Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2112

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. Our Republican colleagues have chattered endlessly about making hard choices, but most of the hard choices they make today are hard only on the hungry, hard on hungry children, hard on hungry seniors. They've got tremendous cuts to the Women, Infant, and Children nutritional assistance. It means as many as 350,000 women and infants will be denied assistance, including tens of thousands in my home State of Texas.

They made a hard choice. Instead of putting food on the table for those women and infants, they chose to send $147 million to Brazilian cotton farmers. I think that's not just a hard choice; it's a very bad choice. Those young children will never achieve their full God-given potential if they arrive at kindergarten malnourished.

Our food banks, are doing a tremendous job. In Texas, they get the support of grocers, of retailers, of private contributors, but they need this emergency food assistance. I've been to those food banks. I've seen some of those rural food banks in times of economic distress that are bare. The cupboard is bare, and the lines are long to get that assistance. Republicans made a hard choice, hard on the hungry.

The Republicans have finally found that the only bank they don't want to bail out is the food bank. And the food bank needs that assistance. I say that we should reject this bill that takes the most from those who have the least.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source