Providing for Consider of Southeast Arizona Land Exchange Act, Restoring Health Forests for Health Communities Act, Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to protest this rule and these deep and disastrous cuts to food stamps.

This $40 billion in cuts goes against decades of bipartisan support for the fight against hunger in the United States. It will hurt our economy, and it is, in a word, immoral.

If this cruel legislation were to become law, at least 4 million of the Nation's poorest citizens would lose access to the food that they need. We are talking about people on the edge: families whose breadwinners just got laid off; veterans returning from service who are looking for jobs, 170,000 of them; seniors struggling to make ends meet after a lifetime of work and who will be forced to make the choice between food and medicine; and millions of low-income children whose futures will be irreparably harmed by these reckless cuts.

Don't take my word for it:

In working with Census data, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities projects that, roughly, 170,000 veterans could lose access to food stamps under the provisions of this bill;

The AARP called these efforts to cut antihunger programs an ``abandonment of the Nation's commitment to ensuring essential nutrition access for many U.S. households'';

Two former Senate majority leaders, Republican and Democrat--Bob Dole and Tom Daschle--have called this bill an ``about-face on our progress fighting hunger.''

Senator Dole is right--the majority's leadership has lost its way on this issue. For decades, there has been bipartisan support for food stamps, our Nation's most important antihunger program.

They help over 47 million Americans--nearly half of them are children--escape the scourge of hunger. Nearly all food stamp recipients live below 130 percent of the poverty line, and 75 percent of food stamp households include a child, a senior citizen, or a disabled person. It also boasts one of the lowest error rates of any government program.

Economists agree that food stamps have a powerful, positive impact on the health of not just families but of the entire economy, and they get money into the hands of people who spend it on the food that they need. Cutting antihunger funding like this is not just immoral; it makes no economic sense.

I might add that it makes no economic sense either to cut $40 billion from food stamps for the poor while preserving $90 billion in crop insurance for the wealthy, including that of 26 farmers, who made over $1 million from the Federal Government. These are 26 wealthy farm owners whom we are prevented from identifying. They won't tell us who they are. They are protected. It is just plain wrong.

If the majority's leadership is serious about wanting to lower the number of Americans on food stamps, increase the minimum wage. Taking food out of the mouths of the hungry is not the answer.

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