Mike Levin: “I am going to vote for the amendment--I believe most Members will--but we want to make sure we do not create an…”

“I am going to vote for the amendment--I believe most Members will--but we want to make sure we do not create an inequity, an unfairness in the process. We will be paying different amounts of money to the same people, same rank, and we may actually be giving the extra money to the wrong people. Senator McCain's amendment, it seems to me, has exactly the right purpose: to get rid of food stamps going to some members. But we have to do it right. Senator Warner is going to be holding hearings in our committee on this whole food stamp situation. We, hopefully, can accomplish this goal in a way which does not create a discriminatory situation. I have one last fact. We all should be glad to know the number of our service members on food stamps has gone down, from 19,400 in 1991 to 11,900 in 1995, to 6,300 in 1999. The number of people on food stamps has been going down dramatically, not only numerically but also as a percentage of the force.”