Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I would like to talk today for a few minutes about food stamps and the farm bill. Let me preface it by saying, it has been my experience that the American people are the most generous people in the world.

We spend about $1 trillion of taxpayer money at the Federal, State, and local levels helping our neighbors who are less fortunate than we are. In America--and I am very proud of this--if you are homeless, we will house you. If you are too poor to be sick, we will pay for your doctors. If you are hungry, we will feed you. That separates our country from a lot of other countries that exist and have existed in the world, and I am very proud of those principles as an American. So I do get upset when people suggest that the American taxpayer is not generous with his or her money. We are the most generous people in the world.

In that regard, I know that for many Americans, the Food Stamp Program--we call it the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, some people call it SNAP--means the difference between an empty stomach and a warm meal, and that is just a fact. I am talking about the men and women, many of whom are hard-working, who do all they can to provide for their families, but they need just a little extra help to put food on the table. The American people are happy to provide it.

Each and every year, the Federal Government spends more than $68 billion to make sure no American has to wonder where his or her next meal is going to come from. It is the generosity of the American people that pays for those meals.

If the Food Stamp Program is going to continue to provide food to the 42.2 million Americans who use their benefits every month--and I want you to think about that number--42.2 million Americans out of a country of over 120 million, including one in five Louisianians, we have to do our part to ensure our program's integrity.

This is a natural fact. The Food Stamp Program is rife with fraud and criminal activity. Every year more than $1.2 million of SNAP benefits are stolen or misused by criminals. So it is no wonder Congress has been discussing requiring photo identification at the point of sale for the Food Stamp Program since the 1970s.

As early as 1981, our GAO testified--and GAO, they are not politicians, not Republicans, and not Democrats. I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, but they are bean counters. GAO testified that such efforts would be effective in reducing overissuance, but we have not acted.

Reform is long overdue, and the time to act, it seems to me, is right now when we are considering the farm bill. If SNAP is going to be available to the people who depend on it most of the years to come, we have to do more to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going where taxpayers intended them to go.

That is why I have offered an amendment to the farm bill which will help protect our precious SNAP dollars by requiring a photo ID to use your benefits. It doesn't take anybody off the rolls, it just says you have to have a photo ID to use your benefits.

This amendment is very simple. It will require States to list on EBT cards the names of all of those who are eligible to use the EBT card. Household members listed on the card must then produce photo ID at point of sale when they use the EBT cards--about as simple as you can get.

Two States right now are already doing it and doing it successfully. One State is Maine and one is Massachusetts. They both have successful SNAP benefit photo ID bills in law that are already saving thousands-- indeed, probably millions--of taxpayer dollars. This should send a very clear message to every Governor and every legislature and every Congresswoman and every Congressman that food stamp reforms can work.

In the past few months, we had numerous SNAP benefit fraud cases that have been identified throughout our country. In Tennessee, for example, two men were found to have been selling their EBT cards to undercover cops in exchange for cash and heroin. In New Jersey, a couple managing a grocery store exchanged more than $4 million in SNAP or food stamp benefits for cash between the years 2014 and 2017.

In Rochester, NY, a storeowner was found to have used cash to purchase food stamp benefits from beneficiaries for less than half their full value over a 5-year period. Now that is not what the American taxpayer intends the Food Stamp Program to do. That one individual's criminal actions cost taxpayers and people who really need food stamps $1.2 million. That was only one act, and I could go on and on.

In the farm bill, we are asking the taxpayers to spend $68 billion a year. We throw this figure ``1 billion'' around like it is a nickel. A billion dollars is a lot. If I started counting right now to a billion--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10--it would take me 32 years to count to 1 billion. It would be 2050 when I finished. I wouldn't make it.

We are asking taxpayers not to spend $1 billion a year, but $68 billion of their money on the farm bill. We have an obligation, therefore, to keep an eye on that money and to make sure it is going to those who need it the most. The Federal Government and not a single one of us in this Congress should stand by and tolerate criminal stealing from the mouths of children. That is not a Democratic principle; that is not a Republican principle. That is a human principle.

We owe it to the American taxpayer and to every family who relies on food stamps to put food on the table to protect the program from those who would take advantage of our generous American spirit. It is in that spirit that I will be offering my amendment.

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