Pete Sessions: “Once again, the gentleman comes down and evidently is either unwilling or has not read the bill to an understanding…”

“Once again, the gentleman comes down and evidently is either unwilling or has not read the bill to an understanding where the statement was made about preventing 280,000 children from receiving a free school lunch. Nothing in this bill makes changes to the school lunch program. The National School Lunch and the School Breakfast Programs automatically qualify students who are enrolled in SNAP for free school meals. The school meals programs are not authorized under this bill nor are eligible for requirements under this committee's jurisdiction. I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I need to qualify something here. I want to respond to what the gentleman just said. The fact of the matter is, when children's parents get cut from SNAP, then children are no longer eligible for free breakfast and lunch in school. That's where we get the number of 270,000 kids who will lose their free breakfast and lunch programs. That's the connection. So it is connected. So I would point that out because it is important. I don't want anyone to be fooled by the fact that somehow this doesn't affect school meals. It does, very directly. At this point, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).”