"I am so happy that we are holding this hearing because this is a challenge that I have dealt with at the local level, at the State level, and now, I guess, at the Federal level."
"It was in the last budget there were proposed cuts. We saw in the draft of this budget $1.7 billion in proposed cuts to food security nutrition programs."
"There is absolutely no advantage and our kids deserve healthy meals. And we are a nutrition program, not just a feeding program."
"I know that the last thing that a teacher wants to do is ever restrain a child."
"I want you to know that one in eight people in Connecticut are food-insecure, about 17 percent, or 100 in 17,000 children."
"Kids don't learn when they are hungry."
"I appreciate the work that the Department has gotten done."
"I am glad that my colleague Marcia Fudge brought in the fact that these are not regulations; these are laws."
"Shouldn't you have the right to live out your best life, to live the future that you want for yourself and not this by-default position that you are placed in because you are attempting to survive?"