Progressive Caucus

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman. I can't thank you enough for the great work that you are doing and being such a leader on issues that focus on what this institution has, by way of offering opportunity for people. That is its mission. We know that.

I thank you for coming to the Congress for the right reasons, and for helping to try to make a difference in people's lives.

A rose is a rose is a rose. Once again, Chairman Ryan has come forward with what he and the Republican

majority purport to be a serious plan for addressing poverty in America. And once again, the centerpiece of his plan is the same old bad idea.

Chairman Ryan wants to dismantle all of the major Federal antipoverty programs that have long been proven to work for families in need. He wants to convert them into a block grant for the States. He now calls them Opportunity Grants.

That is a message. It sounds good. They are block grants, pure and simple. They put decisions in the hands of the States. They cut the funding, and they take all of the safeguards out and they fray the social safety net. That is what it is about. They have been consistent about this year after year after year.

I will just tell you about the food stamp program. Congressman Pocan, you were not here 17 years ago. I was, when the then-Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, said we need to block-grant the SNAP program, Medicaid, and a variety of other programs. It is the same failed policy over and over and over again.

Let me talk about food stamps for a second. Food stamps helped to lift 5 million Americans above the poverty line in 2012, 2.2 million of them children.

Every single dollar invested in food stamps generates $1.79 in local economic activity. But what would Chairman Ryan do?

He would end food stamps, our Nation's most important antihunger initiative, in favor of a block grant, just like he would end the low-income energy assistance program, LIHEAP, child care fund, weatherization assistance, public housing, temporary assistance for needy families, community development grants, and dislocated worker grants.

If you read his report, it is almost diabolical in the sense that the language that is used, and it is language, and it is a message, and it does nothing to provide opportunity or to help the poor in this country.

There are some good parts of his antipoverty plan. Expanding the EITC for childless workers. But even that issue is infected with bad ideas.

To pay for this EITC expansion already introduced by the Democratic Party, Mr. Ryan would end programs like the social services block grant, which helps roughly 23 million Americans, half of them children, with child care assistance, child abuse prevention, and community-based care for seniors and disabled persons.

He also wants to end the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which--it is madness--which reaches over 115,000 students in 14 States with healthy foods. And then he will decry people who are on food stamps and say they are selecting the wrong foods for their families, when he will just cut the Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Program.

What have we come to here?

What is this harshness that has come over our public policy, that mean-spiritedness that has come over our public policy?

For over a year now, Chairman Ryan has tried to pretend that he wants to put forth serious proposals to alleviate poverty in America. But the proof is in the pudding.

Look at his most recently proposed budget. Two-thirds of the cut in that budget fall on low and middle-income families. It tries to turn Medicare into an underfunded voucher program, shreds our social safety net, block-grants food stamps and Medicaid, slashes the WIC program, that is Women, Infants and Children, by $595 million.

It cuts spending that we do every year on health issues, on worker training, on education. He tries to cut that program by $791 billion over the next 10 years.

It slashes the child care assistance program, as I said, job training program, Pell grants, and medical research.

I am a cancer survivor. I am alive because of the grace of God and biomedical research. Why shouldn't other people have the advantage of biomedical research?

Why would he want to cut that?

And he does this all while cutting taxes for the wealthiest.

I am glad to see that Chairman Ryan at least recognizes that he and his party need to be doing more to help end poverty and hunger in our Nation, and I hope we can engage in a constructive dialogue on issues like the EITC expansion and sentencing reform.

If Chairman Ryan and the Republican majority want to get serious about helping families in need, they can start tomorrow. They need to make sure that their Republican child tax credit bill--so generous to those who can afford it--that they need to make sure that that helps low-income kids as well.

That child tax credit program will cut the child tax credit for 450,000 veterans. What are our veterans doing? They are serving. They are sacrificing themselves and their families, and he wants to cut their child tax credit. That is what is in there.

Then he talks about the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. Let me ask Chairman Ryan: What about low-income kids? What about them? What about the infants and toddlers? Tell us, Mr. Chairman, who are the ``deserving'' infants and toddlers? Who are the ``undeserving'' infants and toddlers? We need an answer to our question.

Our colleagues could join us in raising the minimum wage, something that is long overdue, but until then, actions speak louder than words.

The bulk of this new plan, I am afraid, is the same old snake oil, the same tired, discredited, ideological attacks on the social safety net that Chairman Ryan and this majority have been putting forward time and again since coming to power in 2010. It will not wash. It is harsh. It is cruel, and it is mean-spirited.

That is not why we came to this institution, Mr. Pocan. It is not why you came. It is not why I came. It was the hope and the dream and the opportunity to provide opportunity for the people of this Nation, to make this institution do what our Founding Fathers thought it should do and to give people a chance.

This Expanding Opportunity in America will take away people's opportunities, and the American public knows it.

Thank you for what you are doing. It is an honor to work with you and the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), Congressman Ryan of Ohio, and our other colleagues who stood on this floor tonight to decry this shame of a document.

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