Speeches and Floor Statements

Rep. Scott Fights Cuts to Food Nutrition Programs

Partisan Farm Bill Passed Without Food Programs

Congressman Scott spoke during the debate on passing a Farm Bill without a nutrition title, including the SNAP program. The following are his comments from the Congressional Record.

........

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you very much, Chairman Peterson.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the House, what we have here is not a farm bill. You tell me how in the world we can have a farm bill and separate food and nutrition out from it. The American people don't get that. When you think of farms and you think of agriculture, do you mean to tell me it isn't about food?

Here we have made this critical, terrible mistake of divorcing, of segregating, of separating the most basic essential of farm policy, which is to produce the food and the nutrition for the people of America. This isn't just about food stamps, although we are here because the Republican Party, my friends--and I have many over there--have been hijacked to turn a bipartisan effort to deal with the complexity, the vulgarity, where 38 States in this Nation their primary part of their economy is agriculture, is business.

My members on the Agriculture Committee, we have a broad mandate. We should be the most powerful committee up here. We not only deal with food, we not only deal with agriculture, we deal with fuel growing our way up to energy independence. We are dealing with the heavy finance of $600 trillion in derivatives. But this [debate] makes us look small.

To bring a bill and call it a farm bill and it has nothing to do with food--and it's so hypocritical, my friends. You've seen the news reports. The American people have seen the news reports, where we have Members who are accepting millions of dollars in subsidies and will be voting against poor people who need the food to eat.

.....

H.R.2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, passed by a party-line vote of 216-208. For decades Farm Bills have included a nutrition title and have passed with bi-partisan votes.  The Senate passed a Farm Bill, S. 954, with a bi-partisan vote of 66-27.