Hunger in America
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight our important Federal nutrition programs, and I rise today to remind my colleagues that we have a hunger problem in the United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, there is not a single congressional district in this country that is hunger free. Every community--whether urban, suburban, or rural--faces hunger. One in seven Americans experience hunger, including 16 million children. We are the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world. It is shameful that even one child goes to bed hungry.
In every community across the country, there are dedicated, passionate local antihunger organizations that do incredible work to provide food assistance and support those struggling with hunger, from food banks to food pantries, to faith-based organizations, to community centers, to hospitals, and on and on and on. Charities do important, wonderful work, but they cannot do it alone. The demand is simply too high. Charities need a strong partner in the Federal Government if we are ever going to end hunger.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which used to be known as food stamps, is our Nation's premier antihunger program. It is effective and it is efficient, with an error rate of less than 4 percent, which includes both overpayments and underpayments.
By the way, underpayments are when a recipient receives less than they are eligible for, and that happens often.
Find me a Pentagon spending program with such a low error rate. The fact of the matter is SNAP is one of the most successful--if not the most successful--Federal programs that we have.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, and breastfeeding support to more than 8 million low-income women and children at nutritional risk. WIC gives infants and young children the healthy, nutritious start that they need for critical early development and lifelong learning. It is an incredibly vital program.
The National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and the Summer Food Service Program provide nutritious foods for millions of children and teens in educational and community settings. These important programs ensure that our young people are ready to learn and that they can succeed.
The Meals on Wheels program provides home-delivered meals to millions of homebound seniors. Not only does Meals on Wheels improve senior nutrition, it also enables seniors to live independently longer while receiving daily check-in visits from volunteers.
These are just a few of the vital Federal antihunger programs that are the backbone of our fight to end hunger once and for all in this country. But, Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons why I am coming to this floor today is I am deeply worried that they are coming under attack by the Republican majority in this House.
Unfortunately, it is fashionable right now to demonize Americans living in poverty and to belittle their struggles. We hear that all too often on this House floor. We hear that all too often in this Presidential campaign that is going on. The fact of the matter is it is hard work to be poor in America. It is not easy. Yet millions of families are struggling, trying to raise their kids and living on a paycheck that doesn't provide enough to put food on the table.
Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago, I spent a night at a homeless shelter in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the Interfaith Hospitality Network. It is a family homeless shelter. As you know, there are not enough shelters that accommodate entire families. Usually families get split up. But what I wasn't prepared for when I spent the night at this shelter was that every one of these families had at least one adult that was working. They were working in a job. They all had unique situations that put them in a very difficult situation. But the fact of the matter is they were working. They were earning just enough that a lot of their benefits were reduced, but they were not earning enough to be able to put a down payment on an apartment and afford rent.
These are parents that love their kids every bit as much as I love my kids and my colleagues love their kids. They want to be good parents, but they are struggling. They are looking for a hand up, not a handout. They are looking for a little bit of assistance so they can get back on their feet.
The bottom line is that their plight is not unique. I will tell my colleagues that their plight does not fall into a neat stereotype. Too often when people here in this Chamber talk about the homeless or the hungry, they talk about people who are addicted to drugs, or they talk about people who don't work or who don't want to work. That is not the reality. That is not the face of poverty in this country. It is much more complicated than that. And yet, to justify deep cuts in programs to actually help people get back on their feet, we hear the false narrative repeated over and over and over again, the demonization of these people who are struggling in poverty.
The rhetoric that we hear on the floor all too often is hurtful, and it is sometimes hateful. It is seeping into the discourse in this Congress, and it is seeping into some of the decisionmaking that is going on by the current leadership in this Congress.
It seems like just now Republican leaders are finally coming around to the idea that they need to talk about poverty. We heard the Speaker say that he wants a national conversation about poverty. But I have got to tell you I am a little worried, because while we need this conversation and while we need to come up with solutions, I have this sinking feeling that something else is going on, that this so-called conversation on poverty is really kind of a masquerade for cutting deeply into programs that will help put food and nutrition on people's tables and provide people the shelter that they need when they are struggling. I worry that this congressional task force that the Speaker announced, when I look at it, is made up of Members, all of whom have supported block-granting SNAP.
What block-granting means is that States can do almost whatever the heck they want to do with the SNAP benefit. They don't necessarily have to use it to provide people food. They can use it for other things; and, therefore, it puts that benefit at risk, especially during difficult economic times.
But every one of the people who is on this task force has voted for Republican budgets that support block-granting. Every one of the people on this so-called poverty task force voted to cut SNAP by $40 billion during the last farm bill--$40 billion.
Now, they would say: Oh, we are just trying to trim the program and make it more efficient. I would just say to my colleagues that the average SNAP benefit is $1.40 per person per meal per day--$1.40.
I bet most of my colleagues who are calling for deep cuts in SNAP have no idea what the benefit is. They have no idea how inadequate the benefit is. In fact, it is so inadequate that most families who are on SNAP end up having to rely on food banks, having to rely on churches, synagogues, and mosques at the end of the month to be able to put food on their table. It is $1.40 per person per meal per day. That is the average benefit. Yet my colleagues, those who are on this so-called poverty task force, almost unanimously, on the other side of the aisle, voted to cut the program by $40 billion.
I would ask my colleagues, what are you thinking? What are you thinking? We have an obligation to be there for the most vulnerable in this country. That is what government is supposed to be for. Donald Trump doesn't need government. He is a zillionaire. He doesn't have to worry about where his next meal is going to come from. Yet there are millions of people, millions of families in this country who do. They are looking for a little compassion. They are not looking for a handout. They are looking for a hand up so they can get their lives in order and they can progress.
Mr. Speaker, we need to do better.
I will just say one other thing, and then I am going to yield to my colleague from Virginia.
There is another kind of nasty discussion going on by my Republican colleagues. They have a new proposal to drug-test SNAP recipients. The fact of the matter is this proposal has no basis in reality. It is nothing more than a mean-spirited attack on poor people to fire up their rightwing base. It is insulting. It is insulting.
We have seen drug test laws in Florida and Georgia struck down as unconstitutional and end up wasting taxpayer dollars to identify very few drug users. In fact, those receiving public assistance test positive for illicit drugs at a lower rate than the general population--at a lower rate than the general population. It doesn't fit into the rightwing narrative of who comprises those who live in poverty in America, but it is the fact. It is the fact.
Why aren't Republicans in this bill calling for drug testing for wealthy CEOs and oil company executives who receive taxpayer subsidies? Why aren't they calling for Members of Congress to undergo drug tests? After all, our salaries are paid by the taxpayers in this country. Why don't you call for all Members of Congress to undergo drug tests? Maybe that might explain why we do some of the things we do here in this Congress.
But, instead, again, they only pick on one sector of the population-- poor people. They are the ones who are being blamed for the economy. They are the ones who are being demonized, and they are the ones who are being belittled. It is beneath this Chamber and this House to engage in that kind of discussion.
We need to be making real, meaningful progress to end hunger and poverty in this country. First and foremost, we need to protect and strengthen our important Federal nutrition and antihunger programs. We need bold action that will help people rather than make hunger and poverty worse. That is why I continue to call for a White House conference on food, nutrition, and hunger to develop a holistic plan to end hunger in America, because I think we can do better. I think we need to get all of our Federal agencies and our State agencies to work better together and to connect the dots so that we can deal with this so-called cliff that so many people struggling to get out of poverty hit when they start to make a little bit of money.
We need to figure out a holistic plan with benchmarks that will actually end hunger. We have a lot of programs, quite frankly, that deal with different aspects of hunger, but I am not sure we have a plan that will actually end it.
Here is the deal. Hunger is a political condition. It is solvable. We have everything to solve it except the political will. One of the things we should be doing is developing that political will and not going down the road of demonizing some of the most vulnerable people in this country.
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Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for his comments and for his leadership, and I thank him for pointing out the links between good nutrition and good health.
We actually will save money in the long run if we provide our people, our young people in particular, nutritious food. We can prevent diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
If people aren't moved by the human aspect of feeding the hungry and all they care about is the bottom line, they ought to join with us to make sure that these nutrition programs are adequately funded.
In addition, you can't learn in school if you are hungry. A breakfast and a lunch to a young child who is hungry is every bit as essential to that child's ability to learn as is a textbook.
We need to understand that. We need to stop nickel-and-diming these nutrition programs and understand that every dollar we invest, every penny we invest, pays us back in ways that can't even be quantified, quite frankly.
DeLauro), a leader on this issue, a woman who is on the Appropriations Committee, who, again, has been a champion for many, many years on this issue of combating hunger in America.
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Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlewoman for her eloquent statement.
Moore).
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Mr. McGOVERN.
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