Political Quotes

“first, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania for his passion and for his being such a wonderful partner on these issues. I very much appreciate his speaking about the fact that there is an economic benefit. If nothing else, if someone wants to look at how we can help our farmers, how we can help our grocery stores, how we can help those in the food chain--all of whom we want to help as well--you do that in the most efficient way possible, which is by giving people the funds to go buy food directly in the grocery stores so that they are able, when they have a need like this, to support their families. The great thing about SNAP is that it is set up so that when the economy gets better, the food assistance goes down. When the economy gets worse, the food assistance goes up. The challenge for us right now is that there is such a crisis and there are so many more people needing help--people who never in their lives thought they would need help--that we are in a situation in which we are called upon to meet that need and to be able to increase what we are doing. There was a small effort at the beginning to provide some additional help, but it nowhere near met the need we have now--nowhere near. When I think about negotiating the CARES Act and the fact that, again, the average benefit for food assistance in this country per person is $4.17 a day, the White House said no to any increase to the $4.17 a day.…”