Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I surely want to make sure that we support our warfighters. My problem with the Defense bill is that we are spending so much money on things that I think are questionable. I would rather spend money on supporting our troops more than spending $1 trillion over the next 3 decades building more nuclear weapons. We have more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world, and we ought to be talking about limiting nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether. I want to support our men and women who we put in harm's way, but I want this Congress, I want Members of this House, to do their job. It doesn't take any courage to sit back and have troops deployed all over the world, in harm's way, and we don't even take the time to actually debate an authorization for the use of military force. We are too afraid to talk about those issues. So when we talk about supporting our men and women in uniform, people ought to do a little bit of reflection on how we have not been doing our job. Again, I note my friends don't want to talk about health care. My colleague actually said she would like to talk about health care more. Well, we should, because the fact of the matter is, as I said, as we are speaking here, the Republicans have unveiled this bill that has been in secret, that nobody has really had a chance to digest. No hearings. They want to talk about health care so much--no hearings, no expert testimony, no nothing. Right to markup; trying to rush it to the floor before we find out the true cost to the American people about what this TrumpCare bill is going to be all about; when they find out how many of them are going to lose their care; how it is going to cut Medicare; how senior citizens are going to see an increase in their healthcare costs; how average Americans are going to pay more for health care and get less protections; how people who are struggling in poverty are going to be out of luck because they are going to do away with the Medicaid guarantee to States. Health care ought to be a fundamental right in this country, and they are taking that right away, and they are doing it in a fashion so that CBO, again, 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office that Congress appropriates $50 million a year to support so they can do their expert work, they are doing this in a way so we are not even asking for their expert advice. What sense does that make? This is the rule. This is where we set our priorities about what our legislative agenda ought to be; and all I am simply saying is vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can vote on an amendment so we can demand a CBO score in the healthcare bill. By the way, that doesn't slow down the Defense Appropriations bill. It still goes forward. Nothing stops. So let's do what is right. Let there be a little sunshine on this House of Representatives. There is a pattern that has developed under the Republican leadership where everything is closed. This bill that we are dealing with right now, closed rule. It is not a conference report, closed rule. We have had more closed rules in the first few months in this Congress than any Congress, I think, in history, and that is the pattern. No hearings, no discussion, just go right to markup. We don't want to know how much it is going to cost. We don't want to know how many people are going to be thrown off of health care. Let's just rush something through. That is mindless legislating, and it has to stop. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to say to my colleagues on the other side: I know you don't like me talking about health care. If I were you, I wouldn't want to talk about health care either. This is a serious matter, and it is a matter of security for millions and millions of Americans in our country. Again, maybe somebody over there can tell me: How much is this new TrumpCare bill going to cost? How much is it going to add to the deficit? How much are the American taxpayers going to have to pay for it? Does anyone know how many people will lose their coverage? Hello? I guess I would ask the questions: Why do we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office, who we pay $50 million a year to be able to give us these estimates, if we are not going to utilize them? Why are we doing this? It seems to me that before we do something that could harm millions of people in this country, before we could do something that could result in an increase in our deficit, why don't we ask the experts? And we all acknowledge that they are experts and we pay them lots of money. Why don't we get their advice? This whole process seems backwards. You ought not to be marking up bills when you don't know what their impact is going to be. Part of our job as Members of Congress, in addition to holding hearings and listening to experts and listening to citizens tell us their perspective--which, again, has been totally ignored in this process of the repeal of the healthcare bill--is also to make sure that when we are voting, we know what the impact is going to be, we know whether or not it is going to have a positive impact or whether it is going to have a negative impact. Again, one of the reasons why I want to defeat the previous question is so that we can vote in a, hopefully, bipartisan way to get a CBO score so we know what is what. I get it. I know my colleagues don't want to talk about health care. They would rather talk about something we should have done months ago. That is what we are doing now, we are doing old work now. This should have been done 4 or 5 months ago. I am just baffled why you don't want to do your job. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciated the gentleman from Florida's comments, but I would just ask him: Why is the Republican leadership 5 months late in bringing a defense appropriations bill to the floor? We could have done this months ago. So if there was this urgency, it seems to escape the Republican leadership. I want to take issue with the gentlewoman from Wyoming when she says that what is important today and what we are debating today is only this Defense Appropriations bill. As you know, we are currently debating the rule, and the rule is a tool used to set the House agenda and to prioritize consideration of legislation. For that very reason, this is, in fact, the appropriate time for us to explain to the American people what legislation we would like to prioritize, what is of grave concern to us, and what agenda we would like to pursue in this House. The fact of the matter is that, as we are speaking, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee are marking up TrumpCare, which we know, in all likelihood, is going to result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance. We also are concerned that it is going to cost the American taxpayer a boatload of money. What we are simply saying here today is that the Congressional Budget Office, which we fund and we rely on, ought to be able to give us a cost estimate, ought to tell us how much this is going to add to our deficit, how much it is going to cost the American people, how many people are going to lose their health care. Why in the world would you rush a major piece of legislation through committee and onto the floor without even knowing what you are talking about? I mean, this process constitutes mindless legislating. This is not doing your job, and that is all we are requesting. We can argue over whether or not you like the Affordable Care Act or you don't. But whatever you are going to do, we ought to bring it to the floor with everybody's eyes wide open and knowing what the impacts are going to be. Talk about lack of transparency, this TrumpCare bill was under lock and key until just a couple of days ago. It was the best-kept secret in the world. For 7 years, my friends have been talking about a replacement bill. No one ever saw it. But all of a sudden, it is brought out before the American people at a press conference and, again, in a way that doesn't answer a lot of questions. It is being rushed through committee, and it is going to be rushed onto the House floor. That is not a good process. I will remind my colleagues that when the Affordable Care Act was considered here in the House, the House held 79 bipartisan hearings and markups on the health insurance reform in 2009 and 2010. You have held no hearings. None. There has been no expert testimony, no healthcare professionals, no doctors, no patients, no nurses, no families, nothing. There have been no hearings. The bill went right to markup. House Members spent nearly 100 hours in hearings, heard from 181 witnesses from both sides of the aisle, considered 239 amendments, both Democratic and Republican, accepted 21 amendments. Again, there have been no hearings. In markup, the Energy and Commerce Committee adopted 24 GOP amendments. In markup, the Education and the Workforce Committee adopted six GOP amendments. The original House bill was posted online for 30 days before the first committee began their markup and more than 100 days before the tricommittees formally introduced their merged bill in the House. House Democrats posted their first House bill online for the promised 72-hour review. The Senate bill voted on in the House was online for 3 months, and the reconciliation bill was online for 72 hours of review before the final vote. House Democrats heard and answered questions from constituents at more than 3,000 healthcare townhalls and public events. Tens of thousands of emails, calls, and letters were logged in congressional offices to register public comment. My friends are busy trying to avoid public town meetings. I am just simply saying that we are raising this issue because we are deeply concerned about the prospect of millions of Americans losing health care and about you adding God knows what to our deficit. I don't think it is too much to come together in a bipartisan way to say: Let us know what the costs are going to be, let us know what the impacts are going to be. And if you still want to vote for TrumpCare, you can vote for it, but you ought to know what you are voting for. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), who has been a leader on this issue, and he will explain this even further.

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

Mr. McGOVERN. 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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I am wondering whether or not you could inform us whether or not a CBO score has been completed on the Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act because many of us are worried it will kick up to 20 million Americans off their health coverage. It will increase out-of-pocket expenses for millions of families.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will give the Republicans a little bit more time to request a CBO score.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. McGOVERN

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, CNN reported that the Pentagon is considering a proposal to send U.S. ground troops to northern Syria. This is for a report to President Trump on the war against ISIS due this month. But the very idea that the Pentagon is seriously considering sending more troops into Syria should be a wake-up call to Congress and to all Americans. Three years after the U.S. first sent troops to Syria and Iraq, Congress still hasn't voted to authorize the fight against ISIS. Do we really want to send more Americans into war? What is the mission? How does it end? For 3 years, Congress has failed to do its constitutional duty. Three years of cowardice. Three years of a blank check. Speaker Ryan promised action in 2016, but did nothing. When, Mr. Speaker, will this House finally do its job? After 100 more American troops are sent to Syria and Iraq? Five hundred more? A thousand? When will Congress finally act? Mr. Speaker, I say the time is now.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. My parliamentary inquiry is, are there any amendments that have been made in order under this rule?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell).

Mr. McGOVERN. 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. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we are less than 2 months into 2017, and today we have another closed rule, or as I call them, ``Putin rules.'' This is how they operate in Russia--no deliberation. It is simply astonishing that here in the people's House we continue to have this closed process: no amendments, no debate, no nothing, completely shut down. I have very serious concerns about the road we are traveling down. The 115th Congress is only 6 weeks old, and we have already ushered in a process that is alarmingly restrictive. It should distress not just Democrats, but Republicans as well. This is now the norm and is very, very sad. Mr. Speaker, today's rule would pave the way for the House to repeal two important consumer protections that help working families save for retirement. These protections went through a very lengthy process of review. We are repealing these protections without the committees of jurisdiction having any chance to weigh in and in a rushed process that is completely closed. These protections, as I said, were reviewed by the relevant agencies; they were subjected to public commentary; and we are bringing them to the floor to repeal them without even giving the committees of jurisdiction an opportunity to actually discuss these bills, to discuss whether this makes sense. Mr. Speaker, America is facing a retirement savings crisis, and rules like this--I should say, protections like this--are essential to helping workers plan for the future. As of today, 55 million Americans lack access to a way to save for retirement out of their regular paycheck. As a result, nearly half of all workers have no retirement assets. Yet we know that employees are 15 times more likely to save just by having access to a workplace retirement plan. These programs are a commonsense solution for working families and small businesses. Republicans should be working to strengthen programs like these, not rip them apart. If you have a problem and you want to make a tweak, maybe you ought to work with the agency to make that tweak, but not an outright repeal. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, pushing dangerous bills like this in a closed process with no debate is a lousy way to conduct the people's business. But with the avalanche of alternative facts coming out of the Trump White House every day, it should be no surprise that the House Republican majority on Capitol Hill is carrying on in such a heavy- handed way. God forbid, in the people's House, we should actually deliberate and have debate and have the kind of give-and-take that the American people expect. Mr. Speaker, as bad as this process is, as bad as dismantling the rules and regulations put in place to protect the savings of working families is, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about something that is very serious and troubling to the American people. Mr. Speaker, this administration regularly goes on TV and appears before the press--and let me say this as plainly as I can--and consistently spouts falsehoods. Now, I am told, Mr. Speaker, that under the rules and precedents of the House that there are certain things that cannot be said. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Rules Committee and as somebody who respects the precedents of the House, I am going to be very polite in how I respond here today. I will speak plainly, but politely. I want people to understand that I would like to say things much stronger based on what is happening in this country and based on what is happening in this administration. Mr. Speaker, I certainly wouldn't want to do anything to hurt anybody's feelings, but it is troubling what is happening, the falsehoods and fabrications that we hear each and every day. Some of it is trivial and some of it is silly, like saying that his inaugural crowd size was bigger than President Obama's. Who cares? But some are more sinister and more dangerous, like the claim that 3 million to 5 million ``illegal aliens'' voted for his opponent in the 2016 Presidential election. Every fact checker, every Secretary of State, both Republicans and Democrats, say this is absolutely false. There is no basis for this falsehood. It undermines confidence in our political system. My fear is that the real purpose of this claim is to put in place policies to restrict voter rights in order to make it more difficult for people to vote in this country. Mr. Speaker, every day it feels like President Trump and his White House are trying to set a new record in terms of misinformation. There are so many falsehoods coming out of this White House, it makes me nostalgic for Nixon. President Trump, in a meeting with U.S. Senators last week, repeated another falsehood, that he only lost New Hampshire because thousands of Massachusetts residents were bussed to the State to vote illegally. This is simply not true. There is no basis for this statement. This is similar to the President's fabrication that 3 million to 5 million votes were cast illegally in the 2016 election. Plain and simple, President Trump and his White House staff continue to provide zero evidence to back up their claims of voter fraud. On Sunday, when top White House aide Stephen Miller was asked about the judiciary challenging President Trump's unconstitutional Muslim ban, he aggressively attacked critics and said that ``the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.'' The powers of the President will not be questioned. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that. President Trump might talk a lot about his love for Vladimir Putin, but this is not Russia. This is the United States of America. We have checks and balances to stop authoritarianism. Kellyanne Conway, when she is not giving free commercials for the Trump family business on the taxpayers's dime, is making up stories about the Bowling Green massacre, a terrorist attack which never happened, and spouting alternative facts on a daily basis. The latest falsehood from the Trump White House is one of the most serious yet. In repeated interviews, both Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn--I should be saying now, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn--said that Flynn did not speak with Russian officials about U.S. sanctions before President Trump took office. A new report shows that that is blatantly false. After the U.S. intelligence community overwhelmingly agreed that Russia had actively meddled in our 2016 Presidential election to tip the result in favor of Donald Trump, President Obama announced strong sanctions against Russia, including expelling 35 Russian diplomats or agents from U.S. soil. When Vladimir Putin responded by saying that they would not expel any U.S. officials in Russia--what many expected he would not do--a lot of red flags were raised. A new report now shows that, in the 24 hours that followed, Michael Flynn communicated with Russian Government officials about the sanctions and may have actively undermined U.S. foreign policy weeks before Donald Trump even took the oath of office. And now we know that last month the Justice Department informed the White House of Flynn's deception of the Vice President and of the American people in the days immediately following the inauguration. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous, and the fact that President Trump did not immediately fire Michael Flynn as soon as this came to light is stunning. I guess he was too concerned about crowd size rather than a deeply compromised national security adviser. Mr. Speaker, getting rid of Flynn is not enough. President Trump must stop the blatant and dangerous falsehoods coming from his White House. We need a full and independent and bipartisan investigation not only under the purview of the intelligence committees; we need to have a full investigation out in the open so the American people actually know what happened and know how many others were involved in Flynn's undermining of our national security. Who knew what when? Was Donald Trump aware of these unauthorized talks with Russia while President Obama was enforcing sanctions? The American people deserve the truth. They deserve transparency. They deserve this Congress to actually do proper oversight. One of the most troubling parts of all this is that the American people would have been completely in the dark if it were not for the hardworking journalists and patriotic U.S. officials who helped bring this outrageous scandal to light. Now, more than ever, we need to support freedom of the press, to hold President Trump and his White House accountable. The Republicans in Congress need to start doing their job by exercising the strong oversight needed. President Trump needs to know that he answers to the American people and he and no President is above the law. Mr. Speaker, America's hardworking families deserve a Congress that puts them first and a President and a White House that tells the truth instead of spreading falsehoods to stir up fear and advance a dangerous and extreme agenda. We can have policy disagreements, but you have to tell the truth. You can't just make stuff up. As we are seeing with this administration, alternative facts are contagious. The White House is rapidly losing the public's trust, and every day that Congress fails to hold the Trump White House accountable, we are losing the public's trust as well. Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have a responsibility to stand up for the truth and hold the President and his White House accountable. We are here to serve the American people, and they need to know that we are fighting for them, not serving as a rubber stamp for this administration. I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman is correct, I did rise to object to certifying the electoral college vote. Part of it was because I was appalled by the unprecedented Russian interference in our election system. I would urge the gentleman to read--maybe he doesn't want to read the classified version of the report--the unclassified version of the report. It is pretty outrageous. That is why so many of us have been calling for an independent bipartisan commission to investigate this. But the other reason why I objected was because of voter suppression. I would say to the gentleman that that is an equally serious issue, that there is still voter suppression in the United States of America, and it is something that we need to deal with. I worry very much under the Republican majority and under this White House that we are going to see more of an effort to restrict people's right to vote. Now, the gentleman is trying to paint a rosy picture about what we are doing here. I mean, we have had 13 closed rules, 6 structured rules, zero modified open rules, zero open rules. By the end of this week, we will be a third of the way to breaking the record for the Republicans' most closed Congress in the history of the United States, and we are still in February. My friends have outdone themselves in terms of closing up this process, of shutting people out from participation. The fact of the matter is, as I mentioned, these protections that the Republicans want to repeal went through a long process, lots of review within the agencies, lots of public commentary, a long time to develop these protections. Now, if the Republicans aren't happy with it, one of the things they might do is they could bring up these rules in the form of legislation where we could have an open process, and people can amend and add and change and do whatever they want to do to make it better, if that is what they want to do. But that is not what they are interested in. It is all about a press release. This is mindless legislating. When committees of jurisdiction do not do their job, do not hold hearings, do not do markups, and all of a sudden the Rules Committee just reports something out and sends it to the floor under a closed rule, that is mindless legislating. By the way, I am on the Rules Committee. I don't think that we have yet had a single bill come before the Rules Committee that went through committee. I am happy I am on the Rules Committee. At least you see a little action going on, but I feel bad if you are on any of these other committees. This is a lousy way to do business, and I am shocked that my Republican friends come to the floor and defend the indefensible. This is not the way this House should be run. This is the kind of process, as I said at the opening, you would expect to see in Russia, not here in the United States Congress. Different ideas should be debated. People ought to have an opportunity to have their voices be heard. But yet here, in this House of Representatives--which will break records in terms of being the most restrictive Congress, I think, in history--the name of the game is to try to shut people out. I think that is wrong. I think my Republican friends should be ashamed of the way they are conducting themselves in this Congress. This is not right. I just point that out because I think it is important for people to note that, by the end of this week, my Republican friends will be a third of the way to breaking their own record for the most restrictive Congress in history, with the most closed rules. That is something that I don't think anyone should be proud of. But it is the new norm here: shut everything down, shut everybody out. I think that results in bad legislation and, again, mindless legislating like we are doing here today. Mr. Speaker, we are all deeply concerned, as I mentioned in my opening statement, with the reports from our intelligence community regarding potential foreign interference in our most recent election. Everybody should be. Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask people to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Swalwell's and Representative Cummings' bill which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate foreign interference in our 2016 election. With the revelations about General Flynn coming to light, and all that we know about his dealings with the Russians, this is extremely timely. 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, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, there is one similarity with Russia and what we are doing here today, and that is the process. This is completely closed. This is totally undemocratic. There is no opportunity for amendment. There is no opportunity for different opinions to be presented here. So, again, this process is deeply flawed. Again, my friends on the other side of the aisle may want to defend it, but I will tell you this is unprecedented. With the number of closed rules that we have seen, you are going to break all records. My Republican friends also have the distinction of presiding over the most closed Congress in history. This will outdo that because they are moving in such a restrictive and closed way. This is not right. The idea that we are going to repeal protections with an up-or-down vote without having the committees of jurisdiction even do a hearing, even to weigh the very points of view on this, to bring these bills to the floor like this in a way that would not allow people to improve these protections is outrageous. But this is the new norm here. Everything is shut down. And the gentleman is right that the previous question maybe is a little bit off subject from the two underlying bills here, but as the gentleman knows, we are currently debating the rule. This is a tool used to set the House's agenda and to prioritize consideration of legislation. For that very reason, this is, in fact, the appropriate time for us to explain to the American people what legislation we would like to prioritize and what agenda we would like to pursue in this House. Because the fact of the matter is, if we offer amendments to the Rules Committee by a 9-4 vote, we are turned down. We are shut out all the time. So this is our only opportunity to be able to bring some of our priorities before our fellow Members in the House and to be able to let the American people know that some of us in this House are horrified by Russian interference in our election. It is unprecedented what they did. Anybody who sat through any of the briefings or even read the unclassified report, I don't know how you could not be horrified by the deliberate attempt to impact our elections. And yet, we can't even get oversight in this House. The wagons have all circled around the President. You can't do anything that will make him uncomfortable. Well, the fact of the matter is this is about more than making a President of the United States uncomfortable. This is about defending our electoral system, defending our democracy. And the gentleman from California, in arguing in favor of voting ``no'' on the previous question so we can bring up a bill that would allow there to be an independent bipartisan investigation of Russian interference on our election I think is even more important, given what we know about what happened with General Flynn. Many of us said, when he was being considered for the top national security spot in the White House, that this was a bad choice. Why? Well, because this is a guy who regularly peddled in conspiracy theories, whacky conspiracy theories. Members of the intelligence community, members of our Defense Department regularly said, when he was being considered, that this was a bad choice. My Republican friends said nothing. Now we realize just how bad a choice this was and how bad the President's judgment was in allowing a man like this to be elevated to such a high position in the White House. There are serious questions that need to be answered here. I would say to my colleagues, rather than trying to dodge and rather than trying to hide and rather than trying to frustrate attempts to get to the truth, there ought to be a bipartisan effort, similar to the 9/11 Commission, where people come together and, in an open, transparent way so the American people know what is going on, are able to get to the truth. That is what we are trying to do here. We have no other means to be able to get our views heard--certainly not in the Rules Committee. Every amendment we offer is turned down. So I would say to my colleagues, vote ``no'' on the previous question. Let us be able to bring up the Swalwell-Cummings bill and have a vote on it. If you don't want to do an investigation, then vote ``no.'' But this is important and, I would argue, more important than the underlying bills, given what we are faced with. This is serious business, and it is about time my friends on the other side of the aisle treated it as serious business. I will just close, Mr. Speaker, by saying that I have served here now for 20 years, and I have gotten to know some of the finest people in this Chamber, both Democrats and Republicans. I know there are a lot of Republicans who believe, as we do on the Democratic side, that we need to find out what happened and we need to get to the truth. We don't want to see more attempts to block investigations. I hope that those Republicans would join with us and vote ``no'' on the previous question because, if you vote ``no,'' we get to bring this up, we get to vote on it, and we still get to vote on the underlying legislation. This doesn't slow anything down; this doesn't stop anything; but it allows us, at this very important moment, to be able to debate something that I know a lot of people in this country are very concerned about. Mr. Speaker, again, vote `no' on the previous question, and vote ``no'' on this closed, restrictive Putin rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. McGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Can the Speaker respond to whether this is a closed rule, which means that no amendments are in order?

Mr. McGOVERN

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a recent USDA report on ``Foods Typically Purchased by SNAP Households'' has sparked conversation in the press and on Capitol Hill about ways to promote healthy eating among those who rely on SNAP benefits. Quite frankly, I am troubled by the way the report has been characterized and by some of the responses. Flashy headlines and convenient sound bites selectively highlighting findings that tell only half the story are damaging to what should be our shared goal of ensuring that our most vulnerable neighbors have the support they need for their families. In fact, one of the key findings in the report is that the spending habits by SNAP households and non- SNAP households are very similar. I think it is safe to say that all of us could be making healthier choices when it comes to the food that we eat. But if we want to talk about promoting healthy eating among those who rely on SNAP, we need to start by enhancing and making further investments in nutrition education programs, increasing access to healthy foods in underserved communities, and expanding pilots that have proven effective in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Most importantly, Mr. Speaker, we need to increase SNAP benefits so low-income families have the ability to purchase healthier foods. Last Congress, the House Agriculture Committee completed a thorough review of SNAP--17 hearings. As ranking member of the Nutrition Subcommittee, I participated in each of these hearings, and we heard time and time and time again that the current SNAP benefit, which averages $1.40 per person per meal, is inadequate. It is hard to buy a cup of coffee these days for $1.40. This meager benefit is often too low for families to stave off hunger during the month, and certainly does not provide enough support to allow families to maintain healthy diets on a consistent basis. Without additional benefits, we know that people are making very difficult choices. They have to choose between food or medicine, between food for their families or stable housing. Research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found that increasing SNAP benefits by a mere $30 per month would lower food insecurity, decrease fast-food consumption, and increase vegetable consumption. Similarly, USDA's Healthy Incentives Pilot provided SNAP recipients in Hampden County, Massachusetts, with additional benefits if they purchased targeted fruits and vegetables, and it was highly successful. The result was an increase in healthy food consumption. Participants in this pilot consumed 26 percent more targeted fruits and vegetables per day and spent more of their SNAP benefits on these items than did nonparticipants. We know that low-income families who rely on SNAP have to make difficult choices in trying to stretch their meal budgets and often select cheaper foods that contain refined grains and added sugars and fats. This research from the Center on Budget and the results of projects such as the one in Massachusetts confirm what we know to be true: providing additional resources for food to families living in poverty will enable them to make healthier choices for themselves and their families. We should not be demonizing the poor by policing their shopping carts, Mr. Speaker. It is far too easy and has become far too commonplace for those of us with steady incomes and paychecks that provide us with access to the healthiest foods to second-guess the choices of these families struggling to make ends meet. It is insulting and it is mean-spirited and more than a little hypocritical to suggest that we meal plan for those living in poverty while we continue feeding our families the same foods that some of us suggest we should limit in our antihunger programs. Eating more nutritious foods should be a goal for all of us, Mr. Speaker. It will lead to better health, reduced medical costs, more engaged kids who are able to learn better, and also more productive adults. But if we are going to promote healthier eating and work to end hunger now, we must start by increasing the current SNAP benefits. And I would say to any of my colleagues who dealt this: You try living on a SNAP budget. You try living on $1.40 per person per meal. You will find it not only difficult to put food on the table, but especially challenging to make nutritious and healthy choices. As we consider the next farm bill, let us enhance the SNAP benefit. It is the right thing to do.