Snap Benefits Are Needed By 42 Million Americans

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, has been a champion on this issue, and I am so glad she has convened us here tonight.

Over 41 million Americans depend on nutrition assistance to feed themselves and their families, and SNAP benefits reach millions of rural Americans every day.

No State, no community, and no Congressional District in our Nation is immune to hunger and food insecurity.

Paradoxically, in rural areas that grow most of our Nation's food, many households face real struggles with hunger. It is not just in metropolitan areas.

We know poverty is the root cause of hunger, and it is often acute in rural communities, like in my home State of Vermont, with 15 percent of households in rural areas facing food insecurity.

Millions of working families, veterans, people with disabilities, seniors, and children in rural communities cannot always afford enough food to keep themselves and their families healthy.

Simply put, too many Americans are going hungry every day, but we have a vital program that actually helps to address this problem, the SNAP program. It provides monthly benefits to low-income families and individuals to help them to buy food.

The Republicans' attack, and it is just the latest attack on this essential program, would slash the program by $30 billion over the next decade.

If enacted, the bill would make the largest cuts to SNAP benefits in 30 years at a time when we have gross wealth inequality in this country. Slashing anti-hunger programs that we know work is stupid, it is inhumane, and it is also shortsighted.

Even if you don't think we have a moral responsibility to feed the children of this Nation and make sure they don't go hungry every night, even if you don't think it is a moral imperative, which I do, but if you don't, there are real consequences for individual Americans and for our healthcare system.

When Americans don't have enough food, this greatly impacts the health of those who go hungry. Food insecurity can lead to Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and obesity.

The gentlewoman from Connecticut and I are both former teachers. We know children who go hungry struggle in school. They have health problems. Americans who are food insecure are more likely to struggle with psychological and behavioral health issues.

This year's farm bill should be providing more benefits to Americans. We should be expanding and protecting SNAP benefits.

Instead, what are we doing? Once again, demonizing the poor. It is time that House Republicans drop their partisan extremism and work alongside Democrats to pass a truly bipartisan farm bill and actually help feed the American people.

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