Rosa DeLauro

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 205, the Rule (H. Res. 576) providing for consideration of the ``Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act'' (H.R. 10). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, it is the lunch hour here in Washington, D.C., but for the over 840 million people around the world who are struggling with hunger, an adequate lunch is a luxury they cannot afford. Instead of enjoying food, they are facing a terrible, gnawing pain in their gut right now. By the time I finish this statement, six children will have perished because of hunger or inadequate nutrition. This week, the World Food Program is asking everyone to try to Live Below the Line--to put yourself in the shoes of the hungry, and to try to get by on only $1.50 of food per day--the purchasing power of people living in extreme poverty, as defined by the World Bank. I and members of my staff are taking this challenge. But for millions of people, this is not about 1 day or 1 week. This is about their everyday lives. It should not be this way. As President Kennedy said over 50 years ago: We have the ability, we have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the Earth. We need only the will. In the past, Republicans like Bob Dole and Democrats like George McGovern came together. They led this battle against global hunger. Today, we have a moral obligation to continue that battle, to meet our responsibilities to our fellow man and woman--and to our children--and to do what we can to end the scourge of hunger in our own Nation and around the world. Mr. Speaker, let's take advantage of this challenge. Let us end hunger in this generation.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise with enormous pride to congratulate the University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams on a season of unprecedented athletic achievement. Under coaches Kevin Ollie and Geno Auriemma, the Huskies won both national championships, making UConn the only school to complete this feat twice. The men's team pulled off a gritty title run, defeating St. Joe's, Villanova, Iowa State, Michigan State, Florida, and Kentucky and shocking the nation as a seven-seed. And the women's team continued a tradition of dominance, winning their ninth national championship and going 40-0 this season. This double victory takes more than talent to accomplish. It takes perseverance, sacrifice, and a commitment to the team ideal, and the men and women of UConn have shown each in surpassing measure. They have shown that, through hard work and dedication to a common goal, anything is possible. I congratulate both teams on two amazing victories, and I look forward to seeing them in action again next season.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, it cuts Pell grants, and yet it allows insurance companies to, once again, charge women more than men and to treat pregnancy as a preexisting condition. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 69 percent of the cuts in the Republican budget would come from programs serving low- and moderate-income people. This Ryan Republican budget is not a reflection of America's values. It is not who we are as a country. It is an ideological document that threatens American families. I urge my colleagues to reject it.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, a moment ago, the gentleman from Mississippi said that families were sitting around at their kitchen table. Yes, they are sitting at their kitchen table, and they are crying. They do not have a job. Their unemployment benefits have not been extended. Their wages have stagnated. They can't afford to send their children to college; and this majority fiddles while Rome burns and refuses to address any of these issues, but they certainly make it easy to lower the top tax rate for the richest Americans. I rise in strong opposition to this cruel budget proposal; yet again, the House majority has put forward an ideological plan that puts all of the burdens on the most vulnerable among us, especially women and families. Today is Equal Pay Day, a day that women's earnings finally catch up to what men made in 2013, but the fact is this dubious milestone, that it even exists, is a sad testament to the financial pressures that women and families face. This budget proposal puts more pressure on women and families. Two- thirds of seniors in poverty are women. They rely on the bedrock American institution of Medicare to survive. This budget ends Medicare as we know it. It turns it into a voucher program. Seven in 10 elderly individuals, six in 10 nonelderly individuals rely on Medicaid, they are women. The budget proposes $2.7 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other support that help low- and middle-income families buy health insurance. WIC provides critical food benefits to 8.3 million pregnant postpartum women, infants, and children across America. The budget drastically slashes the program, hurting the same family struggling the most in this economy. It devastates food stamps, the program in which almost two-thirds of the adult participants are women and children, and they account for nearly half of all recipients. It cuts 170,000 kids from Head Start, educational services for 3.4 million disadvantaged children. It cuts the Pell grant by over $125 billion. It allows the insurance companies to, once again, charge women more than men.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the previous question. Defeat of the previous question will allow us to amend the rule to provide for consideration of the Paycheck Fairness Act, an act that addresses the persistent problem of unequal pay in our economy, and would help make the bill before us a real boon for women and their families. Women are now half of the Nation's workforce and two-thirds of primary or cobreadwinners. The sad fact is they are still only making and being paid 77 cents on the dollar on average compared to men. This holds true across all occupations and education levels. For women of color, the disparities are even worse. Less pay for women means less pay for an entire family at a time when millions are struggling to enter the middle class. Give their kids a chance at a better life, achieve the American Dream. It affects all of us. We have seen the Republican budget that is being discussed today already does so much to put that dream out of reach for America's families. It slashes our social safety net, cuts off nutrition support, and denies food to millions of low-income Americans, and our most important anti-hunger program in the Nation. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said 69 percent of the cuts in this Republican budget would come from programs serving low- and moderate-income people. Let's be in opposition to this previous question because we will have an opportunity to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question because when women succeed, America succeeds. Let's help hardworking families take home the pay that they deserve and ensure that women are being paid the same as men for the same job.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, this is a final amendment to the bill. It will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended. This amendment works to end pay discrimination against women, and it helps to ensure a very simple principle, one I hope that everyone in this body agrees with: men, women, same job, same pay, because it is true in this body. Tomorrow is the dubious milestone of Equal Pay Day, the day a women's earnings catch up to what a man made last year. We are now over 3 full months into 2014. Women should not have to work an extra quarter of a year to be paid what they are due. My amendment would postpone the effective date of the bill under consideration until Congress has worked to close this pay gap. It also ensures that this act does not increase the cost of loan and credit programs for small businesses, students, farmers, and veterans as a result of an elimination or reduction of Federal support. Paycheck discrimination is not a partisan issue. It affects every women. It affects every family in America. Nearly 60 years ago, a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, told the Congress that ``legislation to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is a matter of simple justice.'' Over 50 years ago, Congress came together in a bipartisan fashion to pass the Equal Pay Act and end what President Kennedy called ``the serious and endemic problem of unequal wages.'' In 2014, women are still making 77 cents on average for every dollar made by a man. This wage gap is only closing at a rate of less than one-half a cent a year. That means we still have 40 more years before women will get paid what they deserve for the same work. Families cannot afford to wait that long. They should not have to. That is why we just saw the Republican-controlled Senate in New Hampshire pass a paycheck fairness bill unanimously because this is an issue of simple fairness--same job, same pay--that affects everyone. Women are half the workforce in America today, two-thirds of the primary cobreadwinners in American families. The poverty rate among women is as high as it has been in 17 years. Women have less retirement security, less protection on their pension, and more reliance on Social Security, but they receive lower payments because of this continuing wage gap. As a result, two-thirds of seniors living in poverty today in the United States of America are women. These disproportionate financial pressures that women are facing are very much a product of this wage gap. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, women lose $11,000 in income every year as a result of pay discrimination. This pay gap has not budged in a decade. For women of color, it is even worse. African American women make only 62 cents as compared to the average White male; Hispanic women, only 54 cents. The pay gap holds true across occupations and education levels. This is not just a problem for women. Less pay for women means less income. That affects an entire family. Two-income households are already struggling. This is not a partisan issue. Unequal pay affects families all across our country. What are they trying to do? Pay their bills, achieve the American Dream, and they are getting less take-home pay for their hard work. We have heard it from AnnMarie DuChon in Massachusetts. She found out years into her job that the university she worked for was paying men more for the same work. Terri Kelly in Tennessee only discovered she was making less than she deserved because her husband held the exact same job, and she saw his paycheck. ReShonda Young of Iowa discovered that her own father was paying women less when she went to work in the family business. This is real. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that people doing the same job should receive the same pay. This amendment reaffirms our commitment to this basic principle. It also says that we are not going to force small businesses and consumers, who are working hard, playing by the rules, and trying to make a better future for themselves, to pay more because of their skill. Mr. Speaker, we made an enormous difference for women and families when we passed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. We said to insurance companies: you cannot charge women more than men. That is the law of the land today. It is real, it is being implemented, and it is happening right now. Now, we should build on that. Let us make sure that employers cannot pay women less for the same job. This makes all the difference in their lives and the lives of their families. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed in its current form.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 120 regarding the ``Conyers Amendment.'' Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 121 regarding the ``Nadler Amendment.'' Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 122 regarding the ``Jackson Lee Amendment.'' Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 123 regarding the ``Motion to Recommit H.R. 4138.'' Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 124 regarding the ``ENFORCE the Law Act of 2014.'' Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following. I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 93 on Ordering the Previous Question on the Rule ``Providing for consideration of H.R. 3826, Electricity Security and Affordability Act, and providing for consideration of H.R. 4118, Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act'' (H. Res. 497). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'' I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 94 regarding the Rule ``Providing for consideration of H.R. 3826, Electricity Security and Affordability Act, and providing for consideration of H.R. 4118, Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act'' (H. Res. 497). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''. I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 95 regarding the ``United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013'' (H.R. 938). Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes''. I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 96 regarding the Motion to Recommit with Instructions on ``SIMPLE Fairness Act'' (H.R. 4118). Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes''. I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 97 regarding the ``SIMPLE Fairness Act'' (H.R. 4118). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''. I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote Number 98 regarding the ``Better Buildings Act of 2014'' (H.R. 2126). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, last week, President Obama laid out a series of proposals: ``build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class'' and revive and sustain a core tenet of our American system--as he put it: ``the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.'' I could not agree more with many of the President's proposals. Increasing the minimum wage, supporting job training and education, and ensuring equal pay for equal work are all necessary to meet the serious economic challenges of our time: stagnant wages and the lack of upward mobility. But the President's push for fast track authority for the Trans- Pacific Partnership trade agreement, or TPP, flies in the face of these reforms. Twenty years after the NAFTA agreement involving Mexico and its $10 a day wages, we know that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes Vietnam and its 28 cents per hour minimum wage, will depress wages. It will lead to the offshoring and the loss of American jobs. Raising American's living standards, restoring the middle class, creating American jobs, and increasing wages--those are our economic goals. That is what we should achieve as a society. The Trans-Pacific Partnership fails on all of these goals, and we should defeat fast track.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act overwhelmingly passed the Senate with bipartisan support. It needs to pass the House of Representatives. We need to stabilize flood insurance rates before families are further impacted by FEMA's poor implementation, inaccurate mapping, and incomplete data, which has led to unimaginable increases in premiums. We came together on a bipartisan basis in 2012 to reform the National Flood Insurance Program and put it on a path to stability, but Congress never intended to allow the punitive flood insurance premiums FEMA is now imposing on homeowners. A constituent of mine from Milford, Connecticut, anticipates paying a rate as much as 5,000 percent higher than he was paying. And yes, I have heard from many constituents. The Senate legislation would delay these increases until FEMA completes the study ensuring that new rates are affordable for families, as was called for in the 2012 law. 182 Members of this body, Republicans and Democrats, support a similar bill. We can get this done. We need to get this done. And we can do it today. I call on the Speaker to stop fiddling while Rome burns.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. It picks winners and losers rather than ensuring that we are supporting those that grow and those that consume the food that we produce in this Nation of plenty, which is what farm bills have been about in the past. I have negotiated nutrition titles in farm bills. This is a farm bill that undermines the health and the well-being of the most vulnerable in our society. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, rather than producing a farm bill that meets our traditional responsibilities as a Congress to support working families and farmers, this bill will do great damage to the Nation's most vulnerable citizens. This bill slashes $8.6 billion from food stamps, our Nation's most important antihunger program--this is in addition to the $11 billion already cut--while it goes out of its way to reopen the loopholes that benefit millionaires and billionaires. Interesting enough, this bill increases the deficit this year, and the Congressional Budget Office has said that it doesn't save the $23 billion that it claims to save. This bill results in winners and losers. Winners--wealthy farmers and agribusinesses who will be able to pocket crop insurance subsidies and other government handouts beyond the already generous limits passed earlier by both the House and the Senate. The Congressional Budget Office, again, says it increases spending on crop insurance by $5.7 billion. The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment to reduce the level of Federal premium support for crop insurance participants who make over $750,000, but the conference raised it to $900,000--winners. Against the expressed wishes of both Houses, the bill's drafters reopened a loophole which was closed in both the House and the Senate bills which allows farming enterprises to overcollect on commodity payments--winners. But then who are the losers? And there are losers in the farm bill. The losers are the 850,000 low-income households all over America, 1.7 million Americans who will lose 66 meals a month because of these cuts to food stamps. Who are we talking about? Children who will go hungry and spend all the next day at school. They will go to bed hungry, spend the next day at school unable to concentrate because they are thinking about food. Veterans, roughly 900,000 of whom receive food stamps, and working families who will face an empty fridge and a gnawing pain in their stomach for weeks and weeks. Seniors have to choose between food or warmth, whose health will deteriorate for want of sustenance. These are our own people we are consigning to this fate, hardworking people in our districts and in our communities. And if you vote for this bill, you will have to look them in the eye and tell them to go without food, that they have to endure hunger because we had to give more handouts to millionaires and to billionaires. That is what this farm bill is about. Make no mistake. It increases hunger rather than decreases hunger in America. It picks winners and losers rather than ensuring we are supporting those that grow and those that consume the food we produce in this Nation of plenty.

Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman. I just wanted to reiterate one thing. Some may view that I represent the State of Connecticut, the Third Congressional District in Connecticut, and, in fact, what do we know about farming? The fact is that we do. We have dairy farmers, people with specialty crops, and included in my history in this great body, I served as chair of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Appropriations. I also served as the ranking member, and, as I mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to be part of the conference committee on the farm bill in 2008 and helped to negotiate the nutrition title. If I can make one or two more points. This farm bill says that it is going to save $23 billion. They count savings from over a year ago. They talk about $16.6 billion. The Congressional Budget Office says that even as we cut that $8.6 billion from the food stamp program, taking meals away from 1.7 million of the most vulnerable in our society, we are increasing spending on crop insurance by $5.7 billion in the farm bill. In case folks do not know, the fact of the matter is that Americans subsidize crop insurance. We pick up over 60 percent of the cost of the premiums on crop insurance. We pay 100 percent of the administrative costs in terms of crop insurance. We have 26 individuals who get at least $1 million in a crop insurance subsidy, and we can't find out who they are. While the cuts in food stamp benefits are going to be felt immediately across those 850,000 households, primarily made up of children, the elderly, disabled, and veterans, few if any of the Congressional Budget Office projected commodity programs savings may ever be realized if crop prices continue to fall. This is reflected in that CBO score that the deficit would be increased this year with this bill. Only food stamps would be cut this year. We should vote against this bill.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, what a joy it is to rise and join my colleague, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and to applaud the long career and the great contributions of a woman who has listened to countless speeches and addresses on this floor over the years, our House Chief Clerk of Debates, Trudi Terry. She will soon retire, but she came to this House in 1999 as a transcriber, and she has served as Chief Clerk of Debates for the past decade. For 10 years, through early morning 1-minutes and midnight debates, she has sat on the dais behind this lectern, kept a record of all of our conversations and colloquies, and been of invaluable service to all of us in this body. No matter how heated it got down here, Trudi has been helpful and patient and kind to each and every one of us. She has lived an amazing life. Before coming to Washington, her experiences have run the gamut. Born in Amarillo, Texas; teacher in Alaska, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Virginia; an office manager in Honolulu; and a preschool director at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. Trudi, we say thank you to you for your hard work, for your service, both here on the House floor and across this great Nation. We congratulate you on your retirement. Many years of health and happiness, so that you can travel, take the photos, go to the theater, and, yes, bird-watch. Do the things that we kept you from doing while we debated and tried to legislate. You will be missed, my friend. You will be missed. And if you miss us too, you can always find us on C-SPAN. But get a life, Trudi, and enjoy it.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and so I missed rollcall vote No. 24 regarding the ``Good Samaritan Search and Recovery Act'' (H.R. 2166). Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Ms. DeLAURO

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.

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.

Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my statement into the Record in support of extending the unemployment insurance benefits for 1.6 million Americans instead of what is a radical Republican assault, a continuous assault, on women's health care rights.

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.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. First, let me say thank you to my colleagues who are leaving the floor for your great work on the issue of wage stagnation and the inability for upward mobility for people in this Nation. You have done a great service here tonight with laying out what the facts are. What we need to do is to be able to increase people's income and, therefore, give them the economic wherewithal to take care of themselves and their families and have a road to economic security. So I thank you very, very much. I also want to say a thank you to my colleague from Rhode Island, Congressman Cicilline, who will join me in this 30-minute Special Order for tonight. Tonight, I want to talk about the severe and immoral cuts being made to anti-hunger and nutrition programs, and particularly the continuation of devastating food stamp cuts being made in the proposed conference farm bill. We have said here that food stamps--food stamps-- are an economic safety net. As written, the farm bill would force 850,000 households--1.7 million men, women, children and veterans across America--to go hungry, even while wealthy agri-businesses continue to get generous crop subsidies. Low-income seniors, working poor families with children, and individuals with disabilities would be particularly impacted by the cruel cuts in this bill. Meanwhile, the conference has decided to reopen the loopholes that the House of Representatives, in a bipartisan way, closed; and those loopholes as they reopen them will make sure that millionaires and billionaires are getting crop subsidies. One has to ask the question, Who are we working for here? In effect, this is reverse Robin Hood legislation. It steals food from the poor to help pay crop subsidies to the rich. And when I see Members supporting the immoral cuts in this legislation, Mr. Speaker, I have to wonder if some people in this institution have really lost their perspective and understand why we are here and what our moral responsibility is. Across this country--this great country--nearly 50 million Americans, including over 16 million children, are struggling with hunger right now. Think for a moment about what that means. In 1974, a writer at Time magazine explained it this way: The victim of starvation burns up his own body fats, muscles and tissues for fuel. His body quite literally consumes itself and deteriorates rapidly. The kidneys, liver and endocrine system often cease to function properly. A shortage of carbohydrates, which play a vital role in brain chemistry, affects the mind. Lassitude and confusion set in, so that starvation victims often seem unaware of their plight. That is what we are talking about here. Hunger is agonizing. It is a curse. We are talking about men and women experiencing real physical torment, children who cannot concentrate in school because all they can think about is food. Seniors are forced to decide, in this virulent winter season, this polar vortex that we talked about, whether or not they will go hungry or whether or not they will go cold. This is a problem all across this land. The estimates of Americans at risk of going hungry, here in the land of plenty, are appalling. In my Connecticut district, nearly one in seven households is not sure if they can afford enough food to feed their families. In Mississippi, 24.5 percent suffer food hardship. That is nearly one in four people. In West Virginia and Kentucky, 22 percent, one in five people, suffer food hardship; in Ohio, nearly 20 percent; and in California, just over 19 percent. The continued existence of hunger in America is a disgrace and, quite frankly, an indictment of this institution. As the late Senator George McGovern, a champion against hunger, wrote: The Earth has enough knowledge and resources to eradicate this ancient scourge. Hunger has plagued the world for thousands of years. But ending it is a great moral imperative now more than ever before, because for the first time humanity has the instruments at hand to defeat this cruel enemy at a very reasonable cost. We have the ability to provide food for all within the next three decades. Or as President John F. Kennedy put it: We have the ability, we have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the Earth. We need only the will. Mr. Speaker, that will seems to be lacking in the Congress right now. Instead of working to end hunger for good, this farm bill takes food from the plates of 1.7 million Americans. And again, we are talking about seniors, veterans, children, families who are playing by the rules and many of whom are working full-time, all the time. The farm bill, this one that is being proposed, would force Americans to go hungry. And at the same time, the conference has chosen, against the will of the House and the Senate, to reopen loopholes and strip out payment limits so that millionaires and wealthy agribusinesses can continue to get handouts. It is unconscionable what has happened here. On its own cognizance, and in violation of the congressional rule that provisions passed by both bodies should not be changed, the conference more than doubled the annual dollars on primary payments. They said you now get $50,000 for a primary payment for your commodities, we are now going to raise that to $125,000. That loophole was closed. They then reopened the loophole closed in the House and the Senate that allows large wealthy farmers to collect far, far more than that nominal payment limit. And they did this while they cut $8.5 billion from food stamps. What is interesting, what is very interesting and cruel, if you will, is that those folks who are upper-income scale, the wealthiest of farmers, they don't have to have any income threshold or test to see how much they make before they qualify for these payments. They don't have to tell us about what assets they have before they qualify for these payments. We don't have a cap on the payments that we give them. These are millionaires. And yes, for food stamp recipients, we have an asset threshold, an income threshold. We say, if you make so much money, you are not eligible for $1.40 per meal. You are not eligible. But if you are a millionaire, all bets are off. All bets are off. And you know those folks at the top rung, they are eating well. They are getting three squares a day. They are feeding their kids. And what we are going to do is to take food away from food stamp recipients--men, women, seniors, children, and veterans. Where are the values of this great Nation? We have lost our way. We have lost our way. In the past, there has been a strong tradition of bipartisanship on fighting hunger and supporting nutrition, from the left, leaders like George McGovern, and from the right, leaders like Bob Dole who would come together to make a difference for families in need. In fact, Senator Dole called the egregious cuts to food stamps in the House version of the bill ``an about-face on our progress fighting hunger.'' This is because food stamps is our country's most important effort to deal with hunger here at home and to ensure that American families can put food on the table for their kids. They help over 47 million Americans, nearly half of them children, meet their basic food needs, and they make a tremendous difference for the health and well-being of families. Food stamps have been proven to improve low-income children's health and development, reduce food insecurity, and have a continuing positive influence into adulthood. Children's Health Watch researchers found, after collecting 14 years' worth of data on over 20,000 low-income families, that when families experience a loss or reduction in food stamp benefits, they are more likely to be food insecure, be in poor health, and their children experience intensified developmental delays relative to their peers. Food stamps also have one of the lowest error rates of any government program. It is around 3.8 percent. That includes overpayments and underpayments. I defy to go to any other agency--let's look at the crop insurance program and find out what their error rate is all about. Food stamps are good for the economy, a positive impact on growth, because food stamps not only help to feed the hungry, they get resources into the hands of families who will spend them right away. The U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows that every $5 of Federal food stamp benefits generates nearly twice that in economic activity. Most importantly, of course, they are the right thing to do. Ninety- nine percent of food stamp recipients have incomes below the poverty line. It is the job of good government to help vulnerable families get back on their feet. 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. That is why, when he declared that ``the moment is at hand to put an end to hunger in America,'' Richard Nixon called for a significant expansion of the food stamp program to ``provide poor families enough food stamps to purchase a nutritionally complete diet.'' This is something we all used to agree on. But now we are seeing a farm bill that cuts deeply into food stamps, and I ask again, how can anyone possibly support this? Keep in mind, food stamps have already seen deep and dangerous cuts. If you look at the fridge in the picture that I am holding up, this represents where we should be in terms of access to food. But because of the recent expiration of the Recovery Act provisions, food stamps have already been cut by $5 billion next year, and they will be cut by $11 billion over the next 3 years. On November 1, 2013, SNAP benefits were reduced, about $36 less for a family of four each month. This means that a family of four loses $36, or 16 meals a month, in support. That is the difference between health and hunger. Now this Congress wants to enact another $8.5 billion in cuts, meaning an additional $90 per month, and that much more food taken away from 850,000 households. This is the proposed farm bill. SNAP cuts would result in 850,000 households, 1.7 million people, losing almost $90 a month in monthly benefits. And already, for far too many Americans, the last few weeks of the month, this is what their fridge looks like. Why would we put any more hardship on the most vulnerable families in our Nation, families who are already battling food insecurity and hunger? They will have an empty refrigerator. No one should go hungry due to food stamp cuts. However you cut it, this is a terrible policy. Cutting food stamps will cause more hunger and health problems. These cuts are a dereliction of our responsibility as Members of Congress and our moral responsibility to help the least fortunate among us. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said: We must form a ``circle of protection'' around programs that serve the poor and vulnerable in our Nation and throughout the world. Or in the words of Pope Francis: The scandal that millions of people suffer from hunger must not paralyze us, but push each and every one of us to act-- singles, families, communities, institutions, governments--to eliminate this injustice. Mr. Speaker, this farm bill takes us in the wrong direction. Instead of helping to end hunger, it cuts food stamps by $90 a month for 1.7 million people. It forces poor families to choose between food on the table or warmth, and it does all of this while preserving loopholes and maximizing handouts for wealthy farmers and agribusinesses. We have to do better. I hope all of my colleagues in both parties will stand up against the outrageously misplaced priorities in this farm bill. I hope we can rekindle the strong bipartisan support that existed for decades for ending hunger in America. The astronaut Buzz Aldrin once said, ``If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger,'' and we can. This institution has the power. It has the potential to make that transformative change. We have the ability. We have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate hunger in America. We only need the will to do what is right. With that, I would like to yield to my colleague from Rhode Island, who is such a strong supporter of families in this Nation and who has seen the ravages of families who have lost their unemployment benefits; and now what we intend to do is not only have they lost their unemployment benefits, we want to make sure, with this farm bill, what it would mean is that they are hungry and that they are cold. I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for being here tonight.

Ms. DeLAURO. I can't thank the gentleman enough for your eloquence and what clarity you brought to the discussion around the connection between the low-income energy assistance program and the food stamp program and taking it out of the realm of what people are trying to do, which is to demean it and talk about it as a scheme or a loophole, none of which is true. We can talk about some schemes and some loopholes in this bill, but they don't apply where it has to do with the food stamp beneficiaries. I want to pick up on a point that you made about the safety net. The farm bill--and I had the opportunity to work in 2008 on the farm bill, and particularly the nutrition piece--has always been a safety net for farmers and for those who are the beneficiaries of the nutrition programs. That is the link that was established, so that the benefits would go nationwide, not to a particular region of the country, not to a particular population, but a safety net so that we could make sure that people in bad times, in difficult times, could be able to sustain themselves. That is what has been broken apart here with this farm bill. The point is that where the farm bill conferees will say that they are cutting back on these payments to farmers, what they have done is to create a series of other programs where these folks can make themselves whole through crop insurance, through putting more farm managers on the land and no restrictions as to how many you can put at $125,000 a pop. So they found ways in terms of which they make these folks whole. The only beneficiaries in the farm bill who have no place to go when you cut back on that $90 a month are the food stamp recipients. So you have yanked the safety net away from them and you have done it to benefit the wealthiest farm interests in the Nation. It is wrong. That bipartisan support we had in the past for a safety net is what created strength. I am sad to tell you that that has been rent asunder, and we cannot let that happen. I am going to encourage my colleagues--and I know you will--that we will defeat this effort to leave people without sustenance in this Nation. I thank the gentleman for participating tonight. I yield back the balance of my time.