Cutting $40 Billion from the Nutrition Program

Floor Speech

(Ms. KUSTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. KUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart because this body will soon consider a bill that will cut 4 million children from their nutrition benefits. Americans will go hungry. In my district and across this country, these are our friends, our neighbors, our fellow parishioners. They are children and veterans and seniors.

One of my constituents wrote to me recently about how Federal nutrition assistance is essential to feeding her family. She is 28 years old, disabled, and an orphan, so she has no family to fall back upon. And she is the mother of a toddler. On top of all that, she's in college, working to get her undergraduate degree, and has a double major, no less. But right now, she depends on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed her toddler, and that assistance doesn't even go far enough. She still has to rely on our local food bank and other community assistance.

This is who we are talking about when we debate cutting $40 billion from the nutrition program. We can and should do better.

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