Tony Hall: “last week, I went on a hunger tour in Appalachia in parts of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia; and I heard about a man…”

“last week, I went on a hunger tour in Appalachia in parts of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia; and I heard about a man by the name of Tom Nelson who is one of the tens of millions of poor Americans we do not see. He was a senior citizen who worked at a food bank in Huntington. A few months ago, the food bank was not able to pay Mr. Nelson, in large measure because it had not received funding promised by the State for nearly a year. To stretch his Social Security check, Mr. Nelson tried to stretch his blood pressure medicine. The cause of his death was listed as a heart attack, but the truth is he died trying to feed his family. The poorest 2 rac{1}{2} percent of Americans rank with the poorest people in the world, according to the World Health Organization. I think the only thing more shameful than that is the fact that too few of us know about people like Mr. Nelson. Mr. Speaker, this is the People's House, and I urge all of us, including the Nation's media, to look harder for the 30 million Americans who go hungry each year, and for many more who every day must make the choice Mr. Nelson made between paying for food or paying for medicine.”