Sam Farr: “Thank you very much for yielding. I rise in strong opposition to the $19.405 billion allocation that our Subcommittee on…”

“Thank you very much for yielding. I rise in strong opposition to the $19.405 billion allocation that our Subcommittee on Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration- related agencies received, but I rise in support of the rule for moving this process forward with a great floor debate. The allocation given to our committee is $1.7 billion, or 8 percent, below what the President requested; and it is $365 million, or 1.8 percent, below what we enacted in the House last year, in 2012. Chairman Kingston, my colleague on the Republican side of the aisle and chair of our committee, does a great job. He has talked about how we have savings that have been found and that, in tough budgetary times, everybody has got to tighten his belt. We all know that, but it's about the cost of tightening those belts and about those who depend on those programs which, in many ways, are their survival. I feel several programs have been cut so deeply that people will either be unable or will have difficulty in performing the duties of those programs. This bill slashes Food for Peace by 22 percent. Let me be crystal clear about what this cut means. Mr. McGovern just spelled it out very clearly. It's the wrong thing to do. It means 6 million to 8 million people will face starvation--6 million to 8 million people. Cutting food aid only increases the need to bump up other, more costly efforts later on. It means that 44,000 Americans who produce that food could be losing their jobs.…”