Jamie Raskin

This is our watch. This is our watch. And it is our duty to protect our neighbors.

What makes the Trump administration's proposal so disappointing is that it comes after the President and the Republicans in Congress enacted $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.

We need to reject this latest proposal in a string of terrible proposals, this sabotage of the United States civil service.

I thank Ms. Jackson Lee for her really profound and important remarks tonight. Mr. Speaker, I would close out our session here by just making an observation about the importance of this SNAP question. It is important legislatively because…

I thank Ms. Adams for participating. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my distinguished colleague.

We are not going to be able to eliminate laziness, but maybe we can take care of hunger in America so that kids don't go to sleep without food. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ms. Adams for her leadership and her strong voice on these issues…

Three-quarters of SNAP benefits go to families: households with children in them. That should be what people think of when they think of the SNAP program. We heard a lot today in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing that…

I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for her leadership, for her vision, and for her writing. It is incisive and useful for us all. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams).

I would say to Ms. DeLauro that that came out of the Agriculture Committee, as I understand it, on a party line vote. Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, he got that right.

I thank Ms. DeLauro, and I would ask if she would be willing to stick around just for a little colloquy. Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I will.

I thank Congresswoman Jayapal for her terrific leadership on the SNAP program and for defending the ability of all of our families to not send their kids to bed at night hungry. That is really what this is all about. People on the SNAP…

I am delighted to be leading this Special Order hour on the SNAP program and the current threats against it in the farm bill. SNAP, of course, is America's most important antihunger program, serving more than 42 million Americans and…

We are a people that's committed to supporting our families, but we are also a people committed to supporting one another through the ups and downs of the economy.

I think it's wrong that there are people who are working full time who can't support their families without SNAP benefits.

I have always been a champion for the right of people to organize and to have collective bargaining in the workplace.

This is a program that, I think, matters to every Member of Congress. Americans in every single congressional district benefit from SNAP.

SNAP is, of course, America's most important antihunger program. It reduces poverty and food insecurity, and improves health and economic outcomes for more than 42 million Americans, especially children.

But it is misguided for us to think of the collection of SNAP benefits as somehow opposed to work.

I agree that all able-bodied Americans should be engaged in productive work and not sitting around all day tweeting or filing bankruptcy or watching TV.

How many people lost their jobs after the 2008 mortgage meltdown crisis, which accounted for a large part of the dramatic increase in people on SNAP after President Obama took office?

Why would someone need SNAP benefits if they're working, and they're playing by the rules, and they're going to work every day?

Were there any work requirements imposed on the big tax bill that gave hundreds of billions of dollars to wealthy investors?

I am a little bit astonished that we have descended to the level of political theater and spectacle in this committee.

The totality of what the Trump administration is doing here is denying information to the American people, denying it to Congress...

I would love to see the follow through on that.