"I share the sentiments of my colleagues. It is nice to have you, Mr. Secretary."
"I don't think we should lessen our commitment to food and nutrition programs, and divert those monies to someplace else."
"I think about my State where we're having so many issues, if we were reversing those investments."
"I fear that we can make lots of adjustments to the criminal justice system, but we are still going to have it as a de facto environment for institutional care for this population."
"I hope this is a stepping off place to do that."
"SNAP can't do it all, but what it is supposed to do, which is to make sure that people don't go hungry in this country, I think it needs to do it better."
"I encourage this Committee to remember that there are states who--even without waivers, and exceptions, and changes have not done the jobs that we intend."
"SNAP in and of itself is not a jobs program; it is a food program."
"What we need is a clearinghouse to be able to highlight best practices, but we also need to talk very candidly about ways that we can sew up some of the holes in the social safety net."
"SNAP benefits processing has fallen by 23 percent, and this is a design as part of reforming the program: 20,000 lost their food benefits."
"Those kinds of incentives can be very counter-productive, and create exactly the opposite intent, of innovation and productive reform."