Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you, Congresswoman. Let me just engage you for a moment because you hit on a number of points.

I want, again, to make sure that we are providing a voice to these very important issues. And to follow the conversation, if you're tuning in, go to our hashtag at #CBCTalks.

But you focused on the fact that nearly 46 million people in our country live in poverty; 16 million of them are children. You talked about the poverty line. In 2013, the poverty line for an individual is $11,490. For a family of four, it's $23,550.

So can you elaborate further on the SNAP program, how that program provides for a safety net for individuals and how is it that a family of four in America can survive on $23,550 a year?

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Mr. HORSFORD. Well, I know the challenge is something that you have called upon for people to accept. This is a reality for 16 million children, 46 million Americans who are living at this level now. The average meal is $1.48 per meal.

Ms. LEE of California. $4.50 a day, Congressman Horsford. And let me tell you, these people are living in our districts, in Democratic Members of Congress' districts and Republicans' districts and Independents' districts. They're in rural communities and in urban communities. So, unfortunately, it's an equal opportunity.

Mr. HORSFORD. Poverty is not partisan.

Ms. LEE of California. No way. So we need bipartisan support to begin to eliminate poverty.

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Lee. Thank you for your leadership and for those solutions that you're offering to help move people out of poverty and into the middle class and recognizing that many of these programs that those on the other side propose to cut are actually safety nets.

The sequester alone would cut $85 billion but would directly affect 50 million Americans living below the poverty income line. So they're hurting the very people that we should be sustaining during these difficult economic times.

Ms. LEE of California. Adding insult to injury. That's what's happening here.

Mr. HORSFORD. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to turn to my colleague, the gentlelady of Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), the alum of TRIO. She is a dynamic leader who talks so much about the need to help young people get the quality education, particularly first generation college students. I know we're having a college student debate right now on whether or not we're going to allow student loan rates to double on July 1. The Republican plan puts students in debt, provides no certainty. We're hoping that between now and July 1 we will come up with a bipartisan solution that will keep our college loan rates and will address the more comprehensive need to make college more affordable.

I defer to the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Congresswoman Moore.

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Mr. HORSFORD. ``Opportunity'' I think is the key word there, Mr. Speaker. This isn't about a handout, this isn't about providing social services; it's about opportunity. Education is one of those most fundamental opportunities. And you, again, as an alum of TRIO programs and an advocate for funding up TRIO/GEARUP, these programs which provide tremendous opportunity to particularly first generation college students, those who may not have even had the knowledge of how to go about applying to enroll, let alone financial aid and scholarships--but yet it's that opportunity, that door to opportunity that then leads to careers and their ability to contribute, to sustain for themselves and their family.

That's what we're talking about, Mr. Speaker, is providing that opportunity. And right now we're having this big debate of whether that opportunity should come with a huge burden of debt.

Ms. MOORE. Exactly.

Mr. HORSFORD. Because if they finish school, when they finish school, should they be so far in debt they can't afford to buy a home, to buy a car, to start saving for their future, or should they be focused on paying $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 a month in debt for college loans?

Ms. MOORE. And that is an extremely important point, because these young people who are going to college are doing us a favor to become educated. The jobs, you know, making the widgets, are dying out from not only technology but from outsourcing.

We are going to only win this game by having the highest skilled worker, whether it be in farming or manufacturing or research and development. And to see this Congress gutting research and development, anything that looks academic or associated with intelligence or studying at all, it's just across the board decimating it. Again, it's eating our seed corn. Hopefully we can reverse this curse before they get too far down the line.

Thank you so much for letting me participate in this Special Order.

Mr. HORSFORD. Of course. And with your voice and your continued participation I'm sure we will do just that, which is to continue to advocate for these as priorities.

And I do want to go, as I turn to my colleague from North Carolina, the vice chairman of the CBC, to a quick question that came in from the Twitter line. It's from Dr. Davis 920, who asks: How can we increase money in underserved areas for students from high school to college instead of doing more with less funding?

I'm going to ask our vice chairman if he would tackle that question as he provides his response.

I yield now to the gentleman from North Carolina, Congressman Butterfield.

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Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you again to our vice chairman for the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentleman from North Carolina.

I really want to commend you for being very plain with how desperate the situation is for so many people. You talked about 36 percent of the people in North

Carolina, in parts of your district, who are living in poverty and about the fact that they are going without basic fundamentals, things that many of us probably just take for granted in America. There are people in America who are going without the basics, and that is not something often that's talked about here in Washington, definitely not in this House. When so much attention is placed on corporate special interests and subsidies for big corporations, it's time that we start changing the debate and focusing on the people who most need government support, and those are the people you just talked about, so I commend you for that.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Poverty is all around us, Mr. Horsford, whether it's in my district or in your district or in any of my colleagues' districts. Poverty is persistent, and it's all across America. It's within the shadows of this Capitol. When I drive home in just a few minutes here in Washington, I will go right through some very poor, low-income communities within blocks of this Capitol. We must do better. We have got to address as a Congress the whole issue of poverty.

Mr. HORSFORD. You were very clear, and I know Mr. Clyburn would expect nothing less than for us to lay out what our position is.

I know some people ask: What is the Congressional Black Caucus' position on how to address poverty?

You touched on it. It's the 10-20-30 policy. This means that 10 percent of funds from certain accounts would be directed to areas that have had a poverty rate of 20 percent for the last 30 years in America.

So, rather than spending money everywhere, let's spend it where there is the most need, the most critical need, and where there has been a generational need now for 30 years so that we can see the type of outcomes, the return on investment and the change that people so desperately need.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Absolutely.

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Now I would like to turn to the cochairman of the Progressive Caucus, the gentleman from Minnesota. I want to commend the gentleman and the Progressive Caucus because I know you had a hearing before the recess in which you brought low-income wage earners and had a special hearing to listen to their concerns and on how working people, really the working poor, are struggling. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota at this time.

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Mr. HORSFORD. What's ironic about the culture of dependency is they never talk about it when we bring up corporate welfare and corporate entitlements.

If we really want to talk about entitlements and who is depending upon government, then let's put it all on the table: the billions of dollars that go to special interests, but yet we want to take away services for poor, needy children, families, the elderly, and the disabled. That's really the comparison.

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Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you to the gentleman from Minnesota, and, again, thank you for your leadership. On behalf of the Progressive Caucus, we work together here to try to bring these issues forward and we appreciate your hard work.

I'm so pleased to be joined by the coanchor for this hour, my good friend, the gentleman from New York, who represents, I think, a community that has constituents who are struggling, like many constituents in my district, the Fourth District in Nevada.

So I just want to pose the question to you, Mr. Jeffries, around this whole issue of income inequality that we just spent nearly the hour talking about. The fact that it's increased by more over the last 3 years than in the previous 12 years, that under the Republican policies, the budget that they proposed, middle class families with children pay, on average, $3,000 more in taxes, but yet higher tax cuts, upwards of $245,000, were given to some of the wealthiest in America, and here we've heard about so many programs such as SNAP to GEAR UP to TRIO, funding for K-12 education, for Head Start, $20 billion cuts to SNAP that are on the cutting board, and yet we are giving tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporate subsidies, what do you say about that, my friend from New York?

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Mr. HORSFORD. I thank, again, my good friend from New York, Mr. Jeffries. I just want to ask you, the proposal by the CBC which supports a 10-20-30 policy for Federal spending, how do you feel this would improve outcomes, address prioritizing of resources, and create the type of positive impact that would ultimately lead to reduced poverty in America?

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Mr. HORSFORD. I thank my friend and co-anchor and those who have listened for the last hour. Thank you for joining the conversation at #CBCTalks, and we are going to continue this conversation because 46 million people in our country live in poverty; 16 million of them are children. The U.S. poverty rate has risen and approaches a 50-year high. There's no way in America a family of four can live on $23,550 and not expect some type of support.

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