Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to approving this permanent Republican tax break for Twinkies. That is exactly what this bill does. I think we should encourage charity, but also fiscal responsibility and accountability. This bill fails on both the latter two points.

A while back, there was a Texas official who often derided the war on poverty and Social Services in general by declaring: America is the only country in the world where most of the poor people are fat.

Well, in more recent years, we have come to understand that the challenges of obesity and poverty are different faces of the same problem, that diabetes and hunger sometimes go hand in hand. Disadvantaged neighbors, who too often lack enough to eat, too often make up for it with high, sugary, fatty foods that provide temporary relief from hunger, while making them more prone to disease.

According to the American Heart Association, 1 in 3 American children are obese or overweight. That is nearly triple the rate of 50 years ago, and 1 in 3 children will contract what was once called adult-onset type 2 diabetes.

Now, we can address these challenges through direct government expenditures like WIC, the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program, and we can address the challenges with tax expenditures like the one that is proposed here today.

I happen to believe that we need both of them, that we should be encouraging food banks and the businesses that donate to them--who do some excellent, some valuable work, we ought to encourage them to expand the work that they do. But when we tell a taxpayer that they don't have to pay the same taxes as their competitor if they donate for a good cause, we ought to be sure that that cause is good.

Just as we scrutinize the WIC program and other food security programs to ensure no misuse, no ineligibility--we want to see that every one of those dollars spent is spent efficiently--we need to do some of the same with reference to tax expenditures like that is proposed for permanent extension here.

We need accountability, and you lose that when this and the other provisions are extended forever and never carefully evaluated.

Now, the expenditure that is provided here for food donations is one that the law says is available for any food that is ``apparently wholesome food.'' The only problem is that apparently wholesome food includes much food that is not actually wholesome.

For example, some potato chips that have long since had their expiration date, they qualify. A can that fell off and was run over by the forklift and is very damaged, it qualifies.

Most particularly, if you have candy at Halloween and you overstocked and you have a significant amount of candy left--or for the Easter Bunny or at Christmas--the shelves at some food pantries overflow with these products.

Why is that? Because the business that donates the Twinkies or the stale potato chips is entitled to deduct not the cost of what they cost that business, but twice the cost of what it cost that business, and this bill makes that permanent.

Why should we at a time of great fiscal concern be paying twice the cost of stale potato chips and Twinkies and sugary nonwholesome and nonnutritious foods--why should we be paying for that?

It is a tax break that goes too far, that requires more careful evaluation. Indeed, one 2011 NPR report that was entitled ``Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No to Junk'' because some of the same retailers that they rely on and count on for wholesome food dump the Halloween candy, dump the Easter eggs there, and they are available and treated just the way that wholesome food is treated.

I say, Mr. Speaker, let's encourage donating the good stuff, but let's not pay for the junk. We have the power to correct that problem by, instead of having a flawed permanent bill, having one that is available for evaluation on a more regular basis, just as we do with reference to these other provisions.

The cost of this bill is part of the overall cost and strategy to wreck our budget and reduce hunger programs in this country.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. The same Republicans that are advancing this include a group that have characterized as welfare Pell grants, school breakfast programs, senior nursing care programs. They want to lump all that as welfare, and they say we just can't afford that.

I don't believe that we can't afford to target public resources where they are needed, whether they are tax expenditures or direct expenditures, but we don't need a permanent tax break for Twinkies and stale potato chips.

Let's take the fiscally responsible, accountable approach, not the irresponsible approach that is being advanced today, and reject this bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source