Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would allow the House to consider the Fair Minimum Wage Act. This week, the Senate will vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Now is the time for the House to act and to honor our commitment to the middle class by giving hard-working Americans fair pay. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. Again, I would urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who like to talk about how the Republican majority is committed to allowing the House to work its will and is committed to an open and transparent process, to vote with us on this. We have been trying to get the minimum wage bill to the floor forever, and we can't even get it up for a vote so that every Member has an opportunity to vote up or down. This is that opportunity so that we can have that vote, a vote to help lift people out of poverty and to help give people an opportunity to live better lives. There are millions of workers in this country who are working full time--who are working hard at minimum wage jobs--and they are still stuck in poverty. There are millions and millions of people in this country who work hard full time at minimum wage jobs, but who earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP, and they rely on that program to put food on their tables because their paychecks don't provide enough. This is an important issue, and I hope that my colleagues will support me on this. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. I voted for the Affordable Care Act, I support the Affordable Care Act, and I believe in the Affordable Care Act. I believe every person in this country ought to have health care. I don't think that is a radical idea, but my friends on the other side of the aisle apparently do. I think everybody in this country is entitled to good, quality health insurance. I think when they get sick they ought to know they will be taken care of and not have to worry about whether they are going to get covered or not because of preexisting conditions or whether they are going to meet some sort of lifetime cap and be excluded from coverage. That is what the Affordable Care Act is all about. That is what this big controversy that my friends on the other side of the aisle have decided to make on this issue is all about. So I am making sure that everybody in this country has health care. Boy, what a radical idea, what a radical idea. I will also say that having supported the Affordable Care Act, it is not a perfect piece of legislation. I have never seen a perfect piece of legislation ever come out of Congress. Legislation, especially legislation that covers a subject as wide as this, at times will be tweaked. There will be unintended consequences that we will come and we will try to fix. That is what legislation is supposed to do: to try to fix the problems. Democrats have said that from the beginning, that we want to make this bill work, work as well as it possibly can. We said we would be willing to work with Republicans and the administration to address the problems that have come about as a result of the implementation of this law. By no means does that mean that we should repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is something my Republican friends are obsessed with. To the contrary, we need to do everything we can to fix any challenges that this law may have to make sure that every American gets the benefit of the Affordable Care Act. H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act, is trying to fix one problem with the law. My friend from Delaware (Mr. Carney) and others are attempting to try to fix a provision in the law that causes some problems with the ways that expatriates are treated under the ACA. This is one example of how we--Democrats and Republicans--should be able to work together. This is one example of how we--supporters and opponents of the ACA--should be able to lay those differences aside as we try to find solutions and move our country forward. It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that House and Senate Democrats and Republicans have been working with the White House to come up with a solution that can pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by the President. It is also my understanding that discussions were ongoing as late as yesterday afternoon when the House majority decided to go with the version before us today instead of waiting to continue negotiations in a bipartisan, bicameral way so that we can get a bill moved expeditiously through both Houses and signed into law by the President of the United States. I am more than a little disappointed, Mr. Speaker, because I want to work with the majority to fix this problem. I am concerned that this bill, the bill before us that we are talking about right now, creates other problems, namely excluding green card holders and nonimmigrant workers from most of the coverage protections provided by the ACA. I am disappointed that this process was closed down even though negotiations were still ongoing. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas literally took my breath away when he talked about that this represents the Speaker's pledge to let the House work its will. This issue first came up under a suspension, which was totally closed, and it is coming to the floor today under a closed rule. Those of us who have some ideas on how we might be able to make this more palatable to address some of the concerns that we have will not have that opportunity. They have closed the process down. I hardly think that that can be described as an open process or as a transparent process. This is yet another closed rule, another closed rule. Mr. Speaker, this process was flawed and this process could have been better. There are many of us on my side of the aisle who believe that we need to fix this flaw that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney) has brought to our attention, but we need to do it in the right way, and this is not the right way to do it. I think what is going to happen here is--my friends on the other side of the aisle control most of the votes here so they will probably pass this bill--but what will happen then is that the Senate will then have negotiations with the White House and try to figure out how to fix this problem. They will pass it, then it will have to come back to the House again, and then we will have to deal with it separately. I regret very much that my friends have decided to go this way. If they had waited a few more days we probably could have gotten a solution to this that could have received unanimous support. Instead, we are back at the same old-same old, where it is attack the ACA, attack the ACA, and pretend to try to fix it by addressing a legitimate concern, but adding to that a whole bunch of extraneous stuff that creates other problems. I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and to vote ``no'' on the bill. Let's wait until the Senate gets it right with the White House and we can revisit this issue. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What we are considering right now before the full House is very clear. One, a closed rule. What a closed rule means is that you can't offer any amendments. So some of the concerns that have been raised about the underlying bill we can't fix. For the life of me, I don't understand why, if the gentleman claims that the Republican majority is committed to an open, transparent process where the House can work its will, I don't understand why you would approve a closed rule on this. Let's be honest about this. It is not like my friends on the other side of the aisle are doing anything else. We have had multiple repeals of the Affordable Care Act before us. We have had lots of message issues that their pollsters say poll well, but the Republican majority hasn't really done very much to help the American people in any way, shape, or form. So it is not like the time doesn't exist to maybe have a little bit more debate on an issue like this and be able to perfect this bill. This is a closed rule. This is a closed rule, this is a closed process, and this has become a closed House. Again, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed rule, reject this closed process, reject the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I remind the gentleman that the Speaker of the House said when the Republicans won the majority that they were going to conduct proceedings here in the most open way possible--this will be the most open and transparent House ever. And it has become the most closed House ever. Because the gentleman brought up the Affordable Care Act, I want to make sure he understands the facts. While the bill we are talking about right now received 20 minutes of debate under suspension, let me read you the facts about the Affordable Care Act, in case my friend forgot. The House held nearly 100 hours of hearings and 83 hours of committee markups. The House heard from 181 witnesses, both Democrats and Republicans. 239 amendments were considered in the three committees of jurisdiction, 121 of which were adopted. The bill was available for 72 hours before Members were asked to vote on it on the floor. The process was just as open in the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee held more than 53 hearings. The Finance Committee also spent 8 days marking up the legislation, the longest markup in 22 years for the committee. The Senate Health Committee held 47 bipartisan hearings, roundtables, and walk-throughs on health care reform. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may have started out with a different bill number, but the fact remains hundreds of hours of hearings on the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of witnesses, hundreds of amendments considered in the committee, and countless hours of townhall meetings. My friend on the other side of the aisle likes to say, well, there was a different bill number when we voted here on the floor, but as he knows, the process of using a different bill number is very common around here. In fact, the Republican majority has done it several times in the past 3 years. But regardless of the bill number, the work that went into forming this legislation was one of the most open processes in the history of Congress. That is the facts on that. But let me also make one other point. The problem my friends on the other side of the aisle have with the Affordable Care Act is not with the process. It is just they don't believe that people ought to have affordable health care in this country. They have spent countless hours on this floor trying to repeal a bill that eliminates preexisting conditions as a way to deny people insurance. They have been fighting against a bill that helps senior citizens get free preventive care coverage, that helps close that doughnut hole in the Medicare prescription drug bill. They are fighting against a bill that has brought millions and millions and millions of more people into a process where they can afford health care. So they have been against this from the very beginning. I think the American people have a very different view. Their view is that they want this bill to work. My friends on the other side of the aisle have just spent countless hours, countless days, countless weeks, countless months just trying to repeal it. It is just Johnny One Note: repeal, repeal, repeal. This idea that everybody should have affordable health care is such a controversy in the Republican Congress, I can't quite understand why. Why is it such a bad idea that everybody in this Congress has access to good quality health care? Why is that an idea that causes such resentment on the other side of the aisle? I don't get it. We ought to make sure that this law gets implemented properly, and we ought to do this the right way. My friends don't want to do it the right way, so we are going to have to wait for the Senate to work it out with the administration and then send it back to us. There really should be a better way to do this. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, every year we celebrate Easter and Passover, in part, with food. Yet for millions of Americans, putting food on their tables this holiday season is no different than any other day. It is a struggle at best, and a failure at worst. It is a failure of this institution and our government as a whole that we still tolerate incredibly low wages so that people are forced to choose between rent and food, clothes and food, utilities and food. We can do better. We need the White House to step up and own this issue. They can start with a White House conference on food and nutrition. Mr. Speaker, even though millions struggle with hunger, there are good souls out there who are trying to help. I want to highlight one Good Samaritan who paid for the groceries of a young woman named Andrea who was just trying to feed her kids. When Andrea exhausted her SNAP benefits at the grocery store, an unnamed woman in line gave her $17.38 so that she didn't have to return any of the groceries. This House could learn from this example to help our neighbors rather than penalize them simply for being poor. I include for the Record Andrea's letter to this unnamed woman in line at the grocery store. Dear woman behind me in line at the grocery store: You don't know me. You have no clue what my life has been like since October 1, 2013. You have no clue that my family has gone through the wringer. You have no clue that we have faced unbelievable hardship. You have no clue we have been humiliated, humbled, destitute. You have no clue I have cried more days than not; that I fight against bitterness taking control of my heart. You have no clue that my husband's pride was shattered. You have no clue my kids have had the worries of an adult on their shoulders. You have no clue their innocence was snatched from them for no good reason. You know none of this. What you do know is I tried to buy my kids some food and that the EBT machine was down so I couldn't buy that food. I didn't have any cash or my debit card with me. I only had my SNAP card. All you heard was me saying ``No, don't hold it for me. My kids are hungry now and I have no other way of paying for this.'' You didn't judge me. You didn't snarl ``Maybe you should have less kids.'' You didn't say ``Well, get a job and learn to support yourself.'' You didn't look away in embarrassment or shame for me. You didn't make any assumptions at all. What you did was you paid that $17.38 grocery bill for us. You gave my kids bananas, yogurt, apple juice, cheese sticks, and a peach ice tea for me; a rare treat and splurge. You let me hug you and promise through my tears that I will pay this forward. I will pay someone's grocery bill for them. That $17.38 may not have been a lot for you, but it was priceless to us. In the car my kids couldn't stop gushing about you; our ``angel in disguise.'' They prayed for you. They prayed you would be blessed. You restored some of our lost faith. One simple and small action changed our lives. You probably have forgotten about us by now, but we haven't forgotten about you. You will forever be a part of us even though we don't even know your name. You have no clue how grateful and embarrassed I am that we pay for all our food with SNAP. We eat well thanks to the government. I love that. I love that the government makes sure my kids are cared for. It is one less worry for us. I also struggle with pride and embarrassment. I defiantly tell people we are on SNAP. Daring them to judge us. Only those closest to us know why we are on SNAP. They know my husband is a hard worker who was laid off after 17 years in a management position with his former company. They know we were moved from our home to a new state only to be left homeless since the house we had came with the job he lost. Only those closest to us know my husband works part time while looking tirelessly for more; that he has submitted more applications than he has received interviews for. Too many jobs are only offering part time work anymore. It is not easy for a 40-something year old to find a job that will support his family of five kids. You know none of this but you didn't let that stop you from being compassionate and generous to someone you have never met. To the woman behind me at the grocery store, you have no idea how much we appreciate you. You have no idea the impact you had on my kids. You have no idea how incredibly thankful I am for you. Your action may have been small, but to us it was monumental. Thank you. Thank you for not judging us. Thank you for giving my kids a snack when they were quite hungry. Thank you. Just thank you. Forever, Andrea, the woman in front of you at the grocery store with the cart full of kids who are no longer hungry

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, budgets are moral documents. These annual documents are really statements of who we are as political parties and as groups and as people. They represent our values. They tell a story about what we believe in and how we would govern. I had thought that I had come here today to say that this budget before us, the Ryan budget, is simply bad or that it is misguided. Madam Speaker, it is much worse than that. This is an awful budget. It takes our country in the fundamentally wrong direction. It seems as though every year we shake our heads wondering how the latest Ryan budget could possibly get worse than the previous year's efforts. And yet, time after time, the Ryan budget manages to pull it off. This budget is cruel, but sadly, it is not unusual. The gentleman from Georgia says he can't contain his smiles when he talks about this budget. I don't think there is anything to smile about. Year after year, the Ryan budget does more and more damage to the social fabric of our Nation. Year after year, it puts the wishes of the rich ahead of the needs of the poor. And year after year, it sacrifices the reality of desperately needed investments at the altar of theoretical deficit reduction. Let's look at the details. The Ryan budget includes deep cuts. How deep? $791 billion below the sequester number. $791 billion below sequester. That is amazing, Madam Speaker. Now, I voted against sequester because of the damage it would and it did inflict on our economy. This budget would actually cut nearly $1 trillion on top of the sequester. I thought we wanted to end sequester, not make choices that are even worse. But that is not the end of the story. According to one estimate, 69 percent of the Ryan budget cuts come from low-income programs. It would shred the safety net. The programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and help provide millions of Americans with health care, that will provide millions of children with school meals and early childhood education, received the lion's share of the cuts. That is what the Ryan budget does. In fact, according to the same estimate, $3.3 trillion of the Ryan budget's $4.8 trillion in non-defense cuts come from low-income safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, school breakfast and lunch programs, Head Start, the Supplemental Security Income program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Child Tax Credits. Sixty-nine percent of the total non-defense cuts come from these life-changing, indeed, lifesaving programs. The Ryan budget is successful at one thing: it deepens the divide between the rich and poor in this country. It successfully makes life harder for those who are already struggling to make ends meet. If you are hungry in America, you would see food benefits cut by $137 billion. If you are a middle class college student in America, hopefully you can win the lottery, or have a rich uncle, because Pell grants would be cut by $125 billion by freezing the maximum grant and cutting eligibility. If you are a low-income working mother in America who gets health care through Medicaid, you would join at least 40 million Americans who will become uninsured by 2024 after the Ryan budget cuts at least $2.7 trillion from Medicaid. And if you are a middle class family with kids in America just trying to get by in this sluggish economy, you would see your taxes go up by $2,000. But if you are fortunate enough to be very rich in America, you lucked out. It is time to pop the champagne because you make out like a bandit. The oil companies keep their tax breaks. Businesses can keep putting money in overseas accounts just to avoid paying taxes here in America. And if you are a millionaire? Get ready for a big fat check from Uncle Sam. That is because anyone making $1 million a year will see a tax cut of at least $200,000. On top of these disastrous policies, the Ryan budget, once again, goes after seniors. This version, once again, ends the Medicare guarantee and reopens the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole. As a result of these cuts, seniors will see their traditional Medicare premiums soar by an average of 50 percent. As AARP says: Removing the Medicare guarantee of affordable health coverage for older Americans by implementing a premium support system and asking seniors and future retirees to pay more is not the right direction. Now these policies have real world ramifications. Last week, Madam Speaker, an incredibly strong and courageous group of women called the Witnesses to Hunger returned to Capitol Hill to talk about their struggles as low-income, working women trying to make ends meet. It takes guts to come here to Capitol Hill to tell your story and challenge Members of Congress to do better, and that is exactly what these impressive women did. They told their stories. They talked about their struggles, and they challenged us to do more to help so they don't fall back into poverty. These women, and the millions of Americans like them who work hard every day, don't earn enough to make ends meet. They are having to choose between rent and food and electricity. These women and their children aren't line items in our budget. They aren't statistics in our reports. They are people, people who just want to have a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and an education system that will help their children learn and succeed. They want to go to college and not have to worry about losing their scholarships just because they are a single mother and need to work a night job to feed their child. These women, and millions of Americans, would be hurt, they would be devastated by the Ryan budget. I am glad there are people who are able to make a lot of money in this country. I have nothing against rich people, but we shouldn't penalize those who are struggling. Madam Speaker, we should be providing ladders of opportunity to help people get out of poverty and move into the middle class. When people need a helping hand, we should provide that assistance, whether it is a job training program, early childhood education, health care, or something as simple and as basic as food. These aren't handouts; they are hand-ups. They are investments in our future, and we should be providing opportunities to strengthen our communities and the middle class through job creation, higher education, and advancing research and innovation. This is a great country. We have done great things, but we have begun to think small. That is what the Republican majority has succeeded in doing. They have got us to start thinking small rather than big. We don't tackle big problems anymore. We use deficit reduction as an excuse to do nothing. What we need to do is tackle big issues like ending hunger. We should tackle the issue of ending poverty. We should want to strive for a country that benefits not just the few who are rich but the many who are poor. The Ryan budget would set us back. It would do real damage to millions and millions of real Americans, our neighbors, our friends, our fellow parishioners. As Pope Francis has written in his Papal Exhortation: I ask God to give us more politicians capable of sincere and effective dialogue aimed at healing the deepest roots, and not simply the appearances of the evils in our world. Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good. Inasmuch as it seeks the common good. This budget, this Ryan budget, this Republican budget, or whatever you want to call it, does not seek the common good. This budget fails that basic test that Pope Francis outlined. It does not seek the common good. It deserves to be defeated. We can do so much better in this Congress and for our country. I am ashamed that this is what we are debating here today, that this is the Republican vision for our future. This the wrong way to go. Democrats and Republicans should say ``no'' to this. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think one of the differences between what the Republicans have proposed and what Democrats are proposing is that what they propose is just one thing--cuts. Cuts and cuts and cuts in programs for the most needy in this country, and more tax cuts for the most wealthy. What the Democrats have proposed is a more balanced approach. Yeah, there needs to be some sacrifice, but we also understand the importance of investment. If you want to find a way to balance the budget, why don't we find a cure for Alzheimer's disease? Not only would that help improve the quality of life for millions of people, but it would also eliminate all the fiscal problems that Medicaid has. Let's find a cure for diabetes. Let's find a cure for cancer. Why aren't our energies devoted toward investing in medical research? And yet the Ryan budget that we are now debating would devastate medical research in this country. It would devastate it. We have researchers coming in to visit us who are telling us that China is offering them a better package to do their medical research, Singapore. I want these cures to be found here in the United States. I want to invest in that research that will not only save people's lives, but create jobs and also save money. Yet, my friends on the other side, they devastate investments in medical research. They devastate investments in scientific research. They devastate investments in transportation. Their way is one way: cut programs that help the most needy, and give tax breaks to the Donald Trumps of the world. Donald Trump doesn't need any more help. Middle class families, those struggling to get into the middle class, do need help. Madam Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4415, the House companion to the unemployment insurance extension bill passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate just yesterday. Representative Kildee introduced this bill just hours after Senate passage. Today, on Equal Pay Day, my amendment will also bring up H.R. 377, Rosa DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act. It is shameful that women in America still make an average of only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. The Paycheck Fairness Act will require equal pay for equal work. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Caardenas).

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I think what you just saw on the floor is frustration. In the supposedly open House that my colleagues brag about--erroneously, I should add--this issue of comprehensive immigration reform has failed to be given a day on the floor. The United States Senate, in a bipartisan way, passed comprehensive immigration reform, a bill that would, by the way, raise close to a trillion dollars over the next 20 years to pay down our debt, and yet we can't even get it scheduled on the House floor. The leadership here continues to block it, and Mr. Caardenas and Mr. Polis last night in the Rules Committee thought that, given the fact that there is such an incredible savings here, it was relevant to this. And, by the way, the Rules Committee can do whatever it wants to. The Rules Committee could issue the necessary waivers to allow this to happen. There is no reason at all why this couldn't have been brought up today except that a majority in the Rules Committee said no. I mean, that is the reason why. So what you see is frustration. What you see is frustration not just by Democrats. There are people on the Republican side who, as well, would like to see us debate comprehensive immigration reform, and instead we are blocked at every single avenue. So that has to change; otherwise, you are going to see more of the kinds of displays that you just witnessed. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I want to agree with my friend from Oklahoma that Mr. Ryan has given us a choice. He has presented us a budget that would end Medicare as we know it; it would slash the social safety net to smithereens; it cuts SNAP by $137 billion; and it would damage the National Institutes of Health and transportation funding. Pell grants would be cut. I could go right down the list. Yeah, I know we have got a choice here, and people ought to understand what that budget is all about. My friends on the other side may be proud of this. Again, I find that puzzling, because the notion that the only way to balance the budget is by hurting poor people or hurting the middle class, I don't agree with. You talk about sacrifices. Why are all the sacrifices on the backs of middle-income families or on the backs of the poor in this country? The rich get a tax cut. The rich get a tax cut. Middle class families get a tax increase. Poor people get their food stamps taken away from them. Why is that always the choice that you provide Members of this House? Why are those the only people that sacrifice? I just find it unconscionable, quite frankly. With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman from Florida that national defense includes more than the number of weapons we have in our arsenal. It also include the quality of life for our people here at home, and these programs that he is denigrating, like SNAP, for example, I should remind him there are an extremely high number of military families that rely on SNAP to get by and a high number of veterans who do as well. Basic food, they are looking for helping with putting food on the table. So before anybody denigrates those programs, understand that they contribute to our national defense as well. They are feeding our military families and veterans because our returning veterans can't find jobs that pay a livable wage. At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I insert in the Record a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities entitled ``Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP by $137 Billion Over 10 Years, Low-Income Households in all States Would Feel Sharp Effects.'' Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. The Ryan budget will create a government without a conscience. It is cruel. This budget is a rotten thing to do to poor people; it is a rotten thing to do to the middle class. It is an outrage. So please, again, vote ``no'' on the previous question, and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. This really is an embarrassment. We could do so much better in this Chamber. The people in this country deserve much better than what we are giving them. With that, I yield back the balance of my time. [From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Apr. 4, 2014] Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP by $137 Billion Over Ten Years Low-Income Households in All States Would Feel Sharp Effects (By Dorothy Rosenbaum) House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget plan includes cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) of $137 billion--18 percent--over the next ten years (2015- 2024), which would necessitate ending food assistance for millions of low-income families, cutting benefits for millions of such households, or some combination of the two. Chairman Ryan proposed similarly deep SNAP cuts in each of his last three budgets. The new Ryan budget specifies two categories of SNAP cuts: It includes every major benefit cut in a House-passed version of the recent farm bill that Congress ultimately rejected when enacting the final farm bill. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the House cuts, which amount to $12 billion over the 2015-2018 period, would have terminated benefits to 3.8 million low-income people in 2014. After a difficult two-year process, Congress just two months ago, on a bipartisan basis, passed a farm bill that rejected these House cuts and reauthorized SNAP and other Agriculture programs for five years. It would convert SNAP into a block grant beginning in 2019 and cut funding steeply--by $125 billion (or almost 30 percent) over 2019 to 2024. States would be left to decide whose benefits to reduce or terminate. They would have no good choices--the program already provides an average of only $1.40 per person per meal, primarily to poor children, working-poor parents, seniors, people with disabilities, and others struggling to make ends meet. Ryan Block Grant Would Force States to Cut Food Assistance Deeply Since 90 percent of SNAP spending goes for food assistance, and most of the rest covers state administrative costs to determine program eligibility and operate SNAP properly, policymakers couldn't achieve cuts of this magnitude without substantially scaling back eligibility or reducing benefits deeply, with serious effects on low-income families and individuals. Table 1 provides state-by-state estimates of the potential impact of the block grant proposal. Cuts in eligibility. If the cuts came solely from eliminating eligibility for categories of currently eligible households or individuals, states would have to cut an average of 10 million people from the program (relative to SNAP enrollment without the cuts) each year between 2019 and 2024. Cuts in benefits. If the cuts came solely from across-the- board benefit cuts, states would have to cut more than $40 per person per month in 2019 to 2024 (in nominal dollars), on average. This would require setting the maximum benefit at about 77 percent of the Thrifty Food Plan, the Agriculture Department's (USDA) estimate of the cost of a bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet. (Under SNAP rules, the maximum benefit--which goes to households with no disposable income after deductions for certain necessities--is set at 100 percent of the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan.) The impact of such a change would be pronounced. All families of four--including the poorest--would face benefit cuts of about $160 a month in fiscal year 2019, or more than $1,900 per year. All families of three would face cuts of about $125 per month, or about $1,500 per year. Of course, policymakers could shield some households from such deep cuts, but then other households would need to bear even larger cuts in order to produce the $125 billion in block- grant savings. While states might not seek to hit the Ryan targets through eligibility cuts or benefit cuts alone, these examples illustrate the magnitude of the reductions needed. States would have few other places to achieve the required cuts; as noted, about 90 percent of SNAP expenditures are for food assistance. Proposed Cuts Rest on Inaccurate Claims Chairman Ryan bases his proposed SNAP cuts on a series of inaccurate claims about SNAP program growth, work disincentives, and waste, fraud, and abuse. Spending growth. Chairman Ryan justifies deep SNAP cuts in part by claiming that the ``explosive growth [of SNAP and other low-income programs] is threatening the overall strength of the safety net'' and ``SNAP spending is forecast to be permanently higher than previous estimates even after the recession is long past.'' While SNAP spending did grow substantially during the recession, it has begun to decline as a share of the economy and is expected to continue shrinking over the coming decade. SNAP grew because of three factors: the depth of the recent recession, which made more people eligible; improvements in reaching eligible households (particularly working-poor families); and the 2009 Recovery Act's temporary benefit boost (which ended in November 2013). As Figure 1 indicates, CBO projects that SNAP will return to pre-recession levels as a share of the economy (gross domestic product) once the economy fully recovers. The program does not contribute to the nation's long-term budget problem because it is projected to grow no faster than the economy over time. Work and dependency. Chairman Ryan also justifies cutting SNAP and turning it over to the states by implying that SNAP doesn't encourage recipients to work. Yet the number of SNAP recipients who work while receiving SNAP has more than tripled over the past decade. Furthermore, CBPP analysis finds that the large majority of SNAP recipients who can work do so, and many more rely on SNAP when they are between jobs or looking for work. Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non- disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP and more than 80 percent work in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP. The rates are even higher for families with children: more than 60 percent work while receiving SNAP, and almost 90 percent work in the prior or subsequent year. Only 4 percent of households that worked in the year before receiving SNAP did not work the following year. Moreover, SNAP already has work requirements. Adults without children face a harsh three-month time limit if they are unemployed and not participating in a qualifying employment and training program. States can apply for a waiver from this requirement during a weak economy when jobs are not available by submitting detailed Department of Labor data showing high unemployment in local areas or statewide, but the number of areas qualifying for a waiver is falling as the economy recovers, and CBO expects the number of such areas to shrink markedly over the next few years. (The Ryan budget would eliminate these waivers immediately, even for areas with double-digit unemployment.) In addition, states have broad authority to operate employment and training programs, and the recent farm bill includes a major demonstration program for states to test innovative approaches to providing employment and training services that raise recipients' earnings and reduce their reliance on public assistance. Waste, fraud, and abuse. Finally, Chairman Ryan justifies his SNAP proposals based on charges that SNAP is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. The reality is that SNAP has one of the most rigorous quality control systems of any public benefit program and a very low error rate. Despite the recent growth in caseloads, the share of total SNAP payments that represent overpayments or payments to ineligible households fell to a record low of 2.77 percent in fiscal year 2012. In addition, USDA has cut ``trafficking''--the sale of SNAP benefits for cash, which violates federal law--by three- quarters over the past 15 years. Only 1.3 percent of SNAP benefits are trafficked. USDA has also permanently disqualified thousands of retail stores from the program for not following strict federal requirements. When cases of SNAP fraud are reported in the news, it is because the offenders have been caught, evidence that states and USDA are aggressively combating fraud. Benefit Cuts Would Primarily Affect Low-Income Families With Children, Seniors, and People With Disabilities The Ryan budget documents assert that Congress could achieve the required savings by capping federal SNAP funding and ``allow[ing] states to customize SNAP to the needs of their citizens'' through a block grant. That description leaves the mistaken impression that the program is not serving a population that is overwhelmingly poor and that savings could be achieved without significantly harming millions of vulnerable Americans. Unlike most means-tested benefit programs, which are restricted to particular categories of low-income individuals, SNAP is broadly available to almost all households with very low incomes. Cutting SNAP thus would affect broad swaths of the low-income population. Currently, 46.8 million people receive SNAP to help them feed their families. Census data show that in 2012 (the latest year for which these data are available), 46.5 million Americans lived below the poverty line, and 64.8 million lived below 130 percent of the poverty line, SNAP's gross income limit. The overwhelming majority of SNAP households are families with children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Seventy percent of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter are in households that include senior citizens or people with disabilities. SNAP households have very low incomes. Eighty-three percent of SNAP households have incomes below the poverty line while they are receiving SNAP assistance (about $19,800 for a family of three in 2014). Such households receive 91 percent of SNAP benefits. Two of every five SNAP households have incomes below half of the poverty line. Such individuals and families have little flexibility in their monthly budgets to cope with deep reductions in food assistance. Low-wage workers rely on SNAP to boost their monthly income. Millions of Americans live in working households with earnings that are not sufficient to meet basic needs. In 2012, some 39 million people (1 in 8 Americans) lived in a working family with cash income below 130 percent of the poverty line. Low incomes like these--which typically reflect low wages or limited work hours--can leave families unable to afford necessities like food and housing on a regular basis. SNAP benefits play a crucial role in boosting such families' monthly resources: in 2012, a typical working mother with two children on SNAP earned $1,148 per month ($13,700 on an annual basis) and received $307 per month in SNAP benefits. If the Ryan proposal had been in place in 2012 and was implemented via across-the-board cuts, this family's monthly benefits would have been cut by $110 per month--or about 36 percent. SNAP Benefit Cuts Would Increase Hunger and Poverty SNAP cuts of the magnitude that the Ryan budget proposes would almost certainly lead to increases in hunger and poverty. Emergency food providers report that more people ask for help in the latter half of the month, after their SNAP benefits run out. Under the Ryan budget's steep funding cuts, a typical household's SNAP benefits would run out many days earlier, placing greater strain on household finances (and on emergency food providers) and significantly increasing the risk of hunger. Deep SNAP cuts also would cause more families and individuals to fall into poverty and push poor families deeper into poverty. Currently, SNAP helps lessen the extent and severity of poverty; Census Bureau data on disposable family income that include the value of SNAP and other non- cash benefits and taxes show that: SNAP lifted 4.9 million Americans above the poverty line in 2012, including 2.2 million children. SNAP kept more children--1.4 million--from falling below half of the poverty line in 2012, more than any other program. The Ryan SNAP cuts would thus have a sharp, adverse effect on millions of the lowest-income Americans. Moreover, they would not occur in isolation. The Ryan budget contains steep cuts in other low-income assistance programs, compounding the effects of the SNAP cuts. Many vulnerable families would lose health coverage, housing assistance, and other important supports such as child care at the same time they faced SNAP cuts. Cuts Could Be Even Larger Under a Block Grant Block-granting SNAP, as Chairman Ryan proposes, would eliminate its ability to respond automatically to the increased need that results from rising poverty and unemployment during economic downturns. Annual federal funding would remain fixed, regardless of whether the economy was in a recession or how severe a downturn was. As a result, the House Budget Committee staff's estimate that the Ryan plan would cut SNAP by $137 billion over ten years may understate the magnitude of the cut--the cuts would be still more severe if the economy performs less well over the coming decade than CBO projects. If a SNAP block grant had been in effect in 2013 at funding levels set in 2007, before the recession, federal funding in 2013 would have been about 50 percent below actual funding that year (excluding the Recovery Act benefit boost). Furthermore, under a block grant, SNAP would not be able to respond to natural disasters. Hurricane Sandy victims in New York and New Jersey obtained temporary food aid through SNAP in 2013, as did victims of disasters in five other states. Also, under a block grant, many states would likely shift funds away from food assistance to other purposes when they faced large state budget shortfalls. SNAP includes several non-food components, such as job training and related child care; a block grant structure would enable states to divert funds away from food to these purposes and withdraw state funds currently spent on these services. Finally, because of its capped funding structure, a block grant like the one Chairman Ryan proposes would reverse the recent progress made, on a bipartisan basis, to improve SNAP participation among eligible low-income households. Viewing SNAP as an important work support and health and nutrition benefit, the last three Administrations, as well as governors from across the political spectrum, have sought to boost participation rates--especially among working-poor families and low-income elderly people, the two groups with the lowest participation rates. Overall, the efforts have paid off. SNAP reached 79 percent of all eligible individuals in a typical month in 2011 (the most recent year for which these data are available), a significant improvement from 2002, when the participation rate bottomed out at 54 percent. Participation among eligible low-income working families rose from 43 percent in 2002 to about 67 percent in 2011. For the elderly, it improved more modestly--from 26 percent in 2002 to about 39 percent in 2011.

Mr. McGOVERN. With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, over the past 6 months, this Nation's premier antihunger safety net program, SNAP, has been cut by nearly $20 billion. Forty-six million Americans saw a cut of about $30 a month for a family of three, and hundreds of thousands more will see a cut of about $90 because of two separate cuts that took effect in November and in February. But those pale in comparison to the Ryan budget. This budget, which will be voted on by this House next week, cuts at least $137 billion from SNAP--$137 billion. That is simply devastating. Budgets are moral documents, and the Ryan budget is immoral. What kind of nation are we if all we do is continue to take food from the mouths of the hungry? We can't keep balancing our budgets on the backs of poor. It is time to say enough is enough, no more cuts to SNAP. We should protect the vulnerable and the least well off in this country instead of punishing them simply for being poor.