Relating to the death of the Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg, a Senator from the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, tonight the Congressional Black Caucus comes before this body and the American people for the next hour to talk about important issues facing our country.

Tonight, we will discuss the problem of poverty in America and what we can do to bring more Americans into the middle class. From SNAP to the earned income tax credit, from Head Start to TRIO and GEAR UP, we have effective programs that reduce poverty and open

up opportunities for people in the low income. Unfortunately, these programs are often the first targeted for cuts.

When you are worrying where your next meal is going to come from, you probably don't have a lot of time to lobby Congress. Well, tonight, we're here to speak to these important issues, and we're also here to listen. So, hopefully, we will be able to answer some questions from our constituents from across America.

If you're watching and you have something that you'd like to let us know about, get on Twitter and tweet #CBCtalks, and we'll do our best to answer your questions.

At this time, I'd like to turn to the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentlelady from Ohio, the woman providing tremendous leadership to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to bring forward the issues that are facing so many American families, and those families particularly in poverty today, they have a voice, and for the next hour we're going to bring their voice to this body here in Congress.

Thank you for your leadership and for fighting the fight on this very important issue of poverty in America.

Over the last week, we had our work period. And I had the opportunity to be in my district, Mr. Speaker. One of the things we did was an outreach event where we had a ``Commuting with your Congressman.'' I boarded a bus--public transportation in my district--and I met and listened to my constituents for 4 hours as we traveled throughout the various corners of my district--from Centennial Hills to downtown to the new veterans' hospital, where our veterans literally board a bus in a wheelchair--to listen to the struggle that so many Americans are facing; the fact that they are even struggling to make ends meet. There was a mom who boarded the bus who said it takes 2 hours each way to get to work. They can't always make it to a town hall meeting. They can't always come to our district offices. But they deserve to have a voice here in Washington on these important issues.

So much of what this Congress is talking about is the budget and the priorities of the budget. Well, that mom is a priority of mine. That veteran who takes public transportation to get to their veterans' appointment is a priority of mine. That young man who is 17 years old and going to his first job interview so that he can work his way through college is a priority of mine. And it's a priority of my colleagues who are here tonight, along with the cochair for the CBC hour, Mr. Jeffries from New York. We're going to bring a voice to these issues tonight--and everyday--as the CBC does.

At this time I would like to turn to my colleague who cochairs Poverty and the Economy for the CBC, as well as chairing the whip's task force on eliminating poverty, the gentlelady from California, Representative Lee.

Thank you, Congresswoman. Let me just engage you for a moment because you hit on a number of points.

I want, again, to make sure that we are providing a voice to these very important issues. And to follow the conversation, if you're tuning in, go to our hashtag at #CBCTalks.

But you focused on the fact that nearly 46 million people in our country live in poverty; 16 million of them are children. You talked about the poverty line. In 2013, the poverty line for an individual is $11,490. For a family of four, it's $23,550.

So can you elaborate further on the SNAP program, how that program provides for a safety net for individuals and how is it that a family of four in America can survive on $23,550 a year?

Well, I know the challenge is something that you have called upon for people to accept. This is a reality for 16 million children, 46 million Americans who are living at this level now. The average meal is $1.48 per meal.

Poverty is not partisan.

Thank you very much, Congresswoman Lee. Thank you for your leadership and for those solutions that you're offering to help move people out of poverty and into the middle class and recognizing that many of these programs that those on the other side propose to cut are actually safety nets.

The sequester alone would cut $85 billion but would directly affect 50 million Americans living below the poverty income line. So they're hurting the very people that we should be sustaining during these difficult economic times.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to turn to my colleague, the gentlelady of Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), the alum of TRIO. She is a dynamic leader who talks so much about the need to help young people get the quality education, particularly first generation college students. I know we're having a college student debate right now on whether or not

we're going to allow student loan rates to double on July 1. The Republican plan puts students in debt, provides no certainty. We're hoping that between now and July 1 we will come up with a bipartisan solution that will keep our college loan rates and will address the more comprehensive need to make college more affordable.

I defer to the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Congresswoman Moore.

Thank you, Congresswoman Moore. I couldn't agree with you more when you talk about, first and foremost, your last point, which is if we fail to invest in our children, in our elderly, and in the disabled, then we have done a disservice to them and to society as a whole.

And so a lot of times when these programs get talked about, the various acronyms, billions of dollars here and billions of dollars there--waste, fraud, and abuse I know gets brought up oftentimes as kind of the red herring in the room in a lot of our committee hearings--but really the reality is there's a face behind each one of these programs. There's real people depending on them--as you indicate, the 250,000 children who would lose free and reduced-cost lunches.

How is a child supposed to learn if they're hungry? How are they supposed to focus if they haven't been able to see a doctor or see a dentist? These are real issues that are facing this Congress. And I know a lot of times, again, those on the other side somehow want to make this out to be more than what it is on people, and how it affects people.

``Opportunity'' I think is the key word there, Mr. Speaker. This isn't about a handout, this isn't about providing social services; it's about opportunity. Education is one of those most fundamental opportunities. And you, again, as an alum of TRIO programs and an advocate for funding up TRIO/GEARUP, these programs which provide tremendous opportunity to particularly first generation college students, those who may not have even had the knowledge of how to go about applying to enroll, let alone financial aid and scholarships--but yet it's that opportunity, that door to opportunity that then leads to careers and their ability to contribute, to sustain for themselves and their family.

That's what we're talking about, Mr. Speaker, is providing that opportunity. And right now we're having this big debate of whether that opportunity should come with a huge burden of debt.

Because if they finish school, when they finish school, should they be so far in debt they can't afford to buy a home, to buy a car, to start saving for their future, or should they be focused on paying $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 a month in debt for college loans?

Of course. And with your voice and your continued participation I'm sure we will do just that, which is to continue to advocate for these as priorities.

And I do want to go, as I turn to my colleague from North Carolina, the vice chairman of the CBC, to a quick question that came in from the Twitter line. It's from Dr. Davis 920, who asks: How can we increase money in underserved areas for students from high school to college instead of doing more with less funding?

I'm going to ask our vice chairman if he would tackle that question as he provides his response.

I yield now to the gentleman from North Carolina, Congressman Butterfield.

Thank you again to our vice chairman for the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentleman from North Carolina.

I really want to commend you for being very plain with how desperate the situation is for so many people. You talked about 36 percent of the people in North Carolina, in parts of your district, who are living in poverty and about the fact that they are going without basic fundamentals, things that many of us probably just take for granted in America. There are people in America who are going without the basics, and that is not something often that's talked about here in Washington, definitely not in this House. When so much attention is placed on corporate special interests and subsidies for big corporations, it's time that we start changing the debate and focusing on the people who most need government support, and those are the people you just talked about, so I commend you for that.

You were very clear, and I know Mr. Clyburn would expect nothing less than for us to lay out what our position is.

I know some people ask: What is the Congressional Black Caucus' position on how to address poverty?

You touched on it. It's the 10-20-30 policy. This means that 10 percent of funds from certain accounts would be directed to areas that have had a poverty rate of 20 percent for the last 30 years in America.

So, rather than spending money everywhere, let's spend it where there is the most need, the most critical need, and where there has been a generational need now for 30 years so that we can see the type of outcomes, the return on investment and the change that people so desperately need.

Thank you to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Now I would like to turn to the cochairman of the Progressive Caucus, the gentleman from Minnesota. I want to commend the gentleman and the Progressive Caucus because I know you had a hearing before the recess in which you brought low-income wage earners and had a special hearing to listen to their concerns and on how working people, really the working poor, are struggling. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota at this time.

What's ironic about the culture of dependency is they never talk about it when we bring up corporate welfare and corporate entitlements.

If we really want to talk about entitlements and who is depending upon government, then let's put it all on the table: the billions of dollars that go to special interests, but yet we want to take away services for poor, needy children, families, the elderly, and the disabled. That's really the comparison.

Thank you to the gentleman from Minnesota, and, again, thank you for your leadership. On behalf of the Progressive Caucus, we work together here to try to bring these issues forward and we appreciate your hard work.

I'm so pleased to be joined by the coanchor for this hour, my good friend, the gentleman from New York, who represents, I think, a community that has constituents who are struggling, like many constituents in my district, the Fourth District in Nevada.

So I just want to pose the question to you, Mr. Jeffries, around this whole issue of income inequality that we just spent nearly the hour talking about. The fact that it's increased by more over the last 3 years than in the previous 12 years, that under the Republican policies, the budget that they proposed, middle class families with children pay, on average, $3,000 more in taxes, but yet higher tax cuts, upwards of $245,000, were given to some of the wealthiest in America, and here we've heard about so many programs such as SNAP to GEAR UP to TRIO, funding for K-12 education, for Head Start, $20 billion cuts to SNAP that are on the cutting board, and yet we are giving tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporate subsidies, what do you say about that, my friend from New York?

I yield to you at this time.

I thank, again, my good friend from New York, Mr. Jeffries. I just want to ask you, the proposal by the CBC which supports a 10-20-30 policy for Federal spending, how do you feel this would improve outcomes, address prioritizing of resources, and create the type of positive impact that would ultimately lead to reduced poverty in America?

I thank my friend and co-anchor and those who have listened for the last hour. Thank you for joining the conversation at #CBCTalks, and we are going to continue this conversation because 46 million people in our country live in poverty; 16 million of them are children. The U.S. poverty rate has risen and approaches a 50-year high. There's no way in America a family of four can live on $23,550 and not expect some type of support.

So these are the issues that we're confronting, Mr. Speaker. We want to work with our colleagues on the other side, but we want to do it in a way that addresses the root causes of the issue.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert additional materials on this topic and also House Resolution 242.

First, let me thank my colleague for your tremendous leadership and yourself and Congressman Jeffries for leading the charge on another timely and important topic: the ongoing crisis of poverty. You both are continuing in the tradition of the Congressional Black Caucus being the conscience of the Congress. And so thank you very much for your leadership and for your commitment to the least of these. I think in your remarks, Congressman Horsford, you laid it out as clear as anyone could lay it out.

As the cochair of the Congressional Black Caucus' Poverty and Economy Task Force, as well as, as Congressman Horsford said, the chair of the new Whip Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity, let me just highlight how truly important it is to continue to, first, fund programs that lift Americans out of poverty. Income inequality continues to grow. Unfortunately, too many people who are working are poor, and they're living on the edge. It's truly unacceptable that 46 million people in our country live in poverty in the richest and most powerful country in the world. And 16 million of those are children. In communities of color, poverty rates are even worse. A staggering 27 percent of African Americans are living in poverty. And so the Congressional Black Caucus, through the tremendous leadership of our chairwoman, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, has made the eradication of poverty a key priority.

Our policies and programs addressing poverty have not kept pace with the growing needs of millions of Americans. It is time that we make a commitment to confront poverty head on, create pathways out of poverty and provide opportunities for all. Yes, we want to make sure the middle class is strong and survives and the middle class does not fall back into poverty. But we have many, many people who are not even part of the middle class and who are striving and working hard just to maintain and take care of their families and who would one day like to be part of the middle class. And so the Congressional Black Caucus and our whip task force and many in this body continue to speak on their behalf and represent them.

That's why many of our CBC colleagues and I came together to introduce H.R. 2182, which is the Half-in-Ten Act of 2013. The Half-in- Ten Act would

establish the Federal agency working group on reducing poverty. The working group will develop and implement a national strategy to reduce poverty in half in 10 years, as well as provide regular reports of its progress to Congress and the American people. Our Nation needs a coordinated and comprehensive plan to bring an end to poverty in America. It is morally right, economically sound, and fiscally prudent.

So I urge all of our colleagues to join us and support the Half-in- Ten Act. It's beyond time that we put the ongoing crises of poverty on the front burner for this country. Yet the draconian sequester and harmful budget cuts to vital human-needs programs are only making things worse for struggling families.

I serve on the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Committee. It was mind-boggling to hear the other side talk about a commitment to reducing poverty. Yet they gut the vital programs, the ladders of opportunity, the pathways out of poverty such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps; the Women, Infants, and Children program, or WIC; Meals on Wheels; the Earned Income Tax Credit, and all of these programs that lift people out of poverty.

Our chair mentioned the House farm bill. Let me emphasize this again. The reauthorization includes more than $20 billion in harmful and fiscally irresponsible cuts to the food stamp program, our Nation's first line of defense against hunger. Not only is cutting SNAP morally wrong, it's economically bankrupt. Cuts to nutrition programs will cost the government more money in the long run, but also it is just probably the worst thing that I have ever seen proposed.

As a former food stamp recipient myself, I know firsthand how important these safety net programs are. I would not be here today if it were not for the lifeline that the American people extended to me when I was a single mother struggling to care for my kids. No one wants to be on food stamps. No one. Everyone wants a job. They want to take care of their kids. But there are bumps in the road and the economy has not turned around for many. And so that bridge over troubled waters needs to be there.

So a $20 billion cut, people cannot afford that. Our economy cannot support that. Hungry children do not deserve these cuts. And cuts to any hunger program will have further cascading impacts that will create a bleaker future for our children. Communities of color, again, especially African American communities, will feel these impacts even more. African American communities have higher infant mortality rates, diabetes, HIV and AIDS and are more likely to be uninsured. If we continue to balance our budget on the backs of the most vulnerable, we will surely push these families over the edge. That is why members of the Congressional Black Caucus will do everything in our power to ensure that our Nation's most vulnerable are protected.

Starting next week, in an effort to highlight the impact of any further cuts to our Nation's food and nutrition programs, myself, as well as Congressman Jim McGovern; our Congressional Black Caucus chair, Marcia Fudge; Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky; our Democratic vice chair, Joe Crowley; and others are, leading and taking part in the food stamp challenge.

We need to raise the level of awareness of what is taking place here in Washington, D.C. So we are going to commit ourselves to limiting our food budget to the average SNAP benefit for a week; that's $1.50 per person per meal. We will show how vital it is to strengthen and fully fund SNAP, and we're asking all of those who can do so to join with us. We will just be on this for a day or a week. Millions of people will live daily on $4.50 with no end in sight.

Finally, let me just say we must protect the most vulnerable and grow the economy and our antipoverty programs like SNAP, which is one of the best programs to do that.

So I urge my colleagues to reject these cuts, stop sequestration, and let's work together to create jobs--because that's what everyone needs and wants--and lift the economy for all.

Thank you again for your leadership.

Thank you very much, Congressman Horsford, for that question and for laying the facts out.

There's no way a family can survive on $23,000 a year in America, I don't care what region that they live in. Secondly--and Congressman Ellison is going to speak in a moment--the Progressive Caucus held a hearing, and we talked with low-wage workers, workers who are actually working for Federal Government contractors in our Nation's capital making $6, $7, $8 an hour. You know what? These are working men and women who need food stamps. They're working each and every day, 10, 12 hours a day.

So when you look at what a cut like this would do, first, you have people who are making $6 or $7 an hour, living on $23,000 a year, family of four, and then you're going to cut their food supply. I mean, people are going to go hungry. We are going to see an increase in hunger both in rural communities and in urban communities in our country. In the long run, it's going to just cost us. If people just care about the fiscal impact--which I hope everyone in this body cares about, first, the human and the moral impact, but also the economy and the economic impact--you know, we're going to pay in the long run.

So it's just wrong and it doesn't make any economic sense. There's no way people in this country, in America, the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, can survive off of $23,000 a year. We need to, first of all, raise the minimum wage. We need a living wage. In my region, it would be about $25 an hour. People deserve to live the American Dream, and they're not.

$4.50 a day, Congressman Horsford. And let me tell you, these people are living in our districts, in Democratic Members of Congress' districts and Republicans' districts and Independents' districts. They're in rural communities and in urban communities. So, unfortunately, it's an equal opportunity.

No way. So we need bipartisan support to begin to eliminate poverty.

Adding insult to injury. That's what's happening here.

I want to thank you so much, Representative Horsford from Nevada--and Representative Hakeem Jeffries as well, who is here with us--for focusing on this effort and to conduct, this evening, this Special Order on lifting Americans out of poverty.

You know, it was very, very difficult to listen to Representative Barbara Lee provide those data and those statistics of the numbers of Americans who are living in poverty. Reflecting on my own personal experience, reflecting on what I see every single day among my constituents, the stark poverty, especially of children, it is very, very difficult to talk about this because this is just not abstract; this is very real.

For the purposes of this discussion though, with your permission, Representative Horsford, I would like to just modify your motto or your theme for one moment. Instead of talking about lifting Americans out of poverty, I'd like to talk about lifting America out of poverty.

You see, America is heading down the road to not just having 46 million Americans living in poverty, not just having half of Americans during the recession relying on food stamps and having that as their only means of support, not just having African Americans or Hispanics or those living in stark rural poverty being the victims of poverty, but having poverty pervade our entire community. Because we, by not investing in educational opportunity of young people, are eating our seed corn.

Rice farmers have taught us not to eat our seed corn. They say that when we do that, when you plant something, you eat a certain portion of it and you preserve some of it so that you can plant and have a harvest for the future. Those people who eat their seed corn are committing an act of desperation. And that is what we're doing by cutting off educational opportunity to programs.

I'm specifically talking about TRIO. TRIO is a set of federally funded college and university-based educational opportunity outreach programs that modify and support students from low-income backgrounds from first generations. It's not a race-based program, but it includes military veterans, students with disabilities. Currently, they serve about 790,000 students from middle schools through postgraduate studies.

These programs are very, very important because we have found that there aren't enough trust fund kids, Representative Horsford, to really put this country on a sustainable course of graduating enough high- skilled workers and innovators for our country to enjoy the kind of economic hegemony in a global economy. There aren't enough.

If we graduated every high school senior this June, if every single high school senior went to college, it still would not be enough in order for us to reach those goals of maintaining global hegemony. Yet we have allowed, since 2005, the TRIO programs to lose $66 million in funding, which translates into 88,000 fewer low-income and potential first-generation students--including adult learners, military veterans, and students with disabilities--to study.

Of course, under sequestration, which went into effect March 1, TRIO has received another $42 million cut, which means that in the beginning of the 2013-2014 program year, individual grant awards will be reduced by 5 percent. That translates into 40,000 fewer students to be served by TRIO.

Now, as I indicated in the beginning of my discussion here, this program is a set of programs that seek to identify brilliant students, but for their income, or but for their having not been born into a family where college was a tradition, who can contribute to the growth of our economy in our society.

Talent Search is a very low-cost early invention program which identifies students with college potential in grades 6 through 12. They really work toward giving students information about going to college. Seventy-nine percent of Talent Search participants were admitted to postsecondary institutions.

Upper Bound is an intensive intervention program that prepares students for higher education. Seventy-seven percent of these students who participated in Upper Bound enrolled in college.

The Upper Bound Math/Science program--which we know we need more of them--is a model similar to Upper Bound; 86.5 percent of these students go on to college.

We have Veterans Upper Bound and Student Support Services. Again, the numbers are very, very high for students who matriculate and complete in these programs.

The Educational Opportunity Centers is a program where we have reached back for displaced workers, people who have not been in college, and bring them back into the fold. We have seen a 57 percent increase in the number of participants who have been college dropouts that have re-enrolled or displaced workers.

We also have the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program--named after the famous astronaut who lost his life--which prepares low-income minority students for doctoral programs.

I will yield to you for questions, Mr. Horsford, but just let me finish this segment by reiterating this point. If we fail to invest in young people, I mean starting out with starving them--you know I'm still reeling from the comments of my colleague Barbara Lee because the food stamp bill that is before us will have nearly a quarter of a million students lose their free lunch program. And the majority of folks who are served by the food stamp program are not these welfare queens or slick hustlers; they're elderly children and disabled people--so if we as a country have decided that we don't need to feed babies, we're eating our seed corn, and that is an act of desperation that will take us down a perilous road.

That's exactly right, because we can't lift America out of poverty without lifting Americans out of poverty. We are a family.

Well, I can tell you, we can have a society by design or by default. We can just let it all go as it will.

I was very moved earlier by the tribute that our colleagues on a bipartisan basis made to Senator Lautenberg upon his passing. And once again, here's an example of an American who ultimately became very wealthy, but it was because America embraced him with their values.

He went to school on the GI bill. He was able to go to school. He did not have any wealth. And because he was an American and an American soldier, he was able to benefit from our community of interests to build not only a great senator, but great economic enterprises and a lot of jobs that he created. That's the way America is supposed to work. And we need to realize that educational opportunity is one of our basic strategies for staying on top in a global economy.

Exactly.

And that is an extremely important point, because these young people who are going to college are doing us a favor to become educated. The jobs, you know, making the widgets, are dying out from not only technology but from outsourcing.

We are going to only win this game by having the highest skilled worker, whether it be in farming or manufacturing or research and development. And to see this Congress gutting research and development, anything that looks academic or associated with intelligence or studying at all, it's just across the board decimating it. Again, it's eating our seed corn. Hopefully we can reverse this curse before they get too far down the line.

Thank you so much for letting me participate in this Special Order.

Well, let me thank you, Mr. Horsford. I have a few points that I want to make.

Do you have an idea of how much time we have remaining so I can allocate my time?

Mr. Horsford, I think the question that has been raised by the gentleman is a very pertinent point.

We have seen over the last 18 to 24 months some very deep cuts in our Federal budget. There are some who believe that discretionary spending is too much and that we need to engage in what I call ``draconian cuts'' to discretionary spending. Because of that, we've seen discretionary accounts reduced significantly, and it's going to affect what the gentleman has in mind. It's going to affect not only higher education but public education as well.

Mr. Horsford, I want to thank you for allowing me to say a few words here this evening. This is a very appropriate conversation for the Congressional Black Caucus to have. I want to thank you and Mr. Jeffries for coming to the floor each week and for lifting up the issues that the Congressional Black Caucus feels are so vitally important for us to debate here in this Congress.

Ms. Fudge has left the floor, but I certainly want to thank Marcia Fudge of Ohio, the chair of our caucus, for all that she does. She somehow just stays in perpetual motion, and her staff works so very closely with her. I just want to thank her publicly for all that she does, not only for the people of Ohio, but for us here in the Congress.

And what can I say about Barbara Lee? Barbara Lee has been talking about issues of poverty ever since I came to this place 9 years ago, and I just want to associate myself with everything that she has said and with everything that Congresswoman Gwen Moore said just a moment ago.

Mr. Horsford, I don't know much about your State of Nevada, but I can tell you a lot about my State of North Carolina. I can tell you that these are some tough times. These are tough times for poor people. These are tough times for rural communities all across America. I represent one of the poorest districts in the whole country in which one in four people in my district, Mr. Speaker, including 36 percent of children, live at or below the poverty level. That's a statistic that is worth bearing. I want to repeat it: 36 percent of the children who live in my congressional district live below the poverty level. That is unacceptable.

The poverty problem in America is actually getting worse. At a time when it should be getting better, it is actually getting worse. There is a huge difference, there is a huge gap, between the haves and the have-nots. The poverty rate now is the highest that it has been in the last 20 years; and in rural North Carolina, median household incomes have dropped since the year 2000.

My district has vivid and unfortunate illustrations of poverty. For example, nearly one in 20 homes in some counties does not have a telephone or a kitchen. A lot of my friends in urban communities cannot relate to that, but nearly one in 20 homes in some counties does not have a telephone or a kitchen. Many of my constituents are still living without indoor plumbing in the year 2013. The time to invest in our children and in our Nation's future is now.

We must first undo the cuts from sequestration. The gentleman who sent us the message a few moments ago may have been referring to sequestration. We must undo the cuts that we are seeing involving sequestration. They are devastating to our communities all across the country. Sequestration has slashed Head Start funding, impacting thousands and thousands of children. It has cut job search assistance for thousands of people. It eliminated millions of dollars from the meals for low-income seniors program. Sequestration cut nutrition funding for 600,000 women and children all across the country, housing and emergency shelter funding for nearly 100,000 homeless people and emergency unemployment compensation benefits by nearly 11 percent.

Instead of indiscriminately cutting funding for critical economic development programs, we must invest in programs. I think, Mr. Horsford, that's what you've been saying each week that we have this conversation. We must invest in programs which give people a hand up toward making it on their own, important programs such as emergency unemployment insurance, the Workforce Investment Act, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children--we call it the WIC program-- which gives people the ability to provide for their families.

The House version of the farm bill, which has been alluded to by the two previous speakers, cuts $20 billion from the SNAP program. That is unthinkable. The House version of the farm bill has cut $20 billion from the SNAP program. SNAP is not a government throwaway or a handout. SNAP moneys go directly to needy families that are in need the most. We are talking about seniors and children and families who need it the most. Republican proposals to slash funding for a program that feeds poor people is simply unacceptable.

There is hope on the horizon for some of our country's poor and uninsured. We can be encouraged that the Affordable Care Act will be fully implemented in just a few months, helping some of the one and a quarter million uninsured people in my State qualify for affordable health coverage through the marketplace.

I will say in closing that the Congressional Black Caucus is very concerned about poverty. We have constructed a plan to address persistent poverty. We

are alarmed that so many communities all across the country have experienced a poverty level that exceeds 20 percent and that has persisted now for more than 30 years. So our plan in the Congressional Black Caucus is to target Federal resources and Census tracts that have high levels of unemployment and high levels of poverty. We call it the 10-20-30 plan. We must do it. We have to do it for the sake of America.

Poverty is all around us, Mr. Horsford, whether it's in my district or in your district or in any of my colleagues' districts. Poverty is persistent, and it's all across America. It's within the shadows of this Capitol. When I drive home in just a few minutes here in Washington, I will go right through some very poor, low-income communities within blocks of this Capitol. We must do better. We have got to address as a Congress the whole issue of poverty.

Absolutely.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that the Congressman from Nevada, my friend Steve Horsford, and Hakeem Jeffries are doing such an awesome job. I'm so proud to see you gentlemen holding forth about the issues that affect this whole country and things that the Congressional Black Caucus, of which we are all members, are doing.

I also just want to let people know who may be tuned in, Mr. Speaker, there are people in this Congress who believe that hard work should be rewarded, who believe that when people get up in the morning, pound it out all day to put food on the table for their families, that it is nothing less than an insult for somebody else who is living in plenty to look back on them and say, You're not working hard enough; you're not doing quite enough.

The fact is that sometimes hardworking people need the help of their government. There's no shame in that. There is nothing wrong with that. Lord knows, Apple Computer agrees that sometimes hardworking people need the help of their government.

The fact of the matter is that we did have a hearing and that hearing did involve low-wage workers, people making $7, $8, $8.25 an hour, some of whom were working for contractors who had contracts with the Federal Government, people who were literally working in buildings like Union Station, like the Reagan building, Federal buildings across Washington but also across this country, who were not working for the Federal Government but were working for contractors who had contracts with the Federal Government, paying them $8 an hour, a wage that is not livable, is not sustainable.

Folks often speak derisively, Mr. Speaker, about low-income folks. They'll say, Why don't they make more money? What's wrong with them? They're working 8 hours a day. They're working 40 hours a week. They're working three jobs, but they can still barely put food on the table, and they're raising their children. They need food stamps. And if we cut the food stamp budget by $20 billion, we're going to be cutting families who work hard at two or three jobs every day.

I've heard my Republican friends talk about this cultural dependency. Somehow that moral judgment--you know, the Good Book says, Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The gentleman is absolutely right.

I mean, it is utter hypocrisy to sit up here and talk about the cultural dependency and not talk about corporate welfare.

Senator Bernie Sanders and I--an awesome gentleman, by the way--have a bill called the End Corporate Welfare Act in which we identify $110 billion worth of corporate giveaways to Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Natural Gas.

Look, these are industries that are making record profits. ExxonMobil is not having any trouble. Why do they need the American people's money? Why do they need a subsidy? Well, they're getting one, and yet people in this very body are willing to stand back and say that poor folks working three or four jobs need to have their money cut. I mean, it is astounding. It is shocking how hypocritical some of things that we see go on now.

I just want to the say this, Mr. Speaker. This is a country of, by, and for the people. It's a country designed to let the voice of the people be heard, and yet sometimes the people's voice is muted because it's so difficult for the average person to take off time to come down here to talk about what they want to talk about, to be able to access their government.

So these are times when you and Mr. Jeffries can come down here and talk about the importance of food stamps, of TRIO, and talk about the absolute concentration of wealth at the very tip-top of the economic stream in this committee.

I'm going to wrap up here, Mr. Horsford, but I just want to wrap up by saying this: working people around this country need to know that when poverty increases, the money just doesn't disappear; it goes to the very top of the economy. That is why, since about 2008, if you look at the newly created wealth in this economy, about 93 percent of it went to the top 1 percent.

My friends in the Republican caucus believe that rich people don't have enough money and poor people have too much, which is why they want to cut food stamps and cut taxes for the richest people. One of them even said to me one time, Keith, a poor person has never given me a job.

Like, wow. That's the attitude we're dealing with.

The bottom line, Mr. Horsford, is that low-income workers are taking matters in their own hands. Low-income workers in Detroit and Chicago and New York and St. Louis, even here in Washington, D.C., have come together and had strikes--even McDonald's workers--in order to get better

pay. They are brave and they are courageous. They're taking their families' needs in their own hands. We wish them the best. We had a hearing so they could let their voices be heard.

But if we had a functioning National Labor Relations Board, would they need to go on strike and risk their jobs? If we had a social safety net, would they be in such dire straits? If we made sure that American workers had an increase in the minimum wage and we were paying a livable wage, would they be in this situation?

The American people are standing up for a better life, but the truth is public policies are failing them and we've got to do better. We can start by getting rid of sequester and getting rid of this very bad idea of cutting $20 billion out of supplemental nutrition.

Thank you for your excellent work.