Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would like to thank the chairwoman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry for her great work in bringing a bill to the floor today that does a lot of justice for families in Connecticut and across the country who are fighting every single day to put food on the table for their loved ones. The fact is, although people have an impression that our State is a wealthy one, we have a handful of the poorest cities in the country, and we have tens of thousands of people who have been ravaged by this economy. These nutrition programs funded in the underlying bill are an absolute lifeline for families who have been, largely temporarily, hit straight across the brow by this devastating recession. In Connecticut, though, for some people who don't know our State, it is hard to imagine that 11 percent of the population is today receiving SNAP benefits. One out of every ten people--one out of every ten families in Connecticut--right now relies on food stamps to either pay for their food in whole or in part. That is over 400,000 people in Connecticut. These are people such as the 87-year-old retiree from Southbury, CT, who lives in a small, very reasonable condo. She lives on about $1,100 a month. She has gone through a $100,000 home equity line of credit, but her condo fees and her electric bill--because she lives in a little condo that is heated by electricity alone--basically eat up the entirety of her budget. She couldn't eat without foods stamps.…”