John Chenoweth: “Mr. Chairman, what are senior congregate meals? Let me tell my colleagues. Again, I repeat, for many senior citizens…”

“Mr. Chairman, what are senior congregate meals? Let me tell my colleagues. Again, I repeat, for many senior citizens, especially those who are alone or on fixed incomes, senior centers provide a place to congregate and an excuse to get out of the house and be able to socialize. Just as important, senior centers provide low-cost, hot, nutritious meals. But without adequate funding for the congregate meals program, few local senior centers could afford to provide these very much needed hot meals. I have been in close touch with our senior citizens. Here, in fact, coming from McCall, ID, are just some of the signatures, line by line by line, of the senior citizens' signatures from just one senior citizen center. This is so important for our seniors. They have given so much to our country. The fact that we would extend more funding to family planning for healthy, vigorous teenagers and cut the funding for senior citizens is something that I think, on second thought, that we really do not want to do.”