a trench with the gentlewoman from Illinois, Congresswoman Schakowsky. She is a tough fighter, and at the base of that it's about families and their children. Congresswoman Schakowsky.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in this debate where so many of our colleagues have come down to the floor to talk about it.
This is the richest country in the world, and yet one out of five of our children is considered food insecure, goes hungry. That is such a moral outrage.
You know, the average food stamp benefit is $1.50 a meal. That's what you get when you're lucky enough to be part of the SNAP program. And as this chart shows, this map shows, it's everywhere. I actually live in a district that was considered one of the least hard-hit by food insecurity, but that's all relative.
In the Ninth Congressional District in Illinois, more than 11 percent of the households are experiencing food hardship, the inability to put enough food on the table. And even the least of the hard-hit districts has 7 percent of its families unable to put enough food on the table in the richest country in the world. It's intolerable.
You know, the headline today in Politico, ``Republicans Ax Aid to the Poor'' makes me so sad. Who are we as a country? What are we as a country where a candidate for President, a Republican candidate for President, denigrates Barack Obama by calling him the food stamp president. I'm proud that this President wants to defend, protect, and save a program that feeds so many people.
And here's what the Catholic bishops say:
SNAP, also known as food stamps, helps feed millions of households. At this time of economic turmoil and growing poverty, the committee should oppose cuts in this effective and efficient anti-hunger program that helps people live in dignity.
I just want to say we are asking for dignity for Americans that are struggling. The average food stamp recipient is only on it for 9 months. One of the former recipients called it a trampoline that helps you get past it.
I'm asking for dignity for Americans and saving the nutrition programs, especially the SNAP program, the food stamp program.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentlelady. I am delighted to be joined by my colleague from Connecticut, who is chair of the Democratic Caucus and whose career, whether it was in the State senate in Connecticut in our legislature there or his work here, has been remarkable. At its core, again, are our children and our families.
I recognize Congressman John Larson of Connecticut.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut and the dean of our delegation, the deaness, I should say, for her tireless work and advocacy on the part of not only the citizens of the Third Congressional District of Connecticut but across this great Nation and, I daresay, this globe.
I never cease to be amazed by the eloquence of our Members, so many of them coming forward and speaking their minds and speaking from their heart about the people that we're sworn to serve and represent. This week in Congress we face, again, legislation, rather ironically, where we are deeming, deeming a budget passed, almost as though we would deem that the hungry be fed.
Franklin Roosevelt, in another time, recognized the great sacrifice that a nation had to endure, and President Obama this past January called upon the shared sacrifice that is required amongst a nation, a nation that needs to pull together in a very difficult recessionary time.
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And in this time it's a time where you have to make choices. And those choices have to be based on your values and have to be based, as the President said, on sacrifice. Roosevelt called for the warm courage of national security that comes from a shared sacrifice.
Forty-six million people receive assistance, primarily women and children, who get fed and nourished. We're going to have a debate on a budget that strikes at the core of this at a time when we would give tax breaks of $47 billion, while we're taking away from the neediest amongst us?
Roosevelt said the problem with our colleagues on the other side is they can become frozen in the ice of their indifference towards their fellow citizens, everyday Americans serving and struggling in this recessionary period. And what do we get in return? We get RomneyCare, we get tax breaks for BainCapital. We get tax breaks that are coming to the Nation's wealthiest 1 percent at a time where we ask the middle class, who is struggling, to pay for it.
We're out here today talking about a very important program that provides nutrition to the least amongst us, and we're calling for cuts that are not only going to take from them but are going to take from students that are trying to be able to pay off their educational loans. This has got to stop. We're a better country than this.
I commend the gentlelady from Connecticut for bringing this to our attention and focusing on the needs of a great Nation that in a time of budgetary concerns has to choose the appropriate values for the country, that has to make the appropriate choices. We all agree on the need to sacrifice, but it has to be shared and shouldn't be balanced on the backs of the middle class and the poorest amongst us.
I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut for her leadership.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman and I thank my colleagues for joining us tonight.
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