Threats to SNAP Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I have just a few observations. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a good program. It is the number one food assistance program our country has. And it has gotten families through tough times, for sure. The truth is, most people who use SNAP aren't on it very long. They find themselves in a rough patch. They use SNAP. They get off.

Programs that impose artificial timelines and kick people off or deny them or have work requirements, ignore the fact that people do not get on SNAP to stay on SNAP unless they are too young, too old, or too sick to work.

Generally, people are trying to get jobs. The irony of this is that from a Republican standpoint, it seems like they are happy to give really, really rich people money without any expectations. And, yet, if a low-income person needs some help, money from the government, now all of a sudden we have got to put all kind of restrictions and all kind of waits on it.

Why does help and assistance from the government not ruin rich peoples' worth ethic, but it seems in the Republican mind to ruin the work ethic of working people and low-income people? It is totally ironic. It must be premised on the myth that somehow species of humanity are different from one another, and they are just not. People are the same.

I want to just point out as well, that if you really want to do something meaningful, why don't we pass legislation that would stop fast-food companies from conspiring with each other to restrict wages? There are two bills that got introduced. One is an antipoaching law that means that the employers can't come together and agree that they are not going to hire each other's workers if they leave looking for better pay, and the other one is a provision that would ban this process of noncompete clauses for people who work in fast-food.

These two bills together conspired to restrict the pay of working people. They keep wages down. What if we did real antitrust legislation and stopped huge companies from dominating the entire market, creating a single buyer, a monopsony, which then has the power to hold people down?

I just got through talking to some employees at Toys-R-Us. Their company was bought by some private equity firms. A lot of debt was piled on to them. The bonuses were given out to the top management. They took off on their golden parachutes. The company goes through bankruptcy, and now it is closing 800 stores and laying off 30,000 people.

The bottom line is: SNAP helps people in tough economic times. If they are able-bodied, I am sure they want to work. They don't need these punitive kicks to go to work. They just need an opportunity to get back up on their feet. These programs are insulting, demeaning, unnecessary, and they shouldn't exist.

If we really want to give working people an opportunity, let's increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Let's support the Employee Free Choice Act which can give them a voice on the job so they can negotiate with their employers for better wages.

It seems like Republicans don't want to do anything to meaningfully change the lives of working people, but, work requirements, drug tests, all this sort service moralistic stuff, it doesn't work. It is a waste of money and there are way better ways to do what you say you are trying to do.

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