Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gen tle lady, and I thank her for her leadership on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I lament with Mr. Lucas that we don't have a bipartisan bill, because I know that's what he wanted, that that's what he forged and that that's what has been abandoned, unfortunately, by his party. I think that's sad for the country. It's even sadder for the people who will be so adversely affected.
Mr. Speaker, several weeks after House Republicans broke with longstanding practice and cut nutrition program funding out of the farm bill, they are now bringing a nutrition-denying bill to the floor. Shockingly, their version of nutrition assistance is to cut $40 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called ``SNAP.''
What does this mean for the 14 percent of our fellow citizens? Luckily, 86 percent of us are doing pretty well--we can put a meal on the table, and we can feed our children; but 14 percent of our fellow citizens can't have confidence that they can do that.
Has America fallen so low in its moral compass that we are not prepared to make sure that, in the richest country on the face of the Earth, they have food on their tables? Have we fallen that low?
It means 210,000 children dropped from the school meals program. It means 170,000 veterans in need losing some or all of their food assistance. It will affect Americans of all ages, and it will especially harm seniors, students, and individuals with disabilities.
Tuesday's Census Bureau report confirms that too many Americans remain in poverty as a result of lingering effects from the recession. This is reflected in the rise over the past few years in the number of Americans who rely on food assistance to eat a decent meal from day to day. In the wealthiest country on Earth, there is no reason why so many Americans should have to go hungry, and now is certainly not the time for Congress to make it harder for them to feed themselves and their families.
Do we need to bring down the deficit? We do. Do we need to do it on the backs of the poor? We do not.
Instead, we ought to be helping Americans find jobs and access to opportunities so they will no longer need SNAP assistance. We should go to conference with the Senate, as I know my friend Mr. Lucas wanted to do, which passed a bipartisan farm bill in June by a vote of 66-27. Two-thirds of the Members of the United States Senate, a majority of the House Agriculture Committee, and, in my view, a majority of this House wanted to do this, but we did not do it. Of course, we should have gone to conference weeks ago, but, sadly, this Congress remains dysfunctional.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this punitive legislation, and I call on the Speaker to appoint conferees for the farm bill so we can see a compromised version reflecting the compassion and wisdom shown by bipartisan-acting Congresses over the last four decades.
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