Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I want to remind everybody what is happening. I did this last night, but I feel I have to do it again today.
We are considering on the floor a 5-year farm bill that, quite frankly, does nothing for our farmers, screws over poor people, and maintains the nearly $200 billion in cuts to SNAP. It is going to make hunger worse in this country. It may not matter to my Republican colleagues, but it matters to many of us on this side of the aisle.
I want to remind my friends that hundreds of amendments were offered, including many by Republican Members of Congress, and hundreds of those amendments were blocked by this Republican leadership.
Republican amendments were blocked 70 percent of the time. That should bother everyone on the Republican side. Democratic amendments were blocked 90 percent of the time.
Most of this bill was debated in the middle of the night. I was on the floor at midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning. This is what Republicans do. They bring important bills to the floor in the middle of the night. They are like vampires. I mean, they are afraid to talk about this stuff in the light of day.
Here we are now wrapping this up at 9:45 a.m., but the majority of this bill was debated when everybody was asleep. This is crazy.
This is a lousy process, and one of the things I have learned in my years here is that crappy processes give way to crappy pieces of legislation. In fact, the way this is written, if anyone bothers to read it, I mean, the word I would use to describe it, I can't use on the House floor because my words would be taken down.
We need to do better here, and this is a chance for my Republican colleagues to stand with us and say ``no.'' Let's do this right. This is a big deal. This is an important bill, and the way it is written, it is insufficient to meet the needs of our farmers, and it is insufficient to deal with the rising hunger crisis in this country.
I mean, for God's sake, let's legislate here, and let's not be afraid to have other people on both sides of the aisle be able to contribute. This is lousy. This is terrible. This process sucks. I am ashamed of what we are doing here today, and I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
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