Political Quotes

“nearly a decade ago, at the 1996 World Food Summit, the United States joined 185 other countries in a commitment to cut the number of undernourished people in the world in half by 2015. In 2000, as part of the Healthy People 2010 initiative, the U.S. government set another, more ambitious goal--to cut U.S. food insecurity in half from the 1995 level by 2010. These are laudable and achievable goals. But our actions as a Nation have not kept pace with our words. Hunger and food insecurity have increased in this country each year since 1999. According to Household Food Security in the United States, 2003, the most recent report on hunger and food insecurity in the U.S. from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 36.3 million people--including nearly 13.3 million children--lived in households that experienced hunger or the risk of hunger in 2003. This represents more than one in ten households in the United States (11.2 percent) and is an increase of 1.4 million, from 34.9 million in 2002. In his remarks to delegates at the first World Food Congress in 1963, President John F. Kennedy said, ``We have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We only need the will.'' Forty-two years later, we still need the will, especially the political will.…”