Jim McGovern

I urge the Committee to fully fund the storage and distribution account at $100 million.

I would strongly urge the Committee to fully fund WIC at $3.36 billion.

I urge the Committee to protect the structure of the program, which is our Nation's first line of defense against hunger.

I find it unconscionable that 42 million Americans live food-insecure and hungry.

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.

A group of homeless men and women receive meals from volunteers on May 18 in Morgantown, West Virginia.

The SNAP program is one of the most efficiently, effectively run programs in the Federal Government.

The answer to that is yes. And there are lots of stories, but again, I will go back to this Washington Post story that I referenced in the beginning.

Of those who are not working, the population is very complicated, and it includes returning veterans, it includes people who are chronically homeless, people who have undiagnosed mental illnesses.

The notion that we would even entertain cutting SNAP by $10 billion, to me, goes against everything that I heard today in terms of how we ought to be approaching this issue.

Finding $10 billion worth of cuts in SNAP is a terrible thing to do, and it is going to make people's lives more difficult.

When you cut this program, what you are doing is you are taking food away from people.

I believe we ought to be asking the question how do you end hunger in this country.

SNAP is a vital, important program that millions of families rely on to put food on the table.

Being poor in this country is hard work, and I would like to think that we would recognize that, and this budget that has been unveiled today does not.

I will just say one final thing. If this is the budget and this is what we are going to see in the farm bill; a cut of $10 billion, and I think that may be a floor, not even a ceiling, then I will predict right here and now we will not…

I am tired of the perception that somehow everybody on SNAP is lazy or doesn't want to work.

67 percent of the people on this program are not expected to work or cannot work; they are children, they are senior citizens, they are people who are disabled.

I just read the Republican budget where there is a proposal out there for a $10 billion cut in SNAP: $10 billion.

Oftentimes work doesn't pay in our country, and we need to make work pay in our country.

Again, in the past SNAP has accounted for $92 billion of the $104 billion in savings.

Yes. I have to tell you, I just want to say it is important that we not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. This research is incredibly important, and we need to make sure it is funded.

I just hope the budget that we enact reflects our rhetoric; because, as you are pointing out, the research that goes on at your institutions is incredibly important, but we need to do more than talk the talk, I mean we need to make sure…

Yes, all this is very, very interesting too, but not everybody has access to the technology that we are talking about here today.

Well, that is a problem. And so what happened to those shoppers in Louisiana who went with their SNAP cards and were told that they couldn't purchase their food?