Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, may I inquire how many more speakers the gentleman from Texas might have.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, I thought that this bill couldn't get any worse, but I was wrong. This amendment is a sure sign that this underlying farm bill is a complete mess. This manager's amendment is longer than most bills that we consider in this House. First, it puts a Band-Aid on the beating the majority took during the markup when they finally realized that disabled people would be hurt by their zeal to sever LIHEAP from SNAP. But to do that, to help disabled people, cost them money, so they had to find savings somewhere. And they landed on taking away more flexibility from States for waivers, the result of which is that 600,000 people--600,000 more able-bodied adults without dependents--will lose SNAP. Here is the best part of it: The 600,000 will be kicked off right away, at least a year before the mandatory work scheme--which is underfunded and will be a mass of bureaucracy--is in effect. So in spite of the rhetoric to provide on-ramps, off-ramps, trampolines, or whatever to help people get good jobs, they do not deliver--not for SNAP, and not for farmers. As I have said over and over and over again, a farm bill should be a bipartisan product. It should be reflective of bipartisan concerns. It should help farmers, and it should help those struggling in need to put food on the table. This bill doesn't do enough to help farmers, and it certainly doesn't do anything to help people struggling with hunger. In fact, this bill makes hunger worse in America, and that is shameful. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, I just want to say for the record that both Feeding America and Feeding Texas oppose this farm bill because they believe it will increase hunger in America, and I include the letter from Feeding Texas in the Record. Feeding Texas, April 17, 2018. House Committee on Agriculture, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Conaway and Committee Members: Regretfully and despite years of hard work, we are writing to oppose the farm bill proposed by Chairman Conaway, as we believe it will increase hunger and make it harder for struggling Texans to succeed. Most SNAP recipients are children, seniors and people with disabilities. Among SNAP recipients who can work, most already do--just not at wages that allow them to escape poverty. To help these workers we need to address the weaknesses in our economy and our labor market that make it hard for them to get ahead. Instead, this farm bill largely ignores the complex challenges faced by low-wage workers, imposing harsh new sanctions and requirements that will take food away from families who are willing but unable to find consistent work. Hunger never helped anyone find a job. According to the CBO, the Chairman's bill will move billions of dollars off the kitchen table, largely to finance state bureaucracies intended to assist recipients with employment. Food will remain critical fuel for the success of these families, yet this bill would effectively starve Peter to employ Paul. Losing SNAP will make it harder for these families to make ends meet. We fully expect our food banks to experience the brunt of this increased need. Across Texas, our food banks already struggle to meet the demand in their communities, and we will not be able to keep up. We are also very concerned that this bill will repeal state flexibility and put massive new responsibilities on states in pursuit of better employment outcomes for recipients. These ideas ignore the evidence-based policy making that the Chairman has espoused by selling a promise on work, but not delivering on the necessary funding or details. We urge every member of the committee to reject this proposal, and return to a bipartisan process that will help more hard-working Americans avoid hunger and achieve financial security. Sincerely, Celia Cole, CEO, Feeding Texas; Zack Wilson, Executive Director, High Plains Food Bank; Theresa Mangapora, Executive Director, Brazos Valley Food Bank; Bea Hanson, Executive Director, Coastal Bend Food Bank; Dennis Cullinane, CEO, East Texas Food Bank; Robin Cadle, President/CEO, Food Bank of the Golden Crescent; Jody Houston, CEO, Food Bank of West Central Texas; Brian Greene, President/CEO Houston Food Bank. Trisha Cunningham, President/CEO, North Texas Food Bank; Dan Maher, Executive Director, Southeast Texas Food Bank; Alma Boubel, Executive Director, South Texas Food Bank; Libby Campbell, Executive Director, West Texas Food Bank; Derrick Chubbs, President/CEO, Central Texas Food Bank; Gregory Duke, Executive Director, Concho Valley Regional Food Bank. Susan Goodell, CEO, El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank; DeAnne Economedes, Interim CEO, Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley; Richard Nye, Executive Director, Galveston County Food Bank; Allison Hulett, President/ CEO, Montgomery County Food Bank; Eric Cooper, President/CEO, San Antonio Food Bank; David Weaver, CEO, South Plains Food Bank; Bo Soderbergh, Executive Director, Tarrant Area Food Bank; Kara Nickens, Executive Director, Wichita Falls Area Food Bank.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester).

Mr. McGOVERN

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I have to give credit where credit is due. This majority can't balance a budget; they can't even pass a budget. They can't fund the government without first shutting it down. They are so busy cozying up to the big banks and passing tax cuts for the wealthy that they ignore virtually every major issue facing our Nation. Right now as we speak, this Republican majority is trying to jam through a farm bill that won't even help most farmers. But the one thing this Republican majority is incredibly good at, and the one thing that they do with ruthless efficiency is stick it to poor people. This majority is Robin Hood in reverse. They are master legislators for the megawealthy. They might want this Chamber to look out solely for those at the top, giving them more tax breaks, making it easier for them to pollute our planet and systematically attacking the safeguards we put in place to stop another financial collapse, but while they work with unflagging, unshakeable, and dogged determination to give a helping hand to the fat cats, they tell those struggling to get by and those begging for an opportunity and a living wage that they should just work harder. Never mind that they didn't grow up in nice neighborhoods or in a stable home with good nutrition and a quality education. Maybe they started out in life having to play catchup. Maybe they need just a little help from the Government to make the American Dream a reality in their life. Or maybe they were born with advantages but have fallen on hard times and they need a little bit of help. I am standing here today--Democrats are standing here today--giving a voice to our workers, the middle class, and those trying to break into the middle class. If my Republican friends actually listened to their voices, they would join us and vote against this monstrosity of a bill that attacks working American citizens and takes lunch money away from children. It is disgusting, Mr. Speaker. Now, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and the rule, and I urge all of you--no, I plead with all of you--to vote ``no'' on this bill. I grew up in a family where helping those who were struggling was the right thing to do, the decent thing to do. Please send this bill back to committee. Surely we can do better. Let's demonstrate to the American people that we are here to help, that we care, and that we are decent. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia commented that we are all so emotional on this side of the aisle when we are debating this issue. You are damn right we are. We are emotional. We are angry. We are frustrated because people are going to be hurt. Mr. Speaker, if you have ever met a hungry child, it should break your heart, and there are millions and millions in this country who are hungry. We are the greatest country in the history of the world and the richest country in the history of the world, and tens of millions of our fellow citizens are food insecure or hungry. Why isn't that a priority? Why isn't that a bigger priority than another tax cut for a big corporation? I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle deep down inside care about those who suffer in this country. Here is an opportunity to prove it. Let's do a farm bill that actually doesn't make hunger worse in this country. Mr. Speaker, I am not even asking you to eliminate hunger, although I wish that were a priority. I am just saying: don't make it worse. This bill will throw millions of people off of a food benefit, and millions of children will be impacted. Mr. Speaker, they are not just people who aren't working. You know better than that. Many of these people are working families, people who are working hard but can't make ends meet. You are taking away a food benefit. What is wrong with this institution? We can do better. Mr. Speaker, vote ``no'' on this rule, and vote ``no'' on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman how many more speakers he has remaining.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) talked about how we are literally taking the food away from children. I want to make it clear to my colleagues, there should be no mistake: This bill is going to hurt kids. First, it cuts 1 million people off of benefits through categorical eligibility challenges alone. These people are working families with kids. And once these kids lose their SNAP benefits, CBO, the nonpartisan group of experts that we rely on, expects 265,000 children will lose access to free school meals. I ask my colleagues: Is that what you want out of a farm bill? We can do so much better. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Maine coming here and giving a speech to the cameras, but I would suggest he read the bill. When he says that nobody will lose their benefits, no benefits will be cut from SNAP, he is wrong. The bottom line is that benefits will be cut. Benefits will be cut to support an underfunded, unproven, ridiculous excuse for a workforce and training program. I also should say I hope nobody wants to emulate the State of Maine when it comes to dealing with people who are struggling in poverty and who need food. I would instruct my colleagues to read an article that appeared in The Washington Post last year about what Maine's harsh policies have resulted in. A veteran who served this country with distinction lost his job due to an injury and, because of Maine's strict work requirements, was thrown off of his SNAP benefits, became homeless, and was skinning squirrels in order to be able to survive. That is not a compassionate policy that I think any State or, certainly, this country should want to reach toward. One of the things I am proud about the SNAP program is that it means that we recognize that we have an obligation to make sure that nobody in this country goes hungry. Why is that such a radical idea? Why has this program been so demonized? When the gentleman talks about a life of dependency, read the statistics from the USDA. The average time somebody is on SNAP is less than a year. That is not a life of dependency. I am not sure what he is talking about. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. McGOVERN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia, but it is not coming out of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia just mischaracterized the very partisan process that occurred in the Agriculture Committee in which Democrats were totally shut out. I want to know: What are the remedies that we have at this point in the debate to be able to correct the record so we can correct the misrepresentations?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia just said one rule three bills, which has become kind of a habit around here where we try to bunch a whole bunch of bills together in one rule so we don't actually focus on any one issue in a way that is meaningful. It is, I think, an attempt to try to stifle debate. We have a bill that would protect our police. We have a bill that would deal with veterans. And then we have the farm bill. Mr. Speaker, I want to focus on the farm bill, if I may. I have served on the Agriculture Committee since 2011. Historically, it has been one of the most--if not the most--bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives. That is how farm bills are normally crafted, through compromise and through a coalition of Members from urban and rural America coming together to get something done. That is why I have always had faith in this process--faith that minority views would be heard. Even when it wasn't easy and even when the final product wasn't perfect, the end product was traditionally bipartisan. Until today. The process for this farm bill was a sham. In no way did it reflect the Agriculture Committee's long, bipartisan tradition. I am the ranking member of the Nutrition Subcommittee, and even I wasn't able to see a word of text until this bill was publicly released. I am not even sure when Republicans on the subcommittee first saw the language. Over the last 2\1/2\ years, the Agriculture Committee held 23 hearings on SNAP. Apparently, they were just for show, because not a single witness--Democrat or Republican--recommended any of the drastic cuts or draconian policy changes to SNAP included in this Republican farm bill. When our distinguished ranking member on the committee, Mr. Peterson, was finally asked for Democratic feedback on the nutrition title, he gave a long, thoughtful list of objections and suggested changes. His input was ignored with the majority changing barely a handful of words in this whole bill. The Republican farm bill is filled with controversial provisions, and no one will tell us how they even got into the bill. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, I have asked. I can't get an answer. Maybe President Trump's ethically challenged White House opened its doors even wider to lobbyists and let them write key parts of this bill. Or perhaps an arch-conservative think tank was given the chance to airdrop its wish list into the bill. But I suspect something more mundane and damaging. I think the Speaker viewed this bill as his last chance to enact sweeping cuts to safety net programs before he retires. Even the number of this bill, H.R. 2, was always reserved by the Speaker for his so-called welfare reform bill. So I warn my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: make no mistake. This legislation is a transformation of our social safety net dressed up as a farm bill. It beats up, belittles, and demonizes poor people all across this country. It doesn't even try to put lipstick on this pig. Mr. Speaker, last week it was reported that the Republican Conference brought in communicator Frank Luntz to try to wordsmith how Republicans can justify supporting this bill. They must be terrified. They know that just explaining the reality would appall and enrage most Americans. Now, Mr. Luntz is the same guy who helped craft Speaker Gingrich's Contract with America. He earned PolitiFact's lie of the year in 2010 for one of his debunked claims on healthcare reform and even tried once in an interview to turn the term Orwellian into something positive. Mr. Speaker, he has his work cut out for him here because I don't even think Mr. Luntz can wordsmith something so cruel into something positive. Now, here is how mean this bill really is. SNAP is our Nation's premier anti-hunger program, our first line of defense against hunger. People, including the most vulnerable among us--kids, the disabled, and the elderly--turn to it when there is no other option. For them, there is no plan B when they are struggling to figure out where their next meal is coming from. With this bill, Republicans are cutting SNAP by over $20 billion. Millions of people would see their benefits slashed, and many would be cut off from assistance entirely. Why are the Republicans doing this? To pay for hoisting their latest unproven and way underfunded State- based workforce bureaucracy experiment on the entire Nation. That is why. I say ``unproven'' because I don't see any evidence or studies suggesting that any of this will even work. In fact, I have a study here that points out the flaws in this proposal. It expands work requirements for poor parents while making millionaires and billionaires eligible for subsidies even if they don't live or work on a farm. You can't make this stuff up. There is no evidence that this approach is effective. We have no idea whether States have the manpower or infrastructure to take this on. We have no idea how much it will cost States to put a recipient through a job training program. This bill would give States just $30 to train each person, when we know it costs thousands of dollars per person to fund robust job training programs. Mr. Speaker, it would be laughable if this weren't so serious. Currently, States are testing the effectiveness of job training programs as a way to help SNAP recipients move out of poverty. But we aren't expecting to get the results of these pilot programs until 2021. Shouldn't we wait to see the results of State pilot programs? Shouldn't we wait until we know what might work and what doesn't? Why should we force our Governors and States to gamble on a sweeping, untested bureaucracy that appears doomed to failure? Clearly, the Republicans aren't going to let a lack of facts stop them from creating this massive, new government bureaucracy that will affect millions of vulnerable Americans. This is from a party that claims to want a government so small, they could drown it in a bathtub. Apparently, they want a government just small enough to leave millions of poor and working Americans with nowhere to turn. This isn't about helping people; this is about putting up roadblocks that make nutrition assistance difficult, if not impossible, to get. This legislation also severs the link between SNAP and the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. This connection is what has allowed disabled and working families to receive credit for out-of- pocket heating and cooling expenses without unnecessary trips to the SNAP office. But the changes in this bill would force recipients to make those unnecessary trips, and they would lead to more hassles and avoidable errors and people falling through the cracks. I think the Republican leaders in the House are the only people on this planet who believe that creating unnecessary hassles count as some kind of laudable reform. The Republican farm bill would also eliminate broad-based categorical eligibility. This has been a critical option that States have used to help working families with kids and seniors during tough times. More than 40 States today use this option, including 12 States with Republican Governors. Eliminating it would cause 400,000 eligible households--close to 1 million people--to lose their food benefits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 265,000 students will lose access to free school lunches if this bill were to become law. You know, when I was growing up, it was school bullies that went after kids' lunch money; it wasn't the United States Congress. This is shameful. But let's also be clear here that eliminating broad-based categorical eligibility would throw close to 1 million people off of SNAP who work. Basically, it would deny SNAP benefits to people who earn under $16,000 a year. Mr. Speaker, what the hell is wrong with this place? These people can't get through the year on that. That is not enough to feed one's self or one's family. The Republican Congress, who rushed to raise taxes on 86 million middle class families to pay for a tax cut for large corporations and the richest 1 percent, is now trying to stop kids from getting school lunches and taking assistance away from families struggling with hunger. This entire Congress has been one long, slow march toward making life harder for the poor, the hungry, and working Americans. I am tired of a Congress that prioritizes the rich, that looks out only for the wealthy. The legislation we take up here today should reflect our values. But this bill doesn't reflect my values, Mr. Speaker. This is a farm bill that doesn't even make significant improvements to our agricultural programs to help farmers who are caught in the middle of the President's trade war. It is an attack on those living in poverty. It trades in stereotypes to justify shredding our social safety net, and it is hell-bent on making hunger worse in this country. This Republican farm bill is disgusting, and the process that got us here is disgusting. By the way, just so Members are clear, the average SNAP benefit is $1.40 per person per meal. I say to my colleagues, you try living on that. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Under this bill, somebody who is working and earns like $15,800 a year up to like $23,000 a year, who works right now, and who currently receives SNAP would lose it under this. This is how you are rewarding their work. I just find that appalling. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments. I think, again, if the gentleman reads this bill, he and his farmers should be concerned about this bill because it does not increase support for our farm safety net and support prices. So we have a lot of farmers who are deeply concerned about that part of the bill as well. Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question. If we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Lamb's legislation, H.R. 5805, which provides the fix needed to implement the VA MISSION Act to ensure that it is not hindered by budget caps. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss that proposal, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Lamb).