“I voted against a bill that cuts agriculture funding by $1 billion. That makes it harder for farmers in my state. The bill also cuts food benefits for poor Americans. That takes food away from children, veterans, and disabled people. In my district, 30% of households need food assistance. We should not take food away from poor families. I want the Senate to put the food benefits back in the farm bill.”
Official Congressional Record
Madam Speaker, as our Nation continues to commemorate our 250th anniversary, we are reminded that the ideals on which America was founded are as critical today as they were then: a nation built on a promise that every person has dignity and that no one should be left behind--the land of opportunity. Last month, the House passed the Fiscal Year 2027 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, funding for the USDA and other ancillary purposes. The bill cuts, unfortunately, the United States Department of Agriculture's budget by more than $1 billion while farm bankruptcies are increasing and rising costs to farmers as it relates to energy costs, fertilizer costs, et cetera, are having a dramatic impact. Certainly, in California, bankruptcies are up from last year by 44 percent. That is devastating. In the San Joaquin Valley, growers are already fighting rising costs, volatile markets, and pest and disease threats. That is a normal part of farming, but this doesn't meet the moment. It makes it harder. It makes it harder because the USDA is part of a safety net for American agriculture. For hungry families, it is even crueler. It takes food off the table. I ask what it says about us, in this 250th anniversary that is intended to commemorate the greatness of our country, that we are stripping food from the most vulnerable Americans and calling it a positive trend. Give me a break. Madam Speaker, 46 percent of Americans being cut from SNAP are children--children, not criminals, not fraudsters. They are children. Over 700,000 kids have already lost their food benefits, and that is only in the 12 States currently reporting the child-level data. The real number, I think, is far worse. We are talking about mothers stretching bags of groceries to the last of the week and oftentimes making difficult choices between food or medicine for their children. We are also talking about veterans who have served this country and now have difficulty putting food on the table. We are talking about people with disabilities who have nowhere else to turn. We are talking about our neighbors. They are Americans living during the celebration of this 250th year of this Republic. A drop in enrollment has nothing to do with fraud or a stronger economy. It has to do with people losing their benefits that they are entitled to. Yet, many of my Republican colleagues cut SNAP and nutrition assistance twice. They have done it twice, once in the big, not so beautiful bill, in my view, and they have done it a second time in this ag appropriations that was passed last month. Again, the Agriculture appropriations bill made this cut, as I said, 5.6 percent, or another $6 billion below last year's enacted measure. On top of that, they are cutting fruit and vegetable benefits from the Women, Infants, and Children's program--fruits and vegetables, healthy aspects of our diet. It makes no sense why we are making it harder for families in underserved communities to put fresh, healthy food on the table. I voted ``no'' on that bill. My district in the San Joaquin Valley in California has some of the most vital, richest agricultural production anywhere in the country or the world, yet we have a significant amount of people who are food insecure. Almost 30 percent of households in my congressional district rely at some time or another on SNAP. It is one of the highest ratios in the State. Most of these households include a child, a senior, or a person on disability. These families are not living large, believe me. They are barely surviving. Madam Speaker, in this 250th year of America, I think we should be lifting people up and not taking food off their dinner tables because food in America is a national security issue, as I like to say. It is an international security issue when we look at food hunger around the globe and cuts that have taken place in USAID that were devastating, to make but one of those examples. Our Founders did not build this Nation so that two and a half centuries later we would be debating whether or not hungry children deserve to eat. The farm bill on the Senate side gives us another chance, and I ask that we reconsider the SNAP payments on that farm bill in September. Fraud is a crime, but hunger is not. Let us honor the values of this anniversary.
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