Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the 20th time this Congress, I stand here to talk about how we can end hunger now. Hunger is a political condition. We have the food; we have the means; and we have the systems to end hunger now. We know how to do it. We just don't have the political will to make it happen, but that wasn't always the case.

In the late 1960s, America began seriously to confront its poverty problem. President Johnson fought the war on poverty, and his programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and title I education programs--just to name a few--started to combat the poverty and inequality that were rampant across many parts of this country. President Nixon followed in his footsteps by hosting the first and only White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health, a conference that focused on hunger in America.

The result of that conference was a precipitous drop in the number of hungry people in America. Contrary to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's belief, the antipoverty programs from the Johnson administration and the antihunger programs created by the Nixon administration worked. In fact, hunger and poverty would be much worse today if it weren't for these programs.

The truth is we almost eradicated hunger in America thanks to a strengthened food stamp program and the creation of the WIC program in the 1970s, but those gains were erased and hunger increased because of the policies of Ronald Reagan. Since then, we've seen food stamp usage increase during every single administration. We can and we must do better.

One of the highlights of the effort that nearly ended hunger in America in the 1970s was the WIC program, formally titled the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. WIC is an innovative program that provides nutritious food and food counseling for pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and children under the age of 5.

Why is this program so critical?

Madam Speaker, prenatal enrollment in WIC is associated with lower infant mortality, in fewer premature births, and in a lower likelihood that infants will have very low or low birth weights; and because an infant's medical costs increase tenfold if he is of low birth weight, every dollar invested in WIC yields between $1.90 and up to $4.20 in Medicaid savings. This is literally about improving the physical well-being of developing children. This program affects these participants for the entirety of their lives. It's just that important, and it's critical that we get it right.

But, unlike SNAP, WIC is a discretionary program. This means that it is subject to the appropriations process; and in this time of budgetary austerity, WIC was included in the across-the-board cuts to defense and non-defense discretionary programs under the sequester. SNAP was excluded because it's an entitlement like Social Security and Medicare, but WIC was included in the sequester because it is not an entitlement.

As if the cuts in sequester were not bad enough, the House Agriculture appropriations bill now cuts the program even further by more than $500 million. The 7.3 percent cut to WIC in this bill could result in over 200,000 pregnant mothers and infants losing nutritious food. Even factoring in the reserve fund, 55,000 moms and kids will go without the nutrition that they need. It is sad that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is cutting vital health and development programs for pregnant and nursing mothers and their very young children while at the same time they've found billions of dollars to send overseas in a wasteful war in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, during my series of End Hunger Now speeches, there has been one unifying theme that, I believe, puts us on the path to end hunger now. That theme is Presidential leadership. We need Presidential leadership to end hunger now. The last White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health nearly ended hunger in America. I know that we can do even better if President Obama would convene such a conference. With a White House conference on food and nutrition, we could focus on ways to reduce hunger and obesity in smart, not arbitrary ways. We could figure out how to treat hunger and obesity as health issues while we work on ways to properly attack these scourges.

Madam Speaker, we desperately need Presidential leadership. We need a comprehensive plan. We need the political will. We need a White House conference on food and nutrition. I urge the President to act now.