On the recordOctober 13, 2011
Let me thank the Speaker for yielding time to me this morning. As I begin my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a brief remark about one of the preceding speakers, Congresswoman Barbara Lee from Oakland, California, who has been an advocate for poverty, food insecurity, human rights, and all of the global issues that we have talked about over the years. And I want to thank her for her leadership on this very important issue. Congresswoman Lee is the founder of the Out of Poverty Caucus here in the House of Representatives, and I am honored to serve as one of her cochairs. But the Congresswoman is absolutely correct; on this Sunday, October 16, we will celebrate World Food Day, a day to increase awareness, understanding, and informed, year-round action to alleviate hunger across the globe and in our neighborhoods. The statistical evidence of pervasive and persistent hunger is absolutely staggering, notwithstanding the human stories of working families in my communities of eastern North Carolina or families in eastern Africa who cannot get enough food to eat on a daily basis. And so I want to take this opportunity to remind all the Members of this body that millions of Americans, millions of people suffer from hunger; and unless we commit to eliminating this scourge, these human beings will suffer persistent poverty, reduced rights, and even death. We must come together, Mr. Speaker, to make hunger and nutrition issues, these issues, a priority.…
