Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. McGOVERN. At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to another leader on this issue, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a letter to the Congress from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, which opposes the cuts that are contained in the FARRM Bill. Office of the Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, May 30, 2013. Hon. Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. John Boehner, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Speaker Boehner and Leaders Pelosi, Reid and McConnell: As you continue your work on the 2013 Farm Bill, I write to ask that you consider the importance of the following priorities, which, while not an exhaustive list, will help ensure that we continue to provide the most vulnerable Americans with access to healthy and affordable food, as well as strengthen our many diverse farms that are integral to the Commonwealth. In Massachusetts, over 880,000 individuals are served by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), 40 percent of who are children. SNAP helps lift families out of poverty and works to bridge the gap so that struggling Americans can put food on the table. I urge you to protect the overall integrity of SNAP and refrain from restricting eligibility, reducing benefits or funding for this critical program. Specifically, I urge you to protect the highly successful Heat and Eat state option. In Massachusetts over 125,000 households currently participate in this program and if it were eliminated they would see a decrease of about $70 per month in their SNAP benefits. Eliminating or placing new burdensome requirements and restrictions on this successful state option will simply lead to increased food insecurity for more of our most vulnerable residents. In addition, households receiving benefits through a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant are currently categorically eligible for SNAP. A proposal in the House bill would restrict this categorical eligibility. Many low-income individuals, particularly the elderly, would no longer be eligible for SNAP. This population is already under represented because they are either unaware they are eligible for SNAP benefits or too proud to apply. This change will result in many elders going without the food assistance they need and deserve. I agree that program integrity is important for SNAP. Your committees can emphasize the importance of program integrity by increasing the percentage of administrative costs reimbursed by the federal government for those states, such as Massachusetts, that invest in efforts to improve program integrity, such as in data sharing and mining software designed to identify household composition, income, assets and participation in other public assistance programs. As we continue to combat childhood obesity and the increased risk of diabetes, we should do all we can to promote and provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables for our SNAP families. I therefore also urge you to authorize appropriate funding to promote the acceptance of EBT in all farmers' markets and other non-traditional produce vendors. Bay State farmers have averaged $490 million in cash receipts and employ over 12,000 workers across hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in active production. In Massachusetts, approximately 80 percent of our farms are family-owned, making it all the more important to maintain an inventory of farmland for future generations. For this reason, I urge you to authorize robust funding for conservation programs in the 2013 Farm Bill, including the Farms and Ranchland Protection Program, which has helped the Commonwealth preserve and protect nearly 14,000 acres of farmland. I also urge you to provide adequate mandatory funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps our farmers plan and implement conservation practices to improve soil, water, plant and related resources, as well as Conservation Innovation Grants, which have directly assisted the implementation of over 100 farm energy projects in Massachusetts, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Further, programs funded under the Energy Title have been critical to helping Massachusetts farmers and rural business owners lower their energy bills through renewable energy installments and energy efficiency improvements. I urge you to authorize robust funding for the Rural Energy for America Program to help our farms continue to make key energy improvements. Since 2009, REAP has helped to fund 44 biomass, solar, energy efficiency and wind projects in rural areas of Massachusetts. The dairy industry generates over $50 million in cash receipts from milk and other dairy product sales in Massachusetts. Small dairy farms, which predominate in Massachusetts, are particularly vulnerable to changes in the dairy industry, such as the wide fluctuation in market prices of milk and animal feed. At times, such market fluctuations drive down the price of milk while simultaneously driving up the cost of production, often resulting in low or negative margins. To ensure that the dairy industry continues to sustain and improve in Massachusetts, long term solutions including supply management and margin protection are crucial. I therefore support the inclusion of the Dairy Production Margin Protection Program and the Dairy Market Stabilization Program in the 2013 Farm Bill. Finally, Specialty Crops Block Grant funding is critical to our agriculture economy, as specialty crops, including our vibrant cranberry bogs, make up a majority of our food crops. With over 400 growers producing approximately 35 percent of the nation's cranberry supply, cranberries are the number one food crop in Massachusetts and have a crop value of $104 million. I respectfully request that you authorize yearly funding for the Specialty Crops Block Grant at the FY2013 $55 million level, at a minimum, to allow us to continue to enhance the competitiveness of our specialty crops. As you continue your work on the Farm Bill, I urge you to protect these important programs and vital benefits in order to provide certainty and stability for low-income families, our farmers and rural small businesses. Sincerely, Deval L. Patrick, Governor.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Hahn).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of points to some of the things the gentleman from Texas said. He talked about the increased numbers of people who are on SNAP. The reason why is that we've had a difficult economy. We've had the worst recession since the Great Depression. Lots of people lost work, and lots of people are underemployed right now, so that's why. The CBO tells us that, as we look to the future and as the economy gets better, the number of people on SNAP will go down. So this is there for people who have fallen on hard times. That's why the numbers have increased, and they're going to go down. The gentleman says that this bill somehow represents reform. This is not about reform. When you come up with reforms, we deliberate. In the Agriculture Committee, in the Subcommittee on Nutrition, do you know how many hearings there were on SNAP? Zero. None. In the full committee, do you know how many hearings there were on SNAP? Zero. None. Then the language appears in the bill that we have before us during a markup. If you really want reform, you have to listen to people, and you have to deliberate. That's what hearings are for. We have to reach out and figure out how to make this program better. I'm all for making this program better, but that's not what this is about, so let's not have anybody be under the misimpression that this is about reform. This really is about trying to find an offset to be able to pay for all of the other things and to try to use this to help kind of balance the budget. We're not going after the big agribusiness, and we're not going after crop insurance. What we're doing is going after poor people. They don't have super PACs, and they don't have big lobbyists down here, so there are no political repercussions. That's what this about. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a leader on this issue, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the gentleman from Texas, the chairman of the Rules Committee, and I appreciate his courtesies in the Rules Committee yesterday, but I have to object to the way he is kind of characterizing those people who are on SNAP. Demonizing and stereotyping people who are on SNAP as somehow rapists, pedophiles, and murderers is just plain wrong. It's just wrong. Please don't do that. These are people who are law-abiding citizens, they are good people, and they've fallen on hard times. Millions and millions and millions of these people work for a living but they earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP. I have to interject that because these people don't deserve to be demonized, they deserve a helping hand. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to insert in the Record a letter to the New York delegation from Governor Andrew Cuomo opposing these cuts in the farm bill. State of New York, Executive Chamber, Albany, NY, June 13, 2013. New York Delegation: It is well known that the importance of the Farm Bill goes beyond New York's agriculture industry and conservation efforts. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), within the Nutrition Title, is a program that helps struggling New York families put food on their table. SNAP is one of the most effective anti-poverty components of the nation's safety net. Approximately 3.1 million New Yorkers utilize SNAP to buy groceries. As the Farm Bill moves toward enactment, I urge you to fight to protect the integrity of SNAP, its current streamlined administrative requirements and program benefit levels. Specifically, I urge you to maintain the successful ``Heat and Eat'' state option. In New York, more than 300,000 households currently participate in the program. In New York, when a SNAP household is also eligible for Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), the State deems that household eligible to have the Heating and Cooling Standard Utility Allowance (HCSUA) used in their benefit calculation, and usually results in a higher SNAP benefit for the household. It is critical to maintain the ability to predicate eligibility for the HCSUA on eligibility for and anticipated receipt of the LIHEAP benefit. Both the House and Senate bills restrict the states' ability by requiring SNAP households to be in actual receipt of the LIHEAP benefit. If the state option is restricted as written, these households will see their benefits decrease by roughly $90 per month. Congress should allow New York to continue this innovative strategy to deliver benefits, which reduces administrative costs, instead of increasing the administrative burden on the State, which ultimately requires more resources. In addition, I urge you to preserve the Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE) option that is slated for elimination in the House bill. Households which receive benefits through the Temporary Assistances for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or a state-run low-income general assistance program are categorically eligible for SNAP. Since 2000, New York has been able to use BBCE to eliminate the duplicative and time- consuming requirement that households who already met financial eligibility rules in one specified low-income program go through another financial eligibility determination in SNAP. Eliminating BBCE will force the state to revert back to requiring a separate asset limit for SNAP, with a threshold of $2,000 ($3,000 for elderly)--unchanged since 1986. This outdated threshold will disqualify applicants even though they meet the same extreme poverty requirements other safety net programs. Many low-income New Yorkers, particularly the elderly and working households, would no longer be eligible for SNAP. These groups tend to have assets, such as a small savings account which, though putting over the asset threshold, is not a true indication of their poverty status. Eliminating BBCE will result in the elderly and children in low-income working families going without the food assistance upon which they depend. Furthermore, BBCE is an example of good public policy that has both streamlined administrative requirements and reduced payment error rates to the lowest of any federal program. Without BBCE, states would be forced to waste critical resources in order to allocate staff time to duplicate enrollment procedures and incur the cost of modifying their computer systems, reprinting applications and manuals, and retraining staff. In addition to the above cuts, the House bill would cut $11 million in funding from the SNAP Employment and Training program (E&T). The Senate bill would preserve the current $90 million funding level until FFY 2018, when it would cut the funding by $10 million. New York serves more than 150,000 individuals through SNAP E&T, which provides sorely needed job preparation and job placement services for SNAP participants. This funding is the only available targeted federal support to enable SNAP participants to engage in these services, which ultimately provides a path to employment, financial stability, and a reduction in SNAP costs for federal government. The solution to lowering the cost of the SNAP program is not reducing enrollment numbers by restricting eligibility and cutting benefit levels. SNAP is a safety net program in the truest sense of the word; there is no other more fundamental human need than food. There is never a good time to cut SNAP benefits or pass burdensome unfunded mandates, but I respectfully suggest that doing so during a period of economic insecurity, it would be especially harmful to our most vulnerable citizens. SNAP's low payment error rate--3.8 percent--shows us that benefits reach those who are truly struggling, and it is not a program filled with individuals ``gaming'' the system as many incorrectly proclaim. Cutting benefits and making the program more restrictive may help lower deficits in the short term, but it will prolong the struggle for the millions of New Yorkers who still feel the impacts of the worst recession since the Great Depression. A Farm Bill is critically important to New York's recovering economy, but those still beaten down by the recession should not be denied basic food assistance. As a fellow New Yorker, I urge you to not support House and Senate Farm Bill provisions that will decrease benefit levels and limit future eligibility. Sincerely, Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor. At this time, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank the gentlelady for yielding. Let me get this straight. So, if Congress doesn't do its job, we don't get punished--poor people get punished. I think we have it backwards here. Why should we hold poor people hostage to the fact that somehow this Congress can't get its act together? For our lack of ability to get things done around here, we don't hold people accountable who receive other subsidies who are, quite frankly, well off. This is yet another in a series of amendments to diminish the plight of poor people, to demonize programs like SNAP; and I really think it's unfortunate. I mean, we're going to punish poor people because we can't reauthorize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. What a terrible idea. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will agree with us on this and reject this.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Absolutely. We want a farm bill that supports our farmers, that supports small- and medium-sized farmers in particular, that helps promote good nutrition, that helps deal with the challenges that farmers all across this country face, but it cannot sacrifice the well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in this country. I thank the gentlelady for her participation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time to address my colleagues about one of the most important issues that we face in this country, and that is hunger. We have a problem in the United States of America, I'm sad to say, where we have 50 million of our fellow citizens who are hungry; 17 million are kids. This is the case in the richest, most powerful Nation on the planet. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Food is not a luxury. It is a necessity, and everybody in this country ought to have a right to food, and that should not even be controversial. Yet, we have a FARRM Bill that we will begin debating tomorrow that cuts SNAP, which used to be the food stamp program. It cuts it by $20.5 billion. That's billion with a B. What does that mean? It means that 2 million people who currently receive the benefit today, tomorrow will lose it. It means that over 200,000 kids who are eligible for free breakfast and lunch at school today will lose that benefit tomorrow. Those aren't my numbers. Those aren't the numbers of some liberal think tank. Those are the numbers by the Congressional Budget Office, CBO. They say that if the FARRM Bill passes, and if those numbers stay in, 2 million of our fellow citizens will lose their food benefit. Mr. Speaker, I find that unconscionable. We are trying to emerge from one of the worst economic recessions in our history. Record job losses over the last few years. We've had people of all backgrounds lose their jobs, find themselves working now in jobs that don't pay very much, struggling, trying to keep their families afloat. And one of the lifelines during this difficult economic time has been the SNAP program. It has enabled many families to be able to put food on the table. You can't use SNAP to buy a flat-screen TV. You can't use SNAP to buy a car. You can only use SNAP to buy food. That's what this is all about. And in the FARRM Bill, for whatever reason, it was decided that, rather than looking for savings in the crop insurance program, which we know is rife with abuse, rather than looking for savings in some of these special kind of giveaways to agribusinesses, these sweetheart deals, rather than trying to find savings there to put toward balancing our budget, it was decided to go after, almost exclusively, this one program, SNAP. Mr. Speaker, I heard up in the Rules Committee, during our consideration of the amendments today, people, a number of people say, well, all we're doing is eliminating categorical eligibility. A lot of people don't know what categorical eligibility is. A lot of people who are supporting these cuts don't know what categorical eligibility is. Basically, this was a Republican idea to kind of streamline a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork at the State level. So if you qualified for welfare, then you would automatically be enrolled in the SNAP program. It doesn't mean you would automatically get a benefit. It means you would be enrolled in the program, and if you qualified for the benefit, you would get it. It was kind of one-stop shopping for people who were poor, for people who found themselves experiencing a difficult situation. It has saved States lots and lots and lots of money. It has made it easier for people, during these economic difficulties, to be able to get the benefits that, quite frankly, they're entitled to. And so when you eliminate categorical eligibility, what do you is you put an extra burden on States. States will end up having to pay more for additional bureaucracy. There'll be more paperwork. There'll be more confusion. The other thing that happens when you get rid of categorical eligibility is that you will make it more difficult for people who are eligible to get the benefit and, therefore, many people who are still experiencing tough times, who are eligible for a food benefit, will not be able to get it. Mr. Speaker, this used to be a bipartisan issue. And I remember, during the 2008 farm bill, you know, one of the things that saved that farm bill was the food and nutrition part of the farm bill. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, whom I'll yield to in a few minutes, working with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and I was happy to play a little bit of a role in it, helped fight to up the nutrition program in the farm bill in 2008. As a result of that, we were able to pass a farm bill. And as a result of that, we were able to help millions and millions and millions of families. That's a good thing. But, for whatever reason, in 2013, programs that help poor people have become controversial. My Republican friends have diminished and demeaned this program called SNAP. They have diminished the struggle of poor people. I said in the Rules Committee today, I reminded my colleagues in the Rules Committee today that the average food stamp benefit, the average SNAP benefit is $1.50 a meal, $1.50 a meal, and $4.50 a day. That's like one of those fancy Starbucks coffees. That's what this is. This is not some overly generous benefit. This is not even an adequate benefit, quite frankly. But in some cases it is a lifeline for many families. That's what it is. A number of us, over this last week, have been trying to dramatize the fact that this is a modest benefit, so we have lived on a food stamp budget for this last week. I've got two more days to go, but I've lived on $1.50 a meal, $4.50 a day. It's hard. It's hard to be poor. It's hard to shop when you're poor. It's hard to plan meals when you're poor. Given the opportunity between being poor or being able to be self-sustaining, to be able to buy whatever food you want, whenever you want it, you would prefer the latter. Nobody enjoys being on this benefit. Some of my friends say that this creates a culture of dependency. Well, I remind those people who think that that there are millions and millions and millions and millions of people in this country who work for a living who earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP. They rely on SNAP to put food on the table. And by the way, that's not enough, so they go to food banks and food pantries to be able to add to their ability to be able to put food on the tables for their families. In 1968, there was a CBS documentary entitled ``Hunger in America,'' and it created quite a stir, because a lot of people in this country looked the other way and didn't realize that hunger was as bad as it was. George McGovern, a liberal Democrat from South Dakota, and Robert Dole, a conservative Republican from Kansas, got together and helped create the food stamp program, now known as SNAP, helped create WIC, helped expand school meals for kids in schools, made sure that poor kids had access to meals during the summer. They worked in a bipartisan way, and proudly, in a bipartisan way, doing what they could to make sure that nobody in this country went hungry. And in the late 1970s, by the late 1970s, we almost eliminated hunger in America. I mean, this kind of bipartisan coalition produced incredible results that almost eliminated hunger in this country. And then in the 1980s we started taking steps backwards, and today we have 50 million of our fellow citizens who are hungry. I would say to my friends who are thinking about how to vote on this FARRM Bill, you know, we should not have to choose between a good and adequate nutrition part of the FARRM Bill and good and adequate farm programs. They should go together. In fact, the only thing you can buy with SNAP is food, so who benefits from food purchases? Well, farmers grow food, so farmers benefit from those purchases. So they're not separate and distinct. In fact, they're very, very much related. And this marriage between nutrition and farm programs has resulted in the passage of many important farm bills over the years. But for whatever reason, we find ourselves in a situation where that kind of coalition is breaking apart, and I regret that very, very much. I want a farm bill. I represent a lot of agriculture in my part of Massachusetts. But I want a farm bill. I want a good farm bill. But I'm not going to vote for a farm bill that makes hunger worse in America. That's not the legacy I think we want to have here in this Congress. I think what we want to be able to do is to tell our constituents that we passed a good farm bill that not only helps our farmers but also helps people who are struggling. There is nothing wrong--in fact, there is everything right--about our dedication to helping the least fortunate among us. Those who have said that, well, we don't want to be known as the food stamp Congress, I would respond to them as follows: I am proud to live in a country that has a social safety net. I am proud to live in a country where we don't let people starve. I am proud to live in a country that has programs like SNAP, like WIC and like school feeding to make sure that our citizens have enough to eat. Why is that all of a sudden controversial? I'm going to tell you that SNAP is not a perfect program. Yes, there has been some abuse in the program to be sure. And to the credit of USDA and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, under his leadership, there has been a concerted effort to go after those who abuse the program. Anybody who abuses this program, in my opinion, ought to have the book thrown at them. These are taxpayer dollars going to support a program to help people get enough to eat. And when people abuse the program or misuse it, we ought to throw the full extent of the law at them. They ought to be fined and, in some cases, even arrested when they abuse taxpayer dollars. But I will also say to my colleagues that SNAP, according to the General Accountability Office and according to a whole bunch of other studies, has one of the lowest error rates of any Federal program. I only wish some of the missile programs under our Pentagon's jurisdiction had as low an error rate and had as low a record of abuse of taxpayer dollars as the SNAP program has. This is a good program. This is a good program. It can be better, and we should make it better. But let me say this: if you want to make it better, then maybe what we ought to have done in the Agriculture Committee is actually have a hearing. When people say that there are reforms in the FARRM Bill with regard to SNAP, I kind of cringe because how did you get to that number? How did you get to this so-called ``reform'' when there wasn't a single hearing in the Subcommittee on Nutrition? There wasn't a single hearing in the full Committee on Agriculture. It is important that we make this program as perfect as it possibly can be. It is important that we try to make sure that every bit of abuse and fraud is taken away from this program, but there's a right way to do it. We deliberate. That's what we're supposed to do in Congress. You hold hearings, you listen to all different sides, you listen to how you can improve the program, and then we come together and we make those improvements. But we ought to also understand that we need a larger discussion in this country on how to end hunger. We need to understand, as we debate the FARRM Bill, that SNAP is one tool in the anti-hunger toolbox. It doesn't solve everything. It doesn't solve everything. What it is is one program to help alleviate hunger. What we need, and I've called for, is the President of the United States to bring us all together under the auspices of a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. Let's talk about this issue holistically. Let's take on some of these big issues of how do you end hunger in America. Let's deal with that. And in convening such a summit, the President could bring all the different agencies in our Federal Government that have a piece of the pie in terms of battling hunger in America because not all of these programs fall into one agency. They fall into multiple agencies. Let's bring them all together. Let's figure out how we can better connect the dots. Let's call in our State and local governments. Let's call in businesses, the philanthropic community, our hospitals, our schools and our nutritionists. Let's call in our food banks, our food pantries and all the NGOs that have been out there struggling to end hunger for decades. Let's get everybody in a room together and lock the door until we have a plan. If you want to end hunger, the first thing is you ought to have a plan. We in this country, quite frankly, do not have a plan. So until we get to that point where we get a plan, what we ought not to do is take away from these programs that at this point do help alleviate hunger. We ought not to undercut the importance of SNAP. We ought not to throw 2 million more people off the program and hundreds of thousands of kids off free breakfast or lunch programs. What do we do? I asked a question when I was reading the CBO numbers about how many people would lose their benefits. My question is, Where do these people go? What do they do? What do they do without a food benefit? Do they just show up at food banks, 2 million more people just show up at food banks? Talk to your local food banks. Talk to your local food pantries. They're at capacity. They can't take any more people. This notion that somehow charity will just pick up all the slack is a bunch of nonsense. Talk to the charities. Talk to the churches. Talk to the synagogues. Talk to the mosques. Talk to the food banks and food pantries. They can't handle what they're dealing with right now. Just one final thing, and then I'm going to yield to my colleague from Connecticut. I also want my colleagues to understand another thing. Over the years, we have used SNAP as kind of an ATM machine to pay for other programs. As a result, come November of this year, if we cut nothing else, if we cut nothing else, people's benefits are going to go down. The average family of three will lose about $25 to $30 a month. That may not seem like a lot of money to some of my colleagues here in Congress, but $25 or $35 a month might be a week's worth of groceries. It might be what keeps somebody afloat for a week. It is a big deal to somebody who is in poverty, and we ought not to diminish that. We ought not to diminish that. I'd also say that it really troubles me when I hear people demonize these programs and again diminish the struggle of those who need to take advantage of these programs. Listening to some of my colleagues testify before the Rules Committee today, you would think that our entire Federal deficit and our debt is all because we have programs like SNAP. They are wrong. They are wrong. SNAP didn't cause the debt that we have right now. What caused the debt are two unpaid-for wars that are in the trillions of dollars, tax cuts for wealthy people that weren't paid for, a Medicare prescription drug bill that wasn't paid for, and bad economic policies. Not this. Not this. This is a safety net; and it's a safety net that, yes, can be improved, but it's a safety net. One of the things that we in Congress are supposed to be focused on is how we help people, help people who are in need. Donald Trump doesn't need our help. He's got all the money in the world. He's fine. But there are lots of people who don't live on Wall Street, but who live on Main Street who are just holding on by their fingertips, who, in some cases, their Sundays are spent trying to figure out how to just put food on the table for their families. There is not a congressional district in America--not a single one--that is hunger-free. There is not a community in America that is hunger-free. If you've ever met a child who is hungry, it breaks your heart. And it just shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be. We are a better country than that. So rather than going after this program, rather than going after WIC and SNAP and programs to help poor people put food on the table, we ought to be talking about the larger question about how to end hunger now. Having said that, let me yield some time to my colleague from Connecticut, who's been a leader on this issue and who, in 2008, helped boost up the nutrition components of the farm bill, which made it a better farm bill and helped millions of people. So I yield to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlelady for her comments and for her passion and for her efforts on this issue. I hope that my colleagues, in a bipartisan way, will indeed say ``no'' to these terrible cuts. It's hard for me to believe that we're going down this road, that we're going down a road where 2 million people are going to lose their food benefits, hundreds of thousands of kids are going to lose their access to a free breakfast and lunch, and we're all just kind of saying, ``It is what it is.'' Well, it isn't. This is a big deal. I don't quite know why it's easier to pick on programs that help poor people versus programs that help rich people. You outlined earlier all these kind of little sweetheart deals and special interest kind of giveaways that kind of go untouched, such as how crop insurance oversight is not what we all think it should be. Yet a lot of times lucrative interests get those monies and get those benefits. Maybe there's a political consequence if you take on a powerful special interest. Maybe they won't show up to your fundraiser. Maybe they'll contribute to a super PAC and say that you're bad. By contrast, poor people don't have a super lobby, don't have a super PAC. So maybe there's a debate going on of where will I get the most heat and not what is the right thing to do.

Mr. McGOVERN. Let me say to the gentlelady that I couldn't agree more. I've met with countless parents who have tearfully told me the anguish that they experience when they're not quite sure whether they'll be able to put food on the table for their children's dinner or for their breakfast or for their lunch. I'm the parent of two children, an 11-year-old daughter and a 15- year-old son. I can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to provide them food. I think as a parent nothing could be worse because your kids are your most precious and important things in your life. This is for real. This is real life.

Mr. McGOVERN. I would say to the gentlelady that the points she raises are very important because the health of our children should be first and foremost, and we are now experiencing in this country a record level of obesity. There is a tie-in between food security, hunger, and obesity. People who are struggling in poverty do not have the resources to be able to buy nutritious food. Sometimes they live in food deserts and they rely basically on food items that just kind of fill them up with empty calories. So now we're dealing with that. So if we looked at this issue holistically, we could solve a whole bunch of problems in this country. I'd like to think that there is a lot of bipartisan consensus on what we can do in ending hunger and promoting better nutrition and trying to build those ladders of opportunity to help people get out of poverty, perfecting these programs to go after the waste, to go after the abuse, to go after those who are outliers in this program who choose to try to basically rob the American taxpayer. Let's go after them, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Let's not just turn our backs on the success stories.

Mr. McGOVERN. Where's the justice in that?

Mr. McGOVERN. I received a postcard from a young mother who is on SNAP and who is kind of watching this entire debate unfold. She sent a very simple message to me that said, ``Don't let Congress starve families.'' We should be about lifting people up. This is not about a handout. It's about a hand up. This is not about a culture of dependency. This is about making sure that there is an adequate safety net in this country to deal with people who have kind of fallen on hard times.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank my colleague from Connecticut for her eloquent remarks. I think tomorrow, hopefully, we can do something about it. I will have an amendment, I hope, if the Rules Committee makes it in order, to restore the SNAP cuts, to reverse the $22.5 billion worth of cuts. Members on both sides of the aisle will have an opportunity to vote up or down on it. I think how we vote on that is a statement of our values and whether we think that government has a role and, indeed, whether our community has a role to be there for the least among us. I tell people all the time that hunger is a political condition. You can't find anybody in this place who is pro-hunger or who at least will admit it, but somehow the political will doesn't exist to end this scourge once and for all. We can end it. The maddening thing about this problem is that it is solvable. When people say to me, Well, we can't spend any more money, my response is, The cost of hunger is so astronomical that we need to figure out a way to end it. If that means spending a little bit more in the short term to help extend ladders of opportunity for people to be able to get out of poverty, then we ought to do it. Hunger costs. I mean, kids who go to school who are hungry don't learn. They can't concentrate. They don't learn. Senior citizens who can't afford their medications and their food and who take their medications on empty stomachs end up in emergency wards. One of the pediatricians at Boston Medical Center told me about young children who have gone without food for periods of time who end up getting something that is nothing more than a common cold, but their immune systems are so compromised that they end up spending several days in the hospital. So if you're not moved by the moral imperative to end this problem, then you ought to be moved by the bottom line, which is that it costs us a lot of money to not solve this problem. There was this great film that just came out a couple of months ago called, ``The Place at the Table.'' Two great young filmmakers--Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush--directed this film. It documents hunger in urban, rural, and suburban America. It shows the face of hunger in America--young, middle-aged, old. I mean, it is there and it is heartbreaking. We brought up to our Democratic Caucus in a meeting a few weeks ago some SNAP alumni, people who grew up and were on food stamps and who came back to say thank you for investing in them, for helping them get through a difficult time. Many of them now are doctors and lawyers and engineers and professors and have been very successful in paying back much more than we invested in them. We want success stories. This place, this Congress, should be about lifting people up, not telling us how bad things have to be, not telling us that we have to put people down in order to move forward-- trample over people--because that's what we do when we cut programs like this. We ought to be thinking big and bold about ``how do you end hunger?'' and ``how do you end poverty in this country?'' There is a way to do it. We saw what happened in the 1970s with George McGovern and Robert Dole. Things have obviously changed. Let's perfect this program, but let's connect the dots so that we are creating a circle of protection that actually helps lift people out of poverty. I would like to think the goal of those of us on the Democratic side and the goals of those on the Republican side are to help people become self-sufficient--to succeed. That's what we want, but you are not helping people succeed when you take away food. That's what is at stake in this FARRM bill. I know the gentlelady agrees with me, and I know she feels very strongly about this, but we will have an opportunity, hopefully tomorrow, to be able to have a debate and a vote up or down on whether we should cut this program in a very draconian way--to throw 2 million people off the benefit, hundreds of thousands of kids off free breakfasts and lunches. What happens to those people? What do we tell them to do--go to your local charity?

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Chair, I want to begin by thanking the chairman of the Ag Committee, Mr. Lucas, and the ranking member, Mr. Peterson, for their hard work. There have been countless hours on this bill, and so have their staffs. I appreciate their dedication. I very much want to support a farm bill, so it is with deep regret that I come to the floor to say that I cannot support this farm bill. The main reason is because of the $20.5 billion cut in the SNAP program. That is too much, that is too harsh. Two million people will lose their benefits. Over 200,000 kids will be knocked out of the free breakfast and lunch program. Those aren't my statistics or a liberal think tank's statistics; that's what CBO says, the Congressional Budget Office. What happens to these 2 million people? Where do they go? Where do they get food? The fact of the matter is food is not a luxury, it is a necessity. There are some who have said that all we are doing is reforming SNAP and we are dealing with the rising costs. If we were truly reforming SNAP, I would feel better about it if we held at least one hearing on it in the subcommittee. In terms of dealing with rising costs, the best way to deal with that is to invest in our economy and put people back to work. When more people go to work, the number of people on SNAP goes down. It's countercyclical. That's how you decrease spending on SNAP. Madam Chair, we have 50 million people in this country who are hungry--17 million are kids. We all should be ashamed. We ought to be having a discussion on how to end hunger in America. SNAP is one tool in the antihunger toolbox to end hunger. We need to have a broader discussion. But I can say with certainty that cutting SNAP by $20.5 billion will not alleviate hunger in America. It will cause more pain, more suffering, and more misery. I want a farm bill that not only helps our farmers but moves us toward a day where we no longer have hunger in America. Unfortunately, this bill as written will make hunger worse.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

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

Mr. McGOVERN

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