151 Days Without A Vote to Lower Costs
Floor Speech
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Ms. DEXTER. Mr. Speaker, I echo my colleague's thanks to our colleague from Maryland for anchoring this incredibly important hour.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to defend food assistance, not just in my district, but for millions of Americans across this country.
Republicans passed a bill out of this Chamber enacting the largest ever cut to food assistance in our Nation's history. This ploy will put extreme pressure on our food banks, leave millions of Americans hungry, and force families to make impossible choices.
Let me be clear: Hunger is not inevitable. Letting people be hungry is a policy choice. Republicans are choosing to rip the food out of hungry people, hungry families' mouths. For what? To give tax breaks to billionaires.
I want to share a story from Rita, a woman in Portland who wrote to my office claiming if Federal food assistance was cut, she will have to choose between buying groceries and paying rent, buying groceries or paying the electric bill.
This is not an unfamiliar story for me as a physician, who heard my patients struggling with similar choices. The cruelty of this bill is not just unconscionable, it is heartless. We are talking about real people battling hunger. In the wealthiest country in the world, Americans shouldn't have to struggle so much just to get by. People deserve to thrive.
Republicans are choosing, again, to give tax breaks for the wealthiest on the backs of working Americans.
One in six community members in my district rely on SNAP. Seniors, children, veterans, and people with disabilities will go hungry. Food stamps aren't a handout. SNAP helps veterans who served our country and neighbors with disabilities. It feeds seniors on fixed incomes and families with young children. Most of these people have faced unimaginable odds and have nowhere else to turn.
We cannot turn our backs on those who need us most. This is a moment for moral clarity. Not one person in this country should go hungry, not one person should be left behind, and certainly not just so billionaires can line their pockets even further.
We have time to stop it, but only if we speak up. Stay loud.
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