Jim McGovern

So, if my Republican friends want to use a lot of scary words like 'government takeover' and 'socialism' today, have at it.

Today the Rules Committee is holding a hearing on the Medicare for All Act, and this marks the first time Congress has ever held a hearing on Medicare for All.

I am now respectfully requesting that the Nutrition Subcommittee hold a hearing on the ABAWD population before making any changes to current SNAP law impacting this group of vulnerable adults.

The Administration expects about 3/4 of a million people to lose food assistance under this proposed rule.

Jobs just aren't always as easy to come by as some of the statistics show.

This is a lousy and rotten thing to do to poor people. They look at SNAP as an ATM to pay for their other priorities.

I don't know how cutting off somebody's SNAP benefit is going to make it easier for them to get to a job where there is no transportation.

Yes, we want to help people get into the workforce. We ought to be investing in worker training, education, and transportation.

We have the Administration ignoring what Congress decided, which is frustrating.

The average SNAP benefit is about $1.40 per person per meal.

The ABAWD population is a complicated population. It doesn't fit into a nice, neat category that you can stigmatize.

The majority of able-bodied adults on SNAP right now actually work.

I think a strong message from this committee that we are watching and that we are not happy with any attempts to withdraw from the implementation of the peace accords, I think, would be very, very welcome.

I have a lot of constituents too who have been victims of this--of all these drugs coming into our country.

And no wall and no barrier and no new restrictions in our asylum laws will prevent families from fleeing until the root causes in each country are addressed, including corruption and impunity.

I urge the committee to take a hardline with the State Department on what determines effective steps to reduce attacks against human rights defenders.

The level of attacks and murders of rights defenders is astonishingly high.

I want Colombia to succeed. And I think we need to put pressure on this new government in the area of making sure that they adhere to the peace accords.

I also co-chair the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Colombia, and currently Colombia is the deadliest place in the world for rights defenders.

It is great to be here, and it is great to hear Eliot say we are going to pass a State Department authorization bill.

My commitment as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee is I will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to bolster the State Department and USAID.

So one of the things we can do together as Republicans and Democrats in Congress is to turn back attempts by the administration to hollow out American diplomacy and development.

And so I keep hearing that the morale is terrible, that the expert people that have been around for so many years are leaving in droves.

What was particularly galling to me was the first proposal came out of the administration when the administration was new, cutting the State Department 31 percent, at the same time putting increases in defense.

I think when he comes up here, we can't be a cheap date. We need to make sure that he keeps his promises.