SNAP

Floor Speech

Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, there's a cruel war being waged on the poor and hungry in America. I stand today as a voice for more than 1.6 million Texas households who depend on SNAP. Cuts to SNAP, our Nation's first line of defense against hunger, are immoral. I will not stand by as my Republican colleagues continue to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans.

House Republicans unveiled on Monday a plan to cut over $40 billion in SNAP over the next 10 years. This proposed package would eliminate basic food assistance for over 4 million Americans, including poor jobless adults in areas of high unemployment, working-poor families, children, seniors, and even struggling veterans.

Some might say that the proposal is an attempt to reduce fraud or waste in the program. Some say benefits are going to adults who don't want to work. I have news for people who say that: you try earning minimum wage, working hard every day, and you will still, after working 40 hours a week at the end of the year, only make around $15,000.

All of these claims are misleading to the public. SNAP fraud has been reduced to about 1 cent per dollar spent on the program, according to one of the most recent USDA statistics. In fact, the cuts will come from benefits that many Americans need to survive. These cuts will take food out of our seniors' refrigerators and food out of the mouths of our babies. This new legislation unfairly targets millions of unemployed adults who want to find work; but due to a bad economy and a sluggish recovery, they cannot find a job.

This includes Republicans, too. I worked at a grocery store in Texas when I was in high school. And I saw Republicans come in from Republican strongholds, like Weatherford, Texas, Azle, Lake Worth, and they were on SNAP.

People need to stop stereotyping the program. Proponents claim that these cuts represent ``work requirements,'' but that is willfully misleading, Mr. Speaker. The provisions would callously terminate food aid to people who are willing to work but just can't find a job.

Just a few short weeks ago, the Republican leadership of this House tried to eliminate the SNAP benefits entirely when they stripped the nutrition program from the farm bill. This is a cruel assault against the most vulnerable and neediest Americans. Those affected by the bill's harshest provisions even include low-income veterans, putting food assistance at risk for an estimated 170,000 of the approximately 900,000 veterans who receive SNAP benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I also participated in the SNAP challenge this year and lived on a budget of $4.50 a day and can attest that it was not easy. I had to make tough decisions and realized firsthand how difficult it is to follow a healthy diet on such a limited budget. I made difficult choices, as families do every day, between purchasing nutritious options and what's on sale. As a father of a 7-year-old son, I cannot imagine the decisions many Texans have to make every day, including skipping a meal to provide nutrition for their kids.

When drafting this legislation, did anyone take the time to think about how these SNAP cuts would hurt our kids? Nearly half of all SNAP participants are kids. This represents close to one in three children in the United States. Without access to nutritious meals, our children are put at risk of developmental delays, poorer physical health, and many other ailments.

Mr. Speaker, we need to do everything that we can to keep the SNAP program going. The conditions that I have talked about are very serious when you think about it affecting a child's ability to learn and perform well in school. These long-range implications have dire consequences for our entire economy.

I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle who support these cuts, these kids that I just talked about, what did these kids do to deserve these cuts?

this past year, some 49 million Americans lacked access to adequate food because they didn't have enough money or other resources to meet their basic food needs. Many of these hungry Americans skipped meals or took other steps to reduce what they ate to make ends meet.

I represent a constituent in my district who is elderly, disabled, and lives on a fixed income. She received $93 a month in SNAP benefits, but recently, those were cut to only $52 a month. That's only $1.73 a day. And if this bill is passed, she will be cut off from the program entirely. I ask the proponents of this program, where is she to find assistance for her nutrition needs? I refuse to stand silent as some propose we take food out of the mouths of the hungry.

SNAP is also a very powerful antipoverty program that has helped make our economy stronger. In 2011, SNAP kept 4.7 million people out of poverty, including 2.1 million children.

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