Political Quotes

“I agree with my friend from Kansas that we work together in many ways and have been able to get a lot of good things together by working across the aisle. I want to focus on just a couple of things to expound on what he said, though. While we, in fact, did add dollars for some emergency SNAP in the original Families First Response Act, unfortunately, about 40 percent of the households didn't get any extra help at all. These were our poorest citizens. These were those who were already getting--because their income was so low--the maximum benefit, and they got no help at all. So 40 percent of the folks didn't see anything that was just described, and, for others, we are very concerned about the temporary nature of this and the fact that it was not enough to sustain what is happening for families. The 15 percent that we are talking about, which is something that was done back during the economic recession and has been done in various ways in the past, is an important response to make sure that every single family and individual who needs food assistance--not just some but that every single one can get the help they need at this time. What has been done up to this point was a start. It is surely not enough--surely not enough. At the very beginning of this process, it was not clear how long this was going to go or how deep this was going to go. The U.S. Senate needs to respond to what we are seeing now and how families are being affected across the country.…”