Political Quotes

“Today I rise to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's war on poverty. In 1964, President Johnson stood in this Chamber and addressed a Congress that represented a nation where more than 25 percent of Americans lived in poverty. In his address, President Johnson launched an agenda that led to the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, Job Corps, Head Start, and nutrition assistance for those who struggle to put food on their table. His war, and its resulting programs, helped move millions out of poverty. From 1967 to 2012, the poverty rate fell from 26 percent to 16 percent, largely because of the strong safety net programs initiated by President Johnson's agenda. Yet here we are today, 50 years later, and too many Americans are still living on the outskirts of hope because the war on poverty has now become a war on the poor. In the last year alone, Congress has agreed to indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts known as sequestration in an effort to balance the budget, and the House passed a farm bill that cut SNAP by $40 billion. Sequestration hurts the very people who need help the most by greatly reducing critical funding to programs like WIC and Head Start. Congress drastically cut one of the most powerful antipoverty programs, SNAP, better known as food stamps. That is absurd when, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, SNAP kept 4.9 million Americans out of poverty in 2012 alone, including 2.2 million children.…”