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HARKIN EFFORT TO MAINTAIN FOOD ASSISTANCE FOR LOW-INCOME AMERICANS SOUNDLY BACKED BY SENATE

12/14/2005

WASHINGTON, DC – The Senate today strongly backed Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) motion to instruct members of the joint House-Senate conference committee to reject cuts to food assistance that have been proposed as part of federal budget legislation. The House budget bill includes cuts to the Food Stamp Program that would eliminate food assistance benefits for approximately 250,000 people, many of whom are working families with children. The Senate version does not include cuts in food assistance. The Harkin motion adopted today instructs conferees to reject the House proposal for food assistance cuts and accept the Senate position of no cuts to food assistance.

Today Harkin released the following statement:

“I’m pleased that the Senate overwhelmingly agreed to instruct budget conferees to maintain our commitments to America’s hungry and food insecure. The number of Americans who are food-insecure has been steadily rising over the past few years, and it’s critical that conferees reject any attempts to scale back food assistance that will make this problem even worse.”

“During this holiday season, we remember Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Let’s hope that this Congress will see Marley’s ghost and follow the example of the enlightened Scrooge, not the heartless, miserly one that opens the story. It would be especially inexplicable during this holiday season for Congress to cut back on initiatives helping America’s most vulnerable citizens put enough food on the table.”

Senator Harkin voted against the underlying Senate budget bill calling for cuts through the federal budget and has repeatedly called for Congress to abandon efforts to cut programs serving low and middle income Americans.