Budget Cuts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, MomsRising, a national grassroots organization of moms, delivered a petition signed by more than 25,000 moms from all across the country urging this Congress not to cut SNAP in the fiscal year 2016 budget.

Every Member of this House received the petition signed by moms in their districts. Today, that petition has grown to nearly 50,000 signatures, and it keeps on growing. This is just the latest petition from MomsRising urging Congress to prioritize children in the budget and protect SNAP from cuts and other structural changes.

I want to share one of the stories from a mom. Monique from Ohio writes:

I was raised to always work and so was my husband. We have tried to instill this in our daughter, even going so far as to work opposite shifts and have family babysit if there was an overlap. When my husband was laid off 2 years ago and then couldn't find work, I tried my best to keep us floating on just my income, walking to work because I didn't have the bus fare, often having $20 or less after paying the bills to feed my family for a week.

I resisted getting on welfare, having been raised never to take a handout. My pastor was the one who pointed out that I had already paid for that right through my taxes over several decades.

Since signing up for SNAP benefits, I can feed my family filling, nutritious meals again. Of course, my husband is still looking for work, and that will pick up the slack again if he gets work, and once he finds it, we will happily forego the benefits again. Until then, all I can say is thank God and the government for having a safety net in place.

Unfortunately, Monique's story is not unique, but it shows that, without SNAP, her family would have been much worse off during these tough times.

One in five children in the United States experiences hunger. Without the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that number would sadly be much higher. Already, nearly half of all SNAP participants are children under the age of 18--nearly half, Mr. Speaker.

This is despite the fact that SNAP households with children have high work rates. Families with children who are working continue to earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP, and they will struggle to put food on the table.

Mr. Speaker, we know that hunger can lead to a myriad of negative outcomes for children. From health problems and compromised immune systems, to poor nutrition, to an inability to concentrate and succeed in school, childhood hunger means kids suffer.

Despite these sobering statistics, the Republican budget resolutions passed by the House and Senate made draconian cuts to SNAP and other critical programs to help poor children and their families.

The budget conference report only makes these cuts worse. It builds upon the $125 billion cut to SNAP in the House budget. To achieve a cut of that magnitude by block granting the program and capping its allotment means that States would be forced to cut benefits or cut eligible individuals and families off the program. There are simply no good choices. In short, it would make hunger worse in America, much worse.

Mr. Speaker, SNAP is one of the only remaining basic protections for the very poor. For many of the poorest Americans, SNAP is the only form of income assistance they receive. SNAP provides food benefits to low-income Americans at a very basic level. SNAP benefits are already too low. They average less than $1.40 per person, per meal. We should not be balancing the Federal budget on the backs of the poor and working families. We should not be making childhood hunger worse in America.

I commend MomsRising for their leadership and for taking action to protect SNAP and ensure that all children have access to healthy, nutritious foods.

Later today, MomsRising will start a Twitterstorm under the #missionpossible to highlight how building a strong economy for women, families, and the Nation is mission possible with policies to protect SNAP, promote healthy nutrition, guarantee paid sick days, require equal pay for equal work, and make child care more affordable. These are economic security priorities that boost our families and our economy.

As the old adage goes, ``Mother knows best.'' We should listen to our moms, especially as we gather only a few days after Mother's Day. We should be strengthening families' economic security, and we should be working to end hunger now, not making it worse.

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