Providing for Consideration of H.R. 7, No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2014, and Providing for Consideration of Conference Report of H.R. 2642, Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I thank him for his dedication and his passion on this issue that people in the United States of America should not go hungry.

I rise in support of my colleague's point of order. This farm bill contains cuts to the food stamp program that will transfer the responsibility to States and cities to provide food to their families. May I remind the Members of this body that food stamps--our Nation's most important anti-hunger program--was just cut 2 months ago in November--in November.

Because of the recent expiration of the Recovery Act provisions, food stamps have already been cut by $5 billion for next year and $11 billion is the cut over 3 years. What does it mean? It means that a family of four lost $36--or 16 meals--a month in support. That is already the difference between health and hunger.

Now the savage cuts in this farm bill would push Americans already living on the edge that much closer to the brink. Because of the $8.5 billion in cuts here, 850,000 households--translates into 1.7 million Americans--will lose an average of $90 a month or 66 more meals a month. Low-income seniors, working poor with families, individuals with disabilities and veterans would be particularly impacted by these cruel cuts.

Perhaps some Members have forgotten. That is because we eat well. That is because we eat well every day. Members have forgotten hunger is an abomination. We are talking about men and women experiencing real physical trauma, children who cannot concentrate in school because all they can think about is food, and seniors are forced to decide in what has been a polar vortex, a virulent winter season, whether or not they will go hungry or be cold.

This is a problem all across the land. In my Connecticut district, nearly one in seven households are not sure they can afford enough food to feed their families. In Mississippi, 24.5 percent suffer food hardship. In West Virginia and Kentucky, 22 percent. In Ohio, nearly 20 percent, and in California, just over 19 percent.

The continued existence of hunger in America is a disgrace. That is why in the past there has been a strong tradition of bipartisanship on fighting hunger and supporting nutrition. This farm bill flies in the face of that tradition. It takes food from the poor to pay for crop subsidies for the rich.

Food stamps have one of the lowest error rates of any government program. It is a powerful and positive impact on economic growth because they get resources into the hands of families who are going to spend them right away. The research shows that for every $5 of Federal food stamp benefits, it generates nearly twice that in economic activity.

Children's Health Watch, those researchers found that after collecting 14 years of data on over 20,000 low-income families that when families experienced a loss or reduction in food stamp benefits, they are more likely to be food insecure, to be in poor health, and their children experience intensified developmental delays relative to their peers.

Most importantly, food stamps are the right thing to do. It is the job of a good government to help vulnerable families to get back on their feet, and cutting food stamps will cause more hunger and health problems for Americans. In the words of Harry Truman:

Nothing is more important in our national life than the welfare of our children, and proper nourishment comes first in attaining this welfare.

This bill--this bill--flies in the face of that. It will cut $8.5 billion. You couple that with the cuts that have already been made in the economic recovery program, and that is almost $20 billion in a cut to the food stamp program. Some of my colleagues will say, well, we only did 8 1/2 billion in the farm bill. Let me just tell you: it may come from two sources, but the constituency is the same.

Who are we as a nation? Where are our values? If we can provide crop subsidies for the richest farmers in this Nation and tell them that they can make $900,000 a year before they will not be able to get a subsidy, or 26 individuals who get a premium subsidy for crop insurance of at least $1 million a year--those folks are eating, they are high on the hog, they got three squares a day. When we provide $1.40--it is $1.40 per meal for food stamp beneficiaries--the people at the top end don't have an income cap. They don't have any asset test, and that is not true for food stamp recipients. We prescribe who can receive them. There are income limitations and asset limitations. Who are we as a nation? What are we about? Let's not take food out of the mouths of families and their children.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I am proud once again to join my colleague. I, too, want a farm bill. In fact, I had the honor of helping to negotiate the 2008 farm bill, the nutrition portion of it, where we maintained that historic coalition between the safety net for agriculture and the safety net for nutrition.

I think it is almost unbelievable that we got a thousand-page bill, and I just want to say to the American public here that they should ask Members of Congress whether or not they have read the bill. We went over and over this with regard to the health care bill. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle kept asking us if we have read the bill. No one has really read this bill. There were four people who negotiated this work. There could well be significant earmarks in this effort.

Let me point out the reverse Robin Hood legislation here. It steals food from the poor to help pay for handouts to wealthy agribusiness. Let me just give a couple of examples. In violation of the congressional rule that provisions passed by both bodies should not be changed, the conference, four people, more than doubled the annual primary payments from $50,000 to $125,000, or $250,000 a couple. They reopened the loophole that was closed in the House and in the Senate that allows wealthy farmers to collect far more than the nominal payment limit: $50,000. They raised it to $125,000 for an individual; to a couple, $250,000. House and Senate on a bipartisan basis closed the loophole.

This allows payments to be collected by multiple people on the farm. What we have today is eight people can collect a $125,000 payment, leading to a million-dollar subsidy for a farm. Seven of those eight people never have to put their foot on the farm. It is called padding the payroll. ``Farmers,'' they don't have to undergo any income means testing to receive a subsidy.

The Durbin-Coburn amendment in the Senate would reduce the level of Federal premium support for crop insurance participants with an adjusted gross income of $750,000. The conference report--four people--determined that they would make that cap at $900,000. Again, the wealthiest people in the Nation.

Let me tell you about crop insurance. I don't know that the American public knows that the Federal Government, you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, you pick up 60 percent of the cost of that crop insurance. That doesn't include administrative fees. There are 26 individuals today who get at least a million dollars in premium subsidy. We can't find out who they are. They could be Members of Congress, because they are protected: 26 individuals. We have almost 50 million people who are on the food stamp program, 16 million of whom are children. And there is no fraud and abuse in this program, the way there is in the crop insurance program; and yet we want to take food out of the mouths of families and children in this Nation. It is the wrong thing to do. This bill should be rejected.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this offensive and overreaching legislation. It endangers women's health and well-being and attempts to effectively ban working women's access to a legal medical procedure.

With a budget passed, and the President delivering the State of the Union tonight, this body has an important opportunity to turn the page and start acting in a bipartisan manner to address the Nation's real problem.

We should be working together to create jobs, encourage economic growth, and ensure steady and rising wages. Instead, this House majority has once again succumbed to their worst ideological impulses at the expense of women's health. Once again, for almost the 50th time now, they are trying to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

The bill claims to end taxpayer funding for abortion. Everyone in this room knows there is no taxpayer funding for abortion, per the Hyde amendment which is enacted every year.

What this bill does is prevents millions of women working for small businesses from using their own private funds to purchase coverage for services from private insurance. It aims to end any private coverage of these services by private insurance companies. Women cannot get the comprehensive coverage that they need in the insurance marketplace.

The same old, same old from this House Republican majority. Oppose this ideological legislation.

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