Day Two of the Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today is day two of the Republican government shutdown. It is day two of the Republicans throwing a temper tantrum because they don't have the votes to overturn the Affordable Care Act. They have chosen to hold the Federal Government hostage in order to placate a small, reckless, extreme faction of their conference. It's shameful and it needs to stop.

Already, National Parks are closed, Head Start facilities are beginning to close, and paychecks to Federal employees could be delayed. And if closing Head Start facilities wasn't bad enough, shutting the government down could cause great harm to pregnant women, infants, and children.

That's right, Mr. Speaker. Pregnant women, infants, and children will begin feeling the impacts of this Republican shutdown as funding for the WIC program begins to lapse. There are nearly 9 million pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants, and children on WIC. Nine million low-income people receive healthy food and nutrition education from this important and vital program.

WIC is a critical program that provides food and nutrition counseling for low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as newborns and infants. It is a key program that helps pregnant and breastfeeding women stay healthy through proper nutrition and actually helps prevent many health issues associated with nonnutritious meals.

In about a week, funding for WIC will dry up. Funding for food and nutrition education for low-income women and their children will be eliminated. Some States will see their funds dry up right away; and some, like Massachusetts, have budgeted in a way that will allow them to patch funds together to prevent major shortfalls only for a couple of weeks.

I come to this floor week after week to talk about how we can end hunger now. A few weeks ago, this House of Representatives cut SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, by $39 billion. Year after year, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan tries to block grant SNAP, a $130 billion cut in the program. And a few years ago, the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired then by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), attempted to cut WIC by hundreds of millions of dollars.

There's a pattern here of trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, on the backs of the hungry. There's a pattern here of saying to people who are struggling to make ends meet that they just don't matter.

The Republicans, who are forcing this government shutdown--those Republicans who are cheering on a government shutdown like cheerleaders at a pep rally--are inflicting real damage on real Americans. And those on the front lines are, unfortunately, poor women and their children.

We're not going to end hunger now by painting a target on their backs and using them to balance our budgets. Income disparity is currently at its greatest gap since the Great Depression. Hunger is not getting any better in this country. Yet the Republicans in the House think it's okay to take food away from hungry people, including veterans and kids, just because they don't like those programs.

The cut in food stamps that we debated and voted on a couple of weeks ago would throw 170,000 of our veterans off the program--men and women who have served our country in battle. They'll be cut from the program.

What they are doing is wrong. It takes my breath away, Mr. Speaker.

Ending hunger requires real leadership and not letting some right-wing zealots eviscerate the Federal budget so that the hungry in America don't have the ability to put food on their tables. What is happening here is cold. It is heartless. It is unconscionable.

We should be working to end hunger now instead of shutting down the Federal Government. The low-income women, infants, and children of this country deserve a hell of a lot better than they're getting from this Republican-led House of Representatives.

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