Eva M. Clayton: “Eating and learning are two very important functions for the young people of this Nation and for my State of North…”

“Eating and learning are two very important functions for the young people of this Nation and for my State of North Carolina, yet both of those functions are threatened because this Congress would rather focus on the President than to fight for our children. Eating is threatened because we have not yet corrected the provision in the 1996 farm bill which are driving small farmers out of farming. Unless we allow small farmers access to credit, we are threatened with losing almost 57,000 of them. There is still time now to pass the agriculture appropriation bill of year 1999 with the corrected language. I hold out hope for that. Learning is threatened because Congress has not come to final agreement on the problems of overcrowded classes and has not addressed the problem of crumbling schools. There is still time to pass education legislation that addresses both of these problems. We still have time, Mr. Speaker, to make sure American children, we can make sure that they are fed and that they are learning, but time is rapidly falling aside.”