End Hunger Now

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is farm bill week. Today, the Senate Agriculture Committee is marking up their version of the farm bill, and tomorrow the House Agriculture Committee will do the same. Although one bill is written by a Republican and the other is written by a Democrat, these two bills have one thing in common: they make hunger worse in America.

There are 50 million hungry Americans; 17 million are kids. Yet the Senate is going to mark up a bill that cuts over $4 billion from SNAP, our Nation's main antihunger program. But that cut pales in comparison to the cuts included in H.R. 1947, the House farm bill.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we are going to mark up a farm bill that includes a $20 billion cut in SNAP--$20 billion. Mr. Speaker, at a time when we have 50 million hungry Americans, at a time when we have 17 million hungry kids, a Republican-led Congress is going to mark up a farm bill with $20 billion cuts in SNAP.

Mr. Speaker, we were elected to solve problems and help people, not make things worse. We were elected to help make lives better. We were elected to do the right thing. Cutting SNAP, making it harder for hungry Americans to put food on their tables, is the wrong thing. Taking $20 billion out of this program will do real harm to Americans who simply are trying to make ends meet.

Now, there are some in this House, some on the Agriculture Committee, who say this is about reducing error rates in the program, that this is good getting at fraud. Well, let me remind them that SNAP has one of the lowest error rates, if not the lowest error rates, in the Federal Government. That is something that we should be proud of, and it is something that we should celebrate.

Mr. Speaker, these cuts do not get at fraud. These cuts do not make the program more efficient. These cuts don't help reduce or end hunger in America. These cuts in this bill will make things worse. That's because the cuts in this bill will kick 2 million people off of SNAP. That's 2 million hungry Americans who currently rely on SNAP to help feed themselves and their families, and that's 2 million low-income Americans who are having trouble making ends meet.

These cuts will cause 850,000 households to see their SNAP benefit reduced by $90 a month--$90 a month. That's a big cut for poor families struggling to get by.

The cuts in this bill will cause 210,000 children to lose access to their free school meals. These 210,000 poor children currently receive free school meals because their parents can't afford to pay for their meals. But the cuts in this bill will result in 210,000 losing access to free school meals.

This bill even cuts the nutrition education program, a program that is designed to help educate SNAP beneficiaries about how to buy and prepare more nutritious foods. Imagine cutting this critical education program while obesity and access to unhealthy food is on the rise.

To put this in proper context, these cuts would come on top of an across-the-board cut in SNAP that every recipient will experience starting on November 1, 2013. Because SNAP has been used as an ATM to offset other worthy programs, a family of four will already be seeing their SNAP benefit cut by an average of $25.

So, to recap, not only will we see automatic cuts in SNAP this November, the House farm bill will make things worse by cutting $20 billion additionally from the program. This simply cannot stand.

Tomorrow, during the farm bill markup, I will offer an amendment that will restore these cuts. I hope that all my colleagues on the Agriculture Committee will vote for my amendment, and, if it fails, I hope they'll vote against the farm bill.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot just indiscriminately make hunger worse in the name of fiscal austerity. No, Mr. Speaker, we should look at these programs and ask ourselves: Are these programs working? Are they doing the job that they were designed to do? Are they succeeding or failing? And how can we make them work better? But that's not what we're doing.

Do you know how many hearings we've had on SNAP in this Congress? Do you know how many the Agriculture Committee has held? None. That's right, the Agriculture Committee is about to cut $20 billion from SNAP, and we haven't had one single hearing. Yet there are 20 new members of the Agriculture Committee in this Congress, 20 new members who deserve the right to learn about these issues, including the details of SNAP and the impact of these cuts.

Mr. Speaker, this is not how we should be approaching this program. We should be holding hearings; we should ask questions; we should be thoughtful; and we should look at the program in an honest way, and our goal should be to end hunger now. Unfortunately, this bill, as written, is more about protecting big agribusiness and corporate welfare than it is about protecting hungry Americans who need help today.

Mr. Speaker, we need to do something about hunger in America. I've urged the administration to host a White House conference on food and nutrition to come up with a plan to end hunger now. Hopefully, they will act on that soon. But for today and tomorrow, we must protect SNAP from needless, unnecessary, and harmful cuts. We must stand for the most vulnerable in our country, and we must end hunger now and not make it worse.

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