Burgess Owens: “our last debate today was very instructive when you combine the last debate of the day, which was a debate about whether…”

“our last debate today was very instructive when you combine the last debate of the day, which was a debate about whether or not our great Nation will feed legal immigrants by allowing them into the food stamps program, and you combine that debate with the debate we had earlier about making permanent a tax cut which will provide for the richest people of the Nation further tax relief. The tax cut is equal to four times the size of the budget of the entire Department of Education. It is more than three times as large as the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Transportation. When you look at that combined with the fact that next week we are going to be discussing the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Act, that replacement of the old Aid to Families With Dependent Children, we are looking in America at sort of contradictions. Let us add to that the fact that earlier today we debated the placement of a cap on the farm subsidies act, the farm bill. The farm subsidies were created in the same spirit that the Aid to Families with Dependent Children was created. It was created in the same spirit as food stamps were created. They were created on the assumption that there are certain Americans who need help. We need a safety net for them. The safety net is there for people who need food, and food stamps were a way to administer and process our assistance to people who need food.”