Protecting Social Safety Net

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Evans for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate having time here on this Congressional Black Caucus hour to discuss so-called welfare reform and efforts on the part of the majority to shred the safety net.

Mr. Speaker, I think you just have to sort of sympathize with the majority, given the conundrum that they have put themselves into. What they did, in an effort to have some sort of win and to take advantage of having the majority in the House of Representatives, in the United States Senate, to be holding power in the White House with the new President, even seizing the Supreme Court, this was a very opportune time to do what the majority thought, and I give them credit for thinking that they wanted to implement and execute their greatest policy imperative, and that was to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and to corporations. They wanted to take this one opportunity to do that because, in their opinion, that is what would move our economy forward.

In December, they were able to accomplish it over the protests of economists, over the protests of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that said if, in fact, these $1.9 trillion in tax cuts are given to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, that we would see deficits for the next decade at about $1.5 trillion, and that would add to the deficit we are already experiencing.

Of course, that is the conundrum for the majority party, which out of one side of their mouth they have always been concerned about deficits, and now they were implementing a policy that would add to the deficit. Well, the explanation for that was that somehow this $1.9 trillion would materialize in a brand-new concept called trickle down; that somehow by cutting these taxes for the wealthiest Americans, that somehow this would create jobs, that wages would be raised, that there would be new capital expenditures; and although trickle down had not worked for 30, 40 years, that somehow this was going to happen.

Well, the supposition is that these tax cuts would just sort of magically pay for themselves and that we should just give it a little bit of time. So when these tax cuts were put into place, we saw companies immediately lining up to provide bonuses, one-time-only bonuses--not raising the wages of workers, not building new factories.

Now we see one of our favorite companies, one of my favorite companies--we all own a nice Apple phone--they just paid $100 billion buying back shares. Of course, shareholders are not Americans who live on Main Street. They are the wealthiest people not only in America, but all over the world. You don't know who the shareholders are. They are probably not your next-door neighbors.

Well, you have to empathize with the majority party, because they now have to figure out how to pay for these tax cuts. They have got to pay for them.

We don't have to guess how they are going to pay for them. The Speaker has told us how he plans to pay for them. The President has told us how they plan to pay for these tax cuts.

I was so happy that the gentlewoman from Alabama was here earlier, and I just want to remind you of what she shared with us. She reminded us that the President, in his budget, his proposed budget, proposed cutting $1.4 trillion--that is ``trillion'' with a T; that is like 12 zeros after that 1--out of Medicaid.

I know from sitting on the Budget Committee with the Speaker for so many years that this is a dream come true for our Speaker, who has always wanted to block grant--as in put on the chopping block-- Medicaid, a program that provides security mostly for our seniors for them to have a dignified end-of-life experience instead of living like a dog in the back room somewhere living out their last days.

We know from what they have put on paper--you can't make this stuff up--they want to cut $500 billion--that is ``billion'' with a B--out of Medicare, the program that has reduced and almost eliminated poverty, between that and Social Security, for our elders.

You have heard it said time and again that a nation is judged by how it treats its young and its elderly. We know now that the White House and our President is fuming because this $1.9 trillion problem that they have created has now got to be solved.

Well, that is just not enough money. That is only $2 trillion between Medicare and Medicaid. So they said, ``Wait a minute. We can cut some out of Social Security,'' this so-called sacred cow. They say, ``We can cut, from Social Security Disability, $72 billion,'' but that is not enough.

We have in front of us a farm bill, and proposals in that bill would cut $23.8 billion out of it, pushing 9.5 million people deeper into poverty, food insecurity, and hunger.

That is the framework for paying for the wealthiest people, for these poor corporations that we have got to provide a safety net for, for these poor 1 percent of our population rich, the wealthiest 1 percent who need relief from the government. We are going to pay for it by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps.

Well, it doesn't sound like that is enough for the majority. The President has said we are going to just review any program that targets, aids, and supports low-income or hardworking people.

How about housing vouchers? So many Americans--there was a book written about my community by Mr. Matthew Desmond, titled, ``Evicted,'' and it pointed out how so many Americans work hard, but 50 percent, 60 percent of their income has to go toward housing because, in fact, we haven't seen a raise in the minimum wage for over a decade. People are working two, three jobs.

I have known people who have gone to work and go home at night to the homeless shelter. People cannot afford to pay 50 percent of their income, so there are hardworking Americans who have benefited from housing vouchers, Section 8, subsidized Community Development Block Grant funds.

But, of course, we have heard from our Secretary of HUD that we want to reform that program and require disabled folks, elderly folks, perhaps some of our veterans who live in subsidized housing, to pay 35 percent of their income versus 30 percent of their income.

This doesn't increase the pool of people who are eligible for housing. It does two things: It reduces the number of people who are eligible for subsidized housing, and then it raises the costs for those who are squeaking by every single day.

So I just am inflamed about this, and I guess I want to ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania some questions because I might have the wrong perspective on this.

I am a person who has benefited from these programs. I have fed my family with SNAP, food stamps. I have used Medicaid to take my children to the doctor and to give birth. I have paid my rent using welfare benefits.

I am wondering if the gentleman doesn't think that vilifying poor people is an insidious and nefarious effort to create the atmosphere where Americans would be much more willing to take these programs away from them.

I mean, there is this notion, somehow, that there are just lazy people who refuse to go work who need SNAP; that there are just lazy people who are ne'er-do-wells, and they are fraudulent, they have 80 Social Security numbers, and they are welfare queens.

I was just wondering if the gentleman could just get it straight for me, share some things with me:

How many families receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families?

Are people eating lobsters on SNAP?

Are these homes filled with able-bodied people who refuse to work and they just want to get SNAP?

Can the gentleman just give me a profile of the kind of people who we are trying to help.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that.

I just want to tell him how outraged I am by the propaganda against poor people. I am outraged by it.

If you look at a family that uses SNAP, formerly called food stamps, this program works perfectly well in a capitalist society, in a countercyclical economy. When we almost had a depression in 2008, the food stamp rolls went up, and now they are coming back down because people are more connected with work.

Two-thirds of these families that receive SNAP have at least one working person in it. And guess what. They have veterans in them and elders, children and disabled people. Eighty percent of the people who receive SNAP, someone has worked the year before or the year after, so it is not an issue of people not wanting to work.

And think about it: we now have given $1.9 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest people. We hear the White House bragging about how we have increased those jobs, we have increased jobs by 164,000 people. Let me tell you, I happen to know in my own community people got two or three of those jobs because that is what they need to hold it down.

Before I finish, I will just say that we ought not fall for the okeydoke, because poor people are not those other people. They are you; they are your cousins; they are people who go to your church; they are your kids' classmates; they are people who worked every day and lost their jobs due to technology or downsizing. And when you are 50 years old, it is not because you don't want to work. You can't work.

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