Hearing: Members' Day
Statement
Hearing: MEMBERS' DAY
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Spratt and Members of the Budget
Committee,
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today
on the direction I believe the Budget Committee should take as it
begins work on the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Resolution.
Mr. Chairman, over the past few years, you and I have had several
opportunities to talk about the direction and priorities of the Federal
budget, and I do not intend to take up the Committee's time by
repeating that discussion here. As you well know, there are many issues
that concern me and which I believe require more funding than what the
president has proposed in his Fiscal Year 2007 budget, or what Congress
has been providing in past budgets. My concerns range from:
programs;
deficit;
education programs and our higher education student financial aid;
fund the Federal share of IDEA;
local recreation areas and open spaces, most especially by fully
funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund, including the state-side
program, from its allocated trust fund revenues; and
combat hunger and poverty, both here at home and around the world.
First, let me begin this discussion by urging the Committee to make
sure that the FY 2007 Budget Resolution fully funds our Veterans
Affairs (VA) system. Contrary to recent claims about adequate funding
for veteran's needs, the facts are that the VA has been perennially
underfunded. For each year that passes by, the VA estimates that a
minimum budget increase of 13-14 percent is required just to stay
afloat, when inflation is taken into account. The President's request
for FY06 was less than a 1-percent increase, well short of the funding
necessary for the VA to operate at its current level. This pattern of
inadequate funding for the VA has resulted in a decrease in veterans'
access to health care and has forced a series of emergency supplemental
budgets to keep the system up and going.
Mr. Chairman, I believe our veterans should not have to rely on
emergency funding. They should be the very first on our list of
priorities. The health care that they earned through their service to
country, and which was promised to them, should be assured through
sufficient budget requests, allocations and appropriations. Instead of
proposals imposing a $250 enrollment fee, the doubling of veteran
prescription co-payments, and denying health care access to 260,000
veterans, the FY 2007 budget for the VA needs to provide adequate
funding for every veteran. A budget request that truly reflects the
needs of every veteran, from those of the Greatest Generation to those
newest veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, is what's deserved
and required--and it is truly one of the best ways we can genuinely
honor out troops.
Second, I believe that education at all levels of schooling--from
early childhood education and development through college--is
significantly under-funded in the president's budget proposal. While we
often hear how the FY 2007 budget is focused on our national security,
I cannot imagine how our national security and our economic security
can succeed if we short-change the education of our children and
citizens.
Just like last year, the president cynically eliminates programs
that Congress will need to find a way to fund later in the year, such
as Vocational Education, Safe and Drug Free Schools, Even Start,
Technology State Grants, TRIO Programs, GEAR-UP, Tech-Prep State
Grants, and a host of others. In order to ensure that we can restore
these programs' funding and provide the appropriate level of funding to
those programs whose funding was reduced or frozen--such as IDEA or
after-school programs--Congress needs to increase the Education Account
(Function 500) to accommodate at least another $14 billion for the No
Child Left Behind Act, including the necessary increase for the IDEA
that is absent from the president's proposed budget; and we need to
increase higher education funding by at least another $2 billion to
secure adequate Federal funds for an increased number of Pell Grant and
SEOG beneficiaries and an increase in the size of the average grant.
Third, I am disappointed and frustrated that once again the
president's budget fails to fund the Federal and state-side programs of
the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the funding for which is
designated by law from royalty receipts from drilling done in the outer
continental shelf.
As you well know, Mr. Chairman, the LWCF is based upon a simple
concept: It takes revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling and
invests them in our country's public land, letting States take the
lead, and for 40 years this program has had a proven track record and
benefited from strong bipartisan support.
When Congress decided to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil
drilling, we pledged to use some of its revenues for the public good.
And with the goal of meeting the nation's growing need for recreation
sites, Congress established the LWCF trust fund and agreed to reinvest
an annual portion of OCS revenue into Federal land acquisition and
State assistance development programs. Even though LWCF takes in $900
million annually from oil and gas receipts, in recent years just a
fraction of this funding has been used for its rightful purpose. For FY
2007, the president provides for only $85 million for LWCF programs,
and all of these are in the federal-side (not the state-side) part of
the program.
The state-side portion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund has
helped our states and local communities preserve open space, slow urban
sprawl, and give our children safe places to play. This program is a
true partnership, with Federal grants requiring a full match from
states and local communities. It's a program that has worked, and
worked well. In all, the State-side program has helped communities by
funding 40,000 recreation projects nationally--success stories that can
be found in every state and in 98 percent of U.S. counties.
The elimination of funding for the LWCF state-side grants is
particularly harmful to our nation's under-served areas. In fact, in
many low-income urban communities, the state-side grant program is
responsible for virtually all of their parks and open spaces. At a
minimum, the FY 2007 Budget Resolution needs to provide full funding
for the LWCF, Federal and state-side, and ensure that the revenues
designated by statute for funding the LWCF are used first and foremost
for the LWCF.
Fourth, while the International Affairs 150 Account is one of the
few accounts in the president's budget to receive a modest increase, I
am deeply concerned that Development Assistance overall and other
critical international health, education, agriculture, food security,
clean water, and other core development programs are either reduced or
receive modest if any increases. Scarcely one-third of international
affairs funding is devoted to these critical development programs. Once
again, development assistance for Latin America is short-changed, at a
time when U.S. relations with our closest neighbors are at their lowest
point in history. I would like to see the Millennium Challenge Account
receive the $3 billion in funding requested by the president--a
doubling of its current funding levels. But this Congress was promised
by the president when he first announced the creation of the MCC that
its funding would be in addition to existing foreign aid priorities--
and not rob funding from other critical accounts. Therefore, I believe
the Budget Committee must increase the International Affairs by at
least $1.5 billion, and that the Committee should direct this increase
at core development assistance programs aimed at increasing access to
health care, nutrition and education and at reducing hunger and
poverty, as stated in the first Millennium Development Goal.
The 9/11 Commission Report said it best when it described how our
national security requires a strong commitment to economic and
development assistance if we are to triumph over terrorism,
fundamentalism and fanaticism.
And finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to comment on the
importance of addressing hunger and poverty, both here in the United
States and around the world. Once again, the Agriculture Account took
one of the hardest hits in the president's budget, just as it has for
the past 4 years in this Committee's reported budget resolutions. I
would like to read a few sentences from the U.S. Catholic Conference of
Bishops regarding ``Moral Responsibilities for Public Life,'' from
their statement on ``A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility":
The first priority for agriculture policy should be food security
for all. Food is necessary for life itself. Our support for Food
Stamps, the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC), and other programs that directly benefit poor and low-income
people is based on our belief that no one should face hunger in a land
of plenty. Those who grow our food should be able to make a decent
living and maintain their way of life. Farmers who depend on the land
for their livelihood deserve a decent return for their labor. Rural
communities deserve help so that they can continue to be sources of
strength and support for a way of life that enriches our nation.
I cite this passage to underscore the recent reports by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau that find food
insecurity and hunger are rising rapidly in America and now affect
nearly 20 percent of all our children. The number of food insecure
households grew by nearly two million in 2004; in 2005, an additional
million fell into poverty. Mr. Chairman, now is not the time to reduce
our commitment to feed the hungry.
I firmly believe the budget resolution can be a road map that, if
followed by the Appropriations Committee, could dramatically contribute
to the fight to end hunger here at home, and to reduce it by half
around the world. We should focus on these worthy goals in the FY 2007
budget resolution and provide the necessary funding for the domestic
and international food and nutrition programs funded and administered
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Function 350), which for the
fourth year in a row has suffered a severe blow in the president's
budget proposal; and for those international food aid programs that are
funded under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (Function 150 International Affairs).
Domestically, we have an obligation to make sure that our nation's
children don't go hungry. This is why the school breakfast and school
lunch programs were developed, along with programs that help provide
nutritional meals for pregnant women and nursing mothers, infants, and
children under the age of five.
Unfortunately, the school breakfast and lunch programs aren't
universal and they aren't year round. This means that some of the
poorest families receive a free school meal during the school year,
while others only qualify for a reduced price meal. To Congress's
credit, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act phased this inequity
out, but it's subject to appropriations--and appropriations is subject
to budget caps--and so the inequities remain. Under the president's
budget, approximately 40,000 low-income children will no longer receive
a free school lunch. It's past time we fully fund this program so that
we can finally eliminate the reduced price meal at our nation's
schools.
Additionally, millions of our children who receive meals during the
school year lose access to this food when school is out of session. The
Summer Food Service Program was designed to combat this problem, but
its funding is also woefully inadequate. Fifteen million poor and low-
income children qualify to receive food during the school year, but
only 2.9 million children receive food during the summer. That's an 81-
percent decrease, Mr. Chairman. We simply must do better than that.
The President's budget request eliminated funding for the Commodity
Supplemental Food Program. Currently, this modest program provides
vital food assistance to over 420,000 elderly poor, and to 50,000 low-
income pregnant women and children. Eliminating this $108 million
program guarantees that these vulnerable people will no longer obtain
their monthly supply of groceries. I recognize that the Administration
believes we can simply enroll the women and children in WIC and the
seniors in the Food Stamp Program, but this program was created
precisely to fill the eligibility gap WIC and Food Stamps fails to
cover. In short, Mr. Chairman, most of the recipients of these food
packages will not be eligible for these other programs, but they will
end up hungry--and faced with choosing between food, medicines, rent,
childcare, heat, electricity, and other basic needs.
On the international level, emergency and other international food
aid programs provided under PL 480 Title II will receive only $1.2
billion in funding under the president's FY07 budget proposal. This may
sound like a lot of money, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately, by the end of
the year, just as has been the case in the past 3 years, the U.S. will
most likely expend between $1.5 billion and $2.2 billion for
international emergency and other food aid programs. Since we know this
is the likely reality based on past experience, then we should include
that level of funding for Title II up front--and not off-budget in
emergency appropriations or through reprogramming requests that rob
Peter to pay Paul, taking the funds from other urgent development,
emergency disaster, and food aid programs.
Another successful program, the George McGovern-Robert Dole
International Food for Education Program, is also flat-funded at $99
million for FY 2007, a level that actually reflects the FY 2006 1-
percent across-the-board cut to all programs. Mr. Chairman, you might
not be aware that when USDA puts out the call each year for proposal
submissions for McGovern-Dole project funding, it receives proposals
that would total over one billion dollars if all were funded. I'm not
asking for that level of funding, but such a response clearly
demonstrates that the need is great, well-identified, and well-
documented. Yet we are freezing this program just as it begins to make
a modest recovery from the devastating cuts of FY 2002, when it was
reduced from a $300 million program to $50 million.
Last year, Secretary Johanns described some of McGovern-Dole's
positive results as including ``increased school enrollment, especially
among girls; declines in absenteeism; improved concentration, energy,
and attitudes toward learning; and infrastructure improvements,
includi9ng classrooms, kitchens, storage facilities, water systems, and
latrines.'' The programs have been so successful that some have begun
to ``graduate'' and become self-sustaining, such as in Lebanon, Moldova
and Vietnam. Additionally, the success of McGovern-Dole has resulted in
other donors becoming involved in school feeding programs, including
the European Union, Germany, Japan, Canada and the World Health
Organization.
Mr. Chairman, all of us support national security and the global
war on terrorism as priorities, but national security is not just the
result of soldiers, guns and bombs. Our national security is
strengthened and safeguarded by thousands of individuals and
organizations who serve on the front lines of the battle to reduce and
eliminate hunger and poverty. Their work daily combats the hate, fear,
despair and hopelessness that contribute to acts of desperation, terror
and war. The 9/11 Commission Report acknowledged this important reality
in its final recommendations--and Senator Roberts, Chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, has stated on more than one occasion
that initiatives like the McGovern-Dole program are a critical to
winning the war against global terrorism.
And quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, you know far better than I, since
you represent one of our finest farm states, how much our farmers
appreciate and take pride in the fact that their hard work and their
crops go to help the neediest Americans and the neediest people around
the world.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the Record and provide the
Committee with a copy of a letter sent to President Bush on December
20th from 108 bipartisan Members of this House asking the president to
restore the funding for the McGovern-Dole program to its original $300
million level. Since this did not occur in the president's budget, I
urge the Committee to increase the overall funding for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture in order to make room for such an increase.
Given these critical needs, these harsh realities, we need a
pragmatic approach to addressing them, one that doesn't make believe
that these needs will simply go away if we do nothing or cut funding
for the very programs that tackle these difficult problems head on. I
therefore believe this Committee must restore at least $2.5 billion to
the Agriculture Account of the budget.
Mr. Chairman, I know you must be scratching your head and saying to
yourself, how do I suggest paying for such substantial increases in our
overall budget?
I could say that we should reduce the defense spending account--but
quite frankly, that's something the Pentagon should have done when it
issued its new Quadrennial Report. Instead, rather than transforming
their budget the way they describe transforming our armed forces to
meet the challenges of today and the future, they simply added more
billions of dollars to the nearly half trillion dollar budget they
received in FY 2006. And the FY 2007 budget doesn't even reflect the
so-called emergency supplemental appropriations the president will soon
send to Congress to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, once again,
off-budget.
The Budget Committee is the only Committee capable of reporting out
a resolution that makes these subtle shifts of priorities. This
Committee is capable of shifting $20 billion or so out of defense and
into education, the LWCF Federal and state-side programs, international
development assistance, and domestic and international food aid and
agriculture programs.
This Committee can also call on Ways and Means to increase revenues
by that same amount, so as to cover these increased budget allocations.
These needs won't disappear; they will only get worse the longer we
neglect them.
I urge the Committee to rise to this challenge, and to find the
courage and leadership to increase these accounts and others, so that
our genuine national security is reflected by our support for strong
communities, modern infrastructure, a well-educated citizenry, and the
compassion and fortitude to tackle the challenges of hunger and poverty
locally and globally.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the
priorities that I believe face this nation. However, I want to conclude
with this one, final point. We have an opportunity and the
responsibility to prioritize programs that will benefit the populations
that need the most help today. To me, that means focusing on the
neediest Americans--whether that's a victim of Hurricane Katrina or a
poor working family trying to make ends meet or a hungry child in
Africa, Asia or Latin America. Investing today in programs that help
support these individuals and families will pay off in the future. The
FY 2007 Budget Resolution that this Committee will draft can indeed
provide the necessary funding for domestic and international food and
nutrition programs, as well as the other needs I have described this
afternoon, and help provide a road map for a new course for the United
States.
Once again, I appreciate you granting me this time, and I welcome
any questions you might have.
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