Press Releases

M. Speaker, as we near the end of 2010 and the 111^th Congress, I want to take a few minutes to talk about an issue that is critically important to the health and well being of our country. It is also an issue that I care deeply about. That issue, M. Speaker, is hunger.

I've said it over and over again, but it bears repeating -- hunger is a political condition. We know how to end hunger in America. We have the resources to do it. What we need is the political will to make it happen.

We've made some important progress over the last few years. We enacted historic improvements in the food stamp program, now called SNAP. WIC, the program that ensures that pregnant mothers and their newborn and infant children have access to nutritious food, has been fully funded. Food banks received the assistance they needed to fill their shelves as they worked to put food in the hands of hungry families. We passed the Hunger Free Communities Act, a law that provides localized grants to combat hunger around the country. The Farm Bill included historic improvements to anti-hunger programs, most importantly indexing SNAP to inflation. The Recovery Act did even more, by increasing emergency funds to SNAP beneficiaries - allowing them to buy more food at a time when their incomes were falling because of the economy.

Finally, on December 13^th, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act into law. This law will improve the quality of food served at schools to our nation's children.

I have been honored to serve as the Co-Chair of the House Huger Caucus, and I want to thank my colleagues on that caucus - Democrat and Republican - for their commitment to this critical issue. I especially want to thank my friend and co-chair, Jo Ann Emerson, for her incredible work.

But we have much more to do. The USDA recently released their annual food insecurity, or hunger, statistics. The simple and unfortunate fact is this: because of the economy, hunger is getting worse in America, not better. In 2009, the number of hungry Americans increased by 1 million over the previous year. According to the latest data, over 50 million Americans - including 17.2 million children - went hungry at some point in 2009. These are the highest numbers ever collected by USDA. And if that weren't bad enough, future SNAP funds - money provided under the Recovery Act - have been raided for other critical programs.

M. Speaker, I love this institution and am honored to serve as Member of Congress. But it is a peculiar place. None of my colleagues - Democrat or Republican - will tell you they are pro-hunger. You'll never see a Member of Congress take a bottle out of the mouth of a hungry baby or swipe a can of beans that had been donated to a local food bank.

But that's precisely what we will be doing if we choose to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the hungry in this country. I want to tackle our deficit as badly as anyone else. And in order to dig ourselves out of this fiscal hole, then ALL of us will need to sacrifice - not just the poor and the middle class. It is simply unacceptable to provide billions in tax relief for millionaires and billionaires while at the same time cutting programs that literally put food in the mouths of hungry people.

Ending hunger is not just the right thing to do - it's also in the best interest of our nation's future. It's a national security issue, it's an education issue, it's a jobs issue, it's a health care issue, it's a productivity issue, it's a fiscal health issue.

We have a lot of work to do, M. Speaker. The President is committed to ending childhood hunger by 2015, but we're not doing enough to reach that goal. Budgets will be tight for the foreseeable future, and it's going to be difficult to fund these vital programs.

But rest assured, M. Speaker, this issue is not going away. We must not ignore the needs of the hungry in America. We must continue to work with anti-hunger groups, nutrition groups, religious groups, the Administration and others to finally end hunger in America.

We can do this. I urge my colleagues in the 112^th Congress to join in this effort.

I yield back the balance of my time.