[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
POVERTY IN AMERICA: ECONOMIC REALITIES
OF STRUGGLING FAMILIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 19, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-11
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
POVERTY IN AMERICA: ECONOMIC REALITIES OF STRUGGLING FAMILIES
POVERTY IN AMERICA: ECONOMIC REALITIES
OF STRUGGLING FAMILIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 19, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-11
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on the Internet:
www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-722 WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts, STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas,
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York ROB WOODALL, Georgia
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio,
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania Vice Ranking Member
RO KHANNA, California JASON SMITH, Missouri
ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut BILL FLORES, Texas
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina CHRIS STEWART, Utah
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan CHIP ROY, Texas
JIMMY PANETTA, California DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York WILLIAM R. TIMMONS IV, South
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada Carolina
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma
BARBARA LEE, California TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Professional Staff
Ellen Balis, Staff Director
Dan Keniry, Minority Staff Director
CONTENTS
Page
Hearing held in Washington D.C., June 19, 2019................... 1
Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget...... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Documents submitted for the record....................... 7
Hon. Steve Womack, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget... 252
Prepared statement of.................................... 254
Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House...................... 256
Prepared statement of.................................... 259
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Poor People's Campaign....... 263
Prepared statement of.................................... 265
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Poor People's Campaign............... 268
Prepared statement of.................................... 270
Callie Greer, Poor People's Campaign......................... 273
Prepared statement of.................................... 275
Kenia Alcocer, Poor People's Campaign........................ 277
Prepared statement of.................................... 279
Christopher Overfelt, Poor People's Campaign................. 281
Prepared statement of.................................... 283
Savannah Kinsey, Poor People's Campaign...................... 285
Prepared statement of.................................... 287
Pastor Latasha Fields, Christian Home Educators' Support
System (CHESS)............................................. 289
Prepared statement of.................................... 292
Pastor David Mahan, Frontline Youth Communications........... 296
Prepared statement of.................................... 299
Hon. Barbara Lee, Member, Committee on the Budget, document
submitted for the record................................... 325
Hon. Steven Horsford, Member, Committee on the Budget, letter
submitted for the record................................... 336
Article submitted for the record......................... 339
Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Member, Committee on the Budget,
statement submitted for the record......................... 357
Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, Member, Committee on the Budget,
questions submitted for the record......................... 369
Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Member, Committee on the
Budget, questions submitted for the record................. 371
Answers to questions submitted for the record................ 372
POVERTY IN AMERICA: ECONOMIC REALITIES OF STRUGGLING FAMILIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in
Room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John A. Yarmuth
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Jeffries, Boyle, Khanna,
DeLauro, Doggett, Price, Kildee, Panetta, Morelle, Horsford,
Scott, Lee, Jayapal, Sires, Peters, Cooper, Omar; Womack,
Johnson, Smith, Flores, Meuser, Timmons, Crenshaw, Hern,
Burchett, Roy, and Stewart.
Also present: Speaker Pelosi.
Chairman Yarmuth. The hearing will come to order. Good
morning, and welcome to the Budget Committee's hearing on
Poverty in America: Economic Realities of Struggling Families.
I want to welcome our witnesses here with us today. This
morning we will be hearing from several leaders from the Poor
People's Campaign: Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, II; Reverend
Dr. Liz Theoharis; Ms. Callie Greer; Ms. Kenia Alcocer; Mr.
Christopher Overfelt; and Ms. Savannah Kinsey. We are also
pleased to have Pastor Latasha Fields, from the Christian Home
Educators' Support System, and Pastor David Mahan from
Frontline Youth Communications.
And we are also honored to have Speaker Nancy Pelosi with
us this morning. And I ask unanimous consent that the Speaker
be permitted to sit at the dais and participate in today's
hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
It also is possible that we will have votes during this
hearing. I ask unanimous consent that the Chair be authorized
to declare a recess at any time.
Without objection, so ordered. I will now yield myself five
minutes for my opening statement.
Again, the hearing has come to order. Good morning,
everyone, and thank you for joining us. I would like to welcome
once again our panel of witnesses. We appreciate you coming
here to help us engage in a meaningful discussion on the
character of our country and the ongoing struggle with poverty
and economic injustices faced by far too many Americans.
I would also like to thank Congressman Barbara Lee--
Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her leadership on this issue, and
her work to bring attention to this ongoing crisis through the
Poverty Task Force.
The statistics on poverty are jarring. As of 2017,
according to the Census, nearly 40 million people, or more than
one in 10 Americans, lives in poverty. But that number, as I
know our witnesses will testify to, fails to account for the
tens of millions of more Americans who still struggle to make
ends meet. At the same time, 90 percent of households account
for less than 23 percent of the nation's income.
This past Sunday marked the longest period of time in U.S.
history without an increase in the federal minimum wage, and
overall wage growth, after adjusting for inflation, has
remained nearly stagnant for 40 years. Meanwhile, housing
prices have gone up. Prices have gone up dramatically in many
areas of the country. Tuition costs have skyrocketed. And
Americans are paying more for nearly every expense.
These facts are important, but they tell only part of the
story. The purpose of this hearing is to shine a light on the
challenges that Americans face in meeting their basic human
needs. We will hear from people who experience these challenges
firsthand, and whose lives are directly impacted by the
decisions and policies made in Washington. That is not to say
that the federal government isn't already playing an important
role in the lives of American families working their way up the
economic ladder. Critical investments in federal programs have
kept millions of Americans above the poverty line and have cut
the poverty rate nearly in half over the last 50 years.
Medicaid and CHIP provide health coverage to 73 million
Americans, including more than one in three children. To date,
33 states and the District of Columbia have expanded their
Medicaid programs to low-income working-age adults, helping to
bring the nation's uninsured rate to a record low. The
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides
nutrition assistance to nearly 43 million Americans each month,
including 1.4 million veterans. The Child Care and Development
Block Grants supported nearly 800,000 families, ensuring
children were cared for while parents worked to put food on the
table. The Earned Income Tax Credit has lifted millions of
workers out of poverty, instead of being taxed into it. And in
2017 more than 5 million households received assistance with
heating and cooling costs through the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, helping families stay safe and healthy.
Though we need to be doing far more, not less. For decades
efforts in Washington to close the gap between ongoing efforts
to fight poverty and what is needed to fully address this
crisis have been inadequate.
But now these programs and the millions they serve are
under constant attack. Rather than increasing investments and
evidence-based programs that help more struggling Americans get
ahead, the Administration is proposing to change the way they
measure the poverty rate, and a backdoor attempt to cut off
vital aid to potentially millions of Americans. There have also
been consistent attempts by states to impose so-called work
requirements on Medicaid recipients that only serve to deny
health care to people. The governor of my home state, by his
own admission, said his Medicaid waiver request will take
potentially lifesaving health care coverage away from more than
90,000 Kentuckians. And the Trump Administration hasn't stopped
there. They have rescinded regulations on payday loan lenders
that prey on those in poverty, proposed cuts of $220 billion to
SNAP, and sought to eliminate LIHEAP.
Many will differ on the role of the federal government in
combating poverty. But we shouldn't differ on one concept: the
more we can do to lift people out of poverty, the better our
budgetary future will look. Poverty is more than just a policy
issue; it is a challenge to the conscience of our nation. That
is why I am thankful to have the opportunity today to learn
about the real, everyday experiences of our witnesses, and to
debunk some of the myths surrounding this vital issue.
We need to be making a stronger investment in our people,
all our people, so every American has the opportunity to thrive
and succeed. I am sure we will hear a lot of ideas and
different points of view today as we look at ways to help
working families and struggling Americans, which is the point
of this hearing. Whether it is practical, or aspirational, or
even designed to take a sledgehammer to the status quo, we want
to provide a platform for community leaders and those directly
impacted by federal policies to share their ideas.
Once again, I would like to thank the Poor People's
Campaign and our witnesses for joining us. I look forward to
your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. Now I ask unanimous consent to submit two
documents from the Poor People's Campaign, the moral budget and
the audit, in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. I now yield five minutes to the Ranking
Member, Mr. Womack.
Mr. Womack. I thank the Chairman. Good morning, everyone.
Exploring ways to help lift people out of poverty is not
new to this Committee. In fact, led by then-Committee Chairman
Paul Ryan, budget Republicans have a long history of
championing policies and programs that help low-income
Americans climb the economic ladder, earn their own success,
and escape the cycle of poverty. On this issue we often hear
some of our friends across the aisle say that, the bigger the
price tag, the better the policy. That may sound good on paper,
but in practice it does not achieve the results Americans
deserve, especially when it comes to reducing poverty.
In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on
poverty with a goal of not only alleviating the symptoms of
those in poverty, but also preventing poverty altogether. Since
then the federal government has directed tens of trillions of
dollars towards scores of anti-poverty programs across more
than a dozen different agencies. Despite these investments, the
poverty rate has only marginally declined. If history is any
indicator, more spending, bigger government, and higher taxes--
those solutions that have far too often been proposed by some
of my friends on the other side of the aisle--are not the tools
we need to truly move the needle. Those may address what
President Johnson called the symptoms of poverty, but they are
not curing it.
According to a recent poll by YouGov, 63 percent of
Americans enrolled in some type of anti-poverty program believe
the war on poverty is failing. The same poll found that 76
percent of those enrolled in those programs believe the
government should focus on creating more opportunities to climb
the economic ladder, not increasing government spending.
In fact, adding more dollar signs to our enormous debt will
only lead to higher taxes. That often penalizes those who can
least afford them, making it even harder to escape the cycle of
poverty. I am especially concerned by the proposed tax
increases on low-income Americans that many in Congress are
considering, including new payroll taxes and energy taxes. They
hit the vulnerable the hardest.
So what has paved a pathway out of poverty for low-income
Americans? I believe a strong economy, which creates more
opportunities to find a job, earn a paycheck, get ahead.
Following historic tax cuts and deregulation, families are
seeing more jobs. They are seeing bigger paychecks, with
average hourly earnings increasing by more than 3 percent, and
the unemployment rate has dropped to 3.6 percent, its lowest
level in a half-century.
We should be focused on policies that continue this trend,
and help more people earn their own success, linking--including
linking more anti-poverty programs to employment opportunities.
Serving our country has also paved a pathway out of poverty for
many Americans. They have been given an education, learned
skills that are applicable to business and other fields, they
have learned leadership skills, and the value of working in
teams. As someone who spent 30 years in uniform in the Arkansas
National Guard, and as someone who chairs the Board of Visitors
at the United States Military Academy at West Point, I have
seen firsthand how our military has helped improve the lives of
young men and women from challenging circumstances.
And I know I am not alone. There are seven veterans and one
member currently serving on this Committee: five, including
myself on our side of the aisle; three on the Democrat side.
And I would also like to take this opportunity to thank them
for their service.
Perhaps we can explore this notion of service for
individuals and the opportunities made available later in life
by the U.S. military as just one component of an anti-poverty
program that I think that works.
I also look forward to hearing about the roles of our
families and communities, and their--that they are playing and
helping reduce poverty, from providing on-the-job training
opportunities, to counseling troubled youth, to ensuring young
people have access to a quality education, regardless of their
zip code.
I don't think there is a person up here who doesn't want to
help every American achieve the American Dream. But our success
should not be measured by dollars spent or beneficiaries added.
It should be measured by how many people we are helping lift
permanently out of poverty so they can earn a living, provide a
better life for themselves and their families.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
[The prepared statement of Steve Womack follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the Ranking Member for his
opening remarks. I would now like to welcome the Speaker of the
House, Nancy Pelosi, to our hearing today. Her continued
dedication to helping the one in five children that live in
poverty is what took her from kitchen to Congress, as she likes
to say. And America's children have greatly benefitted from
having such an advocate and leader in their corner. I am very
pleased to now recognize the Speaker of the House, Nancy
Pelosi, for her opening remarks.
Speaker Pelosi. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
your--of giving me the opportunity. I thank the bipartisan
leadership of the Committee for the unanimous consent for the
Speaker to be allowed to participate, to listen to the
testimony, and to share a few thoughts with you.
Mr. Chairman, you really--poverty in America, economic
realities of struggling families, that being the title, I thank
you so much for making this opportunity possible for us to
hear. And with all due respect to the distinguished Ranking
Member, after listening to his statement, all the more reason
we need to hear from our witnesses as to how public policy
affects them.
The hearing is distinguished by the testimony of leaders of
the Poor People's Campaign. We are grateful for the opportunity
to listen and learn from Reverend William Barber, Reverend Dr.
Liz Theoharis, and others. I associate myself with your welcome
to them all.
Last fall that Poor People's Campaign sent a letter to
Congress, calling for a hearing on policy harming America's
children. They wrote, ``Somebody has been hurting our children,
and it has gone on far too long, and we won't be silent
anymore.'' Well, we didn't get that hearing then. We had our
own rump hearing. But now, today, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
making this hearing possible.
As the Chairman said, my motivation to be in politics, my
why for being in government and politics is the one in five
children who lives in poverty in America. I have five--my
husband and I have five children, we see what it takes to raise
a family, and even under great circumstances there are
challenges. And it just bothered me so that one in five
children in America go to sleep hungry at night. How could this
be in the greatest country that ever existed in the history of
the world, that one in five children--at least--lives in
poverty in America?
And so we must have public policy that does better. And as
the distinguished Ranking Member said, we still have
challenges, even though we had a war on poverty. But just think
of what the challenge would be if we had not had that war on
poverty.
And here we are in the Budget Committee. A budget, a
federal budget, should be a statement of our national values.
What is important to us as a nation should be reflected in how
we allocate our resources. And we have to stand for the
education and health, education and well-being of the--all of
the American people in the budget we put forth. We must fight
for investments in economic justice and human dignity,
recognizing, as Dr. King said, that our struggle is for genuine
equality, which means economic equality.
Dr. King's words ring with the same resounding moral force
today as he said, ``What does it profit a man to be able to eat
at an integrated lunch counter, if he doesn't earn enough money
to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?'' These words are
echoed in the Poor People's Campaign's moral budget, which
states everyone has a right to live.
We thank the Poor People's Campaign for conducting your
audit of injustices, the souls of poor folk, which presents a
stark reminder of the challenges that remain today. Fifty-one
years after Dr. King launched the Poor People's Campaign to
fully, finally end poverty, 51 years after workers of every
background marched for their dignity, bringing the priorities
of America's neediest families to the nation's capital, 51
years later, America is still a land of stunning injustice.
Our work is far from done: 140 million Americans are poor
in our country. As Members of Congress we have an urgent moral
duty to make good on the promissory note of the rights
enshrined in our founding documents. Our nation's founding
ideals, liberty and justice for all, can only be fulfilled if
we have economic justice led by a government that is in the
public interest, not the special interest. And that is why we
are grateful for the consideration here of a budget.
Just to remind, education is so central to the economic
well-being of America's children and working families. Nothing
brings more money to the treasury, nothing brings more money to
the treasury than investments in education and early childhood
K through 12, higher ed, like post-grad, lifetime learning for
our workers. This is the investment that people want to make in
their children, that our country must make in our future. And
it is an investment that has a return.
Medicare, Medicaid initiatives that have helped meet the
needs of America's working families are so important, and
should be not--should not be undermined in any budget. And the
distinguished Ranking Member mentioned increasing the national
debt. We certainly should not have a budget that gives a tax
break to the--83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent,
while adding $2 trillion to the national debt, adding to the
debt that will be incurred by our children.
Our children, our children, our children. When people ask
what are the three most important issues facing the Congress, I
always say the same thing. Our children, our children, our
children, their health, their education, the economic success--
security of their families, and a safe environment.
Environmental justice is so important that we focused on in our
last hearing. Environmental justice, clean air, clean water for
them to thrive in a world at peace in which they can reach
their fulfillment.
And so--and I am proud to be here to offer some element of
concern, confident in our commitment to ending poverty in
America, led by our distinguished Chair of our Steering
Committee, Barbara Lee, a Member of this Budget Committee,
confident about what we believe in and what we want to do,
humble enough to listen to how public policy has an impact, and
to listen to more--newer, fresher ideas, fresh eyes on the
subject from where it is most felt.
So we want to again thank the Chairman, and also call upon
our Republican colleagues to help us with issues like raising
the minimum wage, lowering the cost of prescription drugs,
issues like that which raise the paycheck, lower costs to
families. In our work we must be one, coming together in a
spirit of dangerous unselfishness.
The Congress cannot succeed in our inside maneuvering
without the outside mobilization. We will make our legislation
for the good of the American people and our children. That is
being rejected by the Senate, too hot for them to handle--by
public believing in and having confidence in the public
sentiment to make the Senate accountable as well, when it comes
to meeting the needs of America's working families, and
reducing the level of poverty in our country, and reducing the
number of poor people in our country.
Your contribution, intellectual contribution, to us today
is immeasurable. We are grateful to you for it, but, more
importantly, for the work that you do every day to meet the
needs of America's working families, especially those on the
border line, or live in poverty on the border line of being
poor in our country. It is an injustice. We must address it,
and we must address it in a way that is respectful of the
dignity and worth of every person, the spark of divinity that
exists in every person, so that we are respectful of other
views.
And Mr. Womack, I say to you I am guided by the words of
our founder, ``E pluribus unum,'' from many, one. They couldn't
imagine how many we would be, or how different we would be from
each other. But we knew that, in striving for solutions, we had
to be unifying and not dividing. And it is in that spirit of
`dangerous unselfishness' and welcome our guests.
Thank you, Mr. Yarmuth, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Womack, for
providing us with this opportunity. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Nancy Pelosi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for your
remarks. In the interest of time, if any other member has an
opening statement, you may submit that statement in writing for
the record.
Once again, I would like to thank our witnesses for being
here this morning. The Committee has received your written
statements. They will be made part of the formal hearing
record. Each of you will have five minutes to testify.
First we will recognize Dr. Barber.
You may begin when you are ready. You are recognized for
five minutes.
STATEMENT OF REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER, II, POOR PEOPLE'S
CAMPAIGN; REV. DR. LIZ THEOHARIS, POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN;
CALLIE GREER, POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN; KENIA ALCOCER, POOR
PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN; CHRISTOPHER OVERFELT, POOR PEOPLE'S
CAMPAIGN; SAVANNAH KINSEY, POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN; PASTOR
LATASHA FIELDS, CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATORS' SUPPORT SYSTEM
(CHESS); AND PASTOR DAVID MAHAN, FRONTLINE YOUTH COMMUNICATIONS
STATEMENT OF REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER, II
Rev. Dr. Barber. Chairman Yarmuth and Ranking Member Womack
and Members of this Committee, I am Reverend Dr. William J.
Barber, II, from North Carolina. I am the son of a Navy man who
gave first-class service for--first-class blood and service for
second-class citizenship. I am here as part African-American,
part Tuscaroran, and part white, so I am diversity looking
directly at you.
I am also speaking here today on the thousands of people of
every race, creed, and color, gender, and sexuality in the 40
states and District of Columbia that are part of the Poor
People's Campaign, a national call for a moral revival.
I want it to be acknowledged today that I--we are here on
the 150th year anniversary of Juneteenth, when slaves finally
found out that the Emancipation Proclamation had been written.
And here, 51 years after the Poor People's Campaign, it is time
for Americans to find out the truth about poverty for all
Americans.
The growing gap between the rich and the poor in this
country is a direct result of policy decisions, not the
immorality and the lack of personal work of poor people, policy
decisions made here in Washington and in our state capitals.
But those decisions have been supported by well-funded myths.
Corporate interests have sent their representatives here to
preach personal responsibility and the danger of government
intervention. But the truth is we must take a collective
responsibility for the inequality, the unjust laws and systems
created. God did not make us poor. Greed and abuse and power
make us poor.
In this hearing room you are seated here as Members of
Congress on the left and on the right, demanding--on party
affiliation. Our campaign agenda is neither left nor right. It
aims to challenge both sides of the aisle. It aims to reach
toward the moral high ground. The agenda is rooted in the
religious values of the prophet of Isaiah, that every
legislator ought to hear again, since you put your hands on the
Bible to swear yourselves into office. Woe unto those who
legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights and make women
and children their prey.
You should hear what Jesus said, not to churches and
personal charity, but to nations: ``When I was hungry, did you
feed me? When I was a stranger, an immigrant, did you receive
me? When I was sick, did you care for me?'' Because every
nation will be judged by God for how it treats the least of
these.
Our religious values are--call us--and our constitutional
values, which call us to the issue of justice, establishing
justice, to put the marginalized and the poor at the center of
our public policy.
We began three years ago. We have been all over this
country, from Kansas, to Arizona, to eastern Kentucky, to
eastern North Carolina. We have met with Republicans, and
Democrats, and blacks, and whites, and gay, and straight, and
all of them are saying the 140 million--we first must get the
numbers right, it is 140 million poor and low-wealth people in
this country. There are 140 million: 39 million children, 21
million seniors, 65.8 million men, 74 million women, 26 million
black people, 38 million Latinx people, 8 million Asian people,
2.4 native and indigenous people, and 66 million white people,
and they are not poor because they are lazy or because they
don't engage in personal responsibility.
They are poor because of the systemic realities that
connect: systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological
devastation, the war economy, and the false moral narratives
that suggest that somehow you can ignore poverty, ignore
poverty.
We must count 43.5 percent of our nation. No nation can
survive when 43.5 percent of its people are poor and low wealth
and that is not at the center of our public discussions. Sixty-
two million people who work every day for less than a living
wage, 37 million people without health care, even with the
Affordable Care Act. And I am from the South, where 50--where
one-third of all the poor people live, and it is almost even,
black and white. Fifty-some million poor people and low-income
people, and 13 million people uninsured.
Poverty is a moral crisis. The federal government, state
governments, we do not need more tax cuts for the rich. We do
not need more missiles. We need to hear and see the voices and
faces of the poverty. We must end this systemic policy violence
against poor and low-wealth people.
This is the moral mandate for our nation at this moment.
The work of reconstructing America is not done, and we must do
it together, and nothing less than the promise of our democracy
is at stake. To not deal with poverty is constitutionally
inconsistent, it is economically insane, and it is morally,
morally, morally wrong.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Reverend Dr. Theoharis for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF REV. DR. LIZ THEOHARIS
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking
Member Womack, and Members of this Committee for this
opportunity to speak with you today.
I come to you this morning an ordained minister, a biblical
scholar, and someone who has been organizing amongst the poor
and homeless for over 25 years, first with the National Union
of the Homeless, the National Welfare Rights Union, and today,
proudly, with the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for
moral revival.
Over the past years the Poor People's Campaign has been
building committees of poor and dispossessed people, moral
leaders, activists, advocates in more than 40 states across
this country. We have met with tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands of people, and chronicled their demands for a better
society. We have spent time in my home state of Wisconsin,
where the safety net has been shredded over the past decade.
Families go without water and heat, even in the cold winter.
We have been in Crossett, Arkansas, where a whole town has
been poisoned by a paper plant. Grandparents have to meet their
grandkids 80 miles from home, just to make sure they are not
exposed to those toxins.
We have been in Pacoima, California, where one in four
children in the Telfair Elementary School are homeless, are
without a home, and Altoona, Pennsylvania, where children,
young children, babies, are being taken away from their parents
who love them, who care for them, who want to raise them,
because they can't pay some of the highest water bills in the
country.
Together we developed a moral agenda, a moral agenda that
calls for the elimination of systemic racism, and poverty,
ecological devastation, and militarism in the war economy. It
calls for a challenge of this distorted moral narrative that
blames the poor for our poverty, tries to pit us against each
other, and feeds us the lie that there isn't enough when we
have beautiful, God-given abundance in this world.
You on this Budget Committee know that talk is cheap.
Ultimately, it is our deeds that matter. Budgets reflect our
deepest values, our most important priorities. And we are here
to say this morning that our nation's budget, as it now stands,
reflects the values of the rich, of large corporations, of
military contractors at the expense of poor, suffering
children, families.
We are here to say that we need a moral revolution of
values that places the needs and demands of the poor and at
the--of the planet at the heart of the budget. This will create
more jobs, build up our infrastructure, strengthen our economy,
and protect our resources today and for future generations.
When you lift from the bottom, everybody rises.
So I know this from economics and social science. I have
also read it in the Bible. Deuteronomy says if you forgive
debts, and you increase programs that lift up the poor, if you
pay your workers a living wage, and you release those who are
oppressed, if you lend out money knowing you may not get paid
back, your whole society will be lifted up. Your whole nation
will flourish.
Poverty is people's creation. It is their creation of
immoral budgets and unjust policies. And we can choose to end
it. The poor will only be with us as long as we are disobedient
to God and to the founding creed of this nation.
Thank you for listening.
[The prepared statement of Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Ms. Callie Greer for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF CALLIE GREER
Ms. Greer. Thank you, Members of the Committee. Thank you,
Committee, for having me here today. My name is Callie Greer. I
am a mother of five. And I have lost two of my children for
unnecessary reasons. I am here to talk about Venus.
Venus should be here with us today. So Venus started
complaining about a little knot she had on her breast. And so
she wasn't employed, and didn't have any insurance. She
started--she did what we do in our community, she started
visiting an emergency room. And so she would go, and they would
just send her out, and she kept complaining about the knot, and
they didn't do anything for her for a while.
Then one night she went to the emergency room, and the
doctor walked in the room, and he is like, ``What is that
smell?''
And Venus said, ``It is my breast. It is rottening (sic).''
So that is when Venus got some help. She was diagnosed with
stage four cancer, and was sent to the counsel center, and she
had a radical mastectomy, and went into chemo and radiation.
For a while Venus was in remission. About six months later she
went back, and the cancer was everywhere. She had spots on her
lung, on bones, on her liver.
And so Venus had to have a lot of medications and
treatments from the doctors. But everything Venus had to--was--
needed, she had to be approved for it. She had to wait to be
approved for the medication. So she would wait weeks and
sometimes months to get things that she needed.
Well, one of the hardest parts of that was for my husband.
When Venus was waiting for oxygen, she had to wait about two
months for the oxygen. But during that time they had--around
the house, yes, so that was real hard on him, to have to carry
his baby around the house. And every time he picked her up she
was lighter and lighter and lighter.
So one day Venus--one Friday Venus came to sit in the chair
of the living room, and she said, ``Mama,'' she said, ``My head
hurts me so bad I can't see.''
So we went--we took her to the counsel center, and they
rushed her to the emergency room. And she had been waiting on a
CAT scan that she hadn't gotten. So when we got her there she
lapsed into a coma. She got the CAT scan. She had two tumors in
her head, and one had ruptured. She was brain dead.
So--yes. Where I live we can't just get a mammogram. You
have to have a prescription. So since she didn't have a doctor,
she couldn't get the mammogram. But if she had had a doctor, if
she had, Venus would be here with us.
How much would you pay to have your baby saved? You got a
dollar sign out of the top of your head? Got a number, how much
you--because Venus should be here. She should not--I should not
be here. So, since she is not here, I am here for her. And I am
here for the other 140 million people that are struggling and
bearing our babies because they don't have health care
insurance, something that we shouldn't have to ask for.
We shouldn't have to ask for this, something that you
wouldn't even take this job if couldn't get. We shouldn't have
to ask for this. It is a human right. We shouldn't be bearing
our babies like this.
I am a little off-script, but I just wanted to let you know
that I am here with the Poor People's Campaign, and I am
fighting this fight. And I am representing 140 million people
today, 140 million. And we are here. We ain't going nowhere.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Callie Greer follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Ms. Greer.
I now recognize Ms. Alcocer for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF KENIA ALCOCER
Ms. Alcocer. Thank you, Members of the Committee for this
opportunity. My name is Kenia Alcocer.
I came to this country from Guerrero--Acapulco Guerrero,
Mexico as a small child, because my mother was escaping
poverty. She wanted to give me and my sisters a better life,
and she worked very, very hard for it, sometimes working two to
three jobs at a time. She was a cook in two restaurants, and
was a caretaker for an elderly family, an elderly couple. When
she would lose a job she would do anything to make sure that we
were provided for. She was even a street vendor at times.
Families like mine are very common and have many
challenges. Because of poverty and systemic racism, families
who are undocumented often have to do multiple jobs, get paid
under the table, and often that comes with discrimination and
mistreatment. To get by, people in our community have to create
survival methods, such as getting together to share meals,
taking care of each other's children, and creating a community
around us to make sure that we have safety nets.
Today I have come from east Los Angeles because I must
fight to advocate for my daughter, all children in my
community. No parent should live with the fear of having their
children be taken away from them. I sometimes have that fear
that immigration officers might come and take me away, and that
my child will be ripped from my arms. I fight for the day when
no child has to worry about clean water, a good education, or
health care.
As Members of the Budget Committee, you have tremendous
power to shift U.S. priorities in ways that it would help 140
million poor and low-income people, and for them to have better
lives.
You could decide, for example, that it is more important to
put children into Head Start than into detention centers. Last
year, one of the corporations that operate detention centers
got $234 million to buy beds for children. With that money you
could have found Head Start for more than 26,000 children.
One policy gives children lifelong benefits; the other one
destroys lives. In fact, we have had five children die in
detention centers this year. Thousands are being traumatized.
You could decide that it is more important to send children to
college than to send ICE agents to raid workplaces and separate
families. Many poor people like me would like to go to college,
but we know that there is not enough financial support, even
though we know that the benefits of public investment in higher
education far outweighs the cost.
Meanwhile, the government has had no trouble finding money
to stop people from pursuing the right to live with dignity and
humanity. The United States spends more money, eight times more
money, on immigration deportation and border policies per year
now than it did in 1976.
President Trump would like to spend tens of billions of
dollars on a border wall. He claims immigrants are an economic
burden, that we steal jobs, and public assistance money. The
exact opposite is true. The Congressional Budget Office found
that, if the United States accepted more immigrants, it would
create--and created a path to a legal status, the benefits
would outweigh the costs by nearly $20 billion a year.
Immigrants contribute to the society every day. They work
in your communities. They are the gardeners that are mowing
your lawn, the cooks, like my mother, that are preparing your
food, the farm workers who are picking your fruits and
vegetables, the nannies who are raising your children. Many of
us have been forced to become leaders in our communities to
advocate for our rights and to fight to have a life that we are
not just surviving through, but that we are able to live
through with dignity.
I am co-director of Union de Vecinos, and I am the Chair of
the California Poor People's Campaign, a national call for
moral revival. And we are joining a larger community, a
community of poor and dispossessed across this country that are
yelling and screaming at you. We are the Poor People's
Campaign, a national call for moral revival, and we need you.
You have been elected to guide this nation. And today we
are here to tell you that we need you to end this war economy.
You hold in your hand not just the power, but the lives of
millions of poor people.
My mother crossed a desert to give me a life with dignity
and basic human needs: a home, food, and education. I will
continue to fight to make sure everybody lives without poverty,
systemic racism, ecological devastation, and a violent war
economy. And I hope you will, too. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Kenia Alcocer follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Mr. Overfelt for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER OVERFELT
Mr. Overfelt. My name is Chris Overfelt, and I am with
Veterans for Peace. Thank you, Mr. Yarmuth and Mr. Womack. I
want you to know that there is not a day in my life that I am
not grateful to live under a representative government. Thank
you to all of the leaders here.
I want to say that I am not here to try and make you think
a certain way. I am here to present a different side of the
conversation, and you can decide what you think is right. It is
vital to our democracy that we can disagree and still respect
one another.
I was an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force National Guard.
I was based at Forbes Field in Topeka, Kansas from 2002 to
2011. I worked on the KC-135 aircraft, the airplane that
refuels other planes in the air, and I deployed to Turkey and
Qatar during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Neither of these
countries will likely recover from that devastation in my
lifetime. Nothing I can do in my life will make up for the
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and
children killed in these useless wars.
Since our invasion of these countries, terrorism has
proliferated tenfold around the world. When I joined the
military I had no idea that never in its history has the
Department of Defense done an internal audit of its spending,
despite it being mandated by law. It doesn't know how much
money it is spending, and it doesn't know how it is spending
it. It is a black hole for money.
A 2016 inspector general's report revealed that, over the
past two decades, the Pentagon cannot account for how it spent
$6.5 trillion. The Pentagon budget routinely accounts for half
of the federal discretionary budget. It is no secret that there
is always enough money for weapons and jails, and never enough
for education and the poor. Instead of this money going to
health care and education for our citizens who so desperately
need it, it goes to Boeing, it goes to Lockheed Martin, it goes
to Raytheon, it goes to Northrop Grumman, and the list goes on
and on and on.
When I joined the military I had no idea that we have 800
military bases, worldwide. Why do we keep such a strong
presence throughout the world? It's not to keep us safe. It is
to provide western capital with continuous access to foreign
resources and markets. Most of the military budget is used, not
to fight wars, but to exercise soft power in the support of
American capital.
When I joined the military I had no idea that all across
the world the United States supports fascist governments
through military training and arms deals, to ensure that they
serve the interests of foreign capital, and not the people that
they rule over. Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain, the list goes on and on. And I
want to be clear: This does not make us safe, it makes us less
safe.
And Mr. Womack, I appreciate your comments about getting
job skills from the military. I am very grateful for getting my
education and my skills as a mechanic, and the mentorship I
received from the great people in the military. But we do not
have to use systems of violence and brutality to try and
alleviate poverty here at home.
When I left the military in 2011 I began substitute
teaching in Kansas City, and working at an agricultural
mentorship for young people. I've met people here who have also
suffered from these wars and the misplaced spending priorities
that support them. On my farm and in my classroom in Kansas
City I work with communities that are in direct need of
funding. Instead of health care, schools, and early childhood
education programs, they only get a militarized police force
and punitive mass incarceration programs.
Thirty-nine percent Missourians are low-income, and black
residents are incarcerated four times the rate of white
residents.
We need to change the war economy, and use these funds to
provide health care and education to everyone. The moral budget
says we can save $350 billion by redirecting our foreign policy
away from war and militarism, closing our overseas bases, and
refusing to subsidize military contractors. We can also cut 25
percent of the $179 billion spent on mass incarceration in the
form of police courts and private contractors.
I want to end by saying that I come here to ask that we
stop funding systems of violence and brutality, and start
funding systems of love that support people in our communities.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Christopher Overfelt follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
And now I recognize Ms. Kinsey for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SAVANNAH KINSEY
Ms. Kinsey. Thank you. My name is Savannah Kinsey, and I
want to thank you for this opportunity. I am 22 years old, a
member of the LGBTQ community, and I am from Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, which is a town of about 20,000 people in western
Pennsylvania. The population of Johnstown is about 77 percent
white, 14 percent African-American, and 4 percent Latino. I
graduated from Greater Johnstown High in 2014, and even though
I graduated, everyday life is still very challenging. This is
because the school system is very flawed and doesn't teach the
real history of this country.
Education should teach all of us to hear and understand
everyone's differences and backgrounds that they have come
from. Johnstown used to be a booming steel mill town, but once
the mills closed it went downhill. If you have ever heard of my
town at all, it is probably because of our opioid problem.
I have known a few people who have died, including my
friend Nycki. She was poor, like a lot of people in Johnstown.
In fact, Johnstown has the highest poverty rate of any town in
the state: 38 percent of all people, and 63 percent of people
under 18 are living below the official poverty line. Nycki
turned to drugs, and that led to going in and out of jail. She
never got the treatment she needed, and when she overdosed two
years ago she left behind a four-year-old daughter. Nycki was
just 26 years old.
Some people say us young people are lazy. But that is not
true. Johnstown just doesn't have enough jobs to pay--enough
jobs that pay to live on. I am on disability and Medicaid, and
I am grateful for the help that I get, but it is not enough to
get by. And last year, out of nowhere, my benefits got cut down
to $15 a month. I have tried asking why this was, and can never
get an answer from anybody.
At the grocery store I sometimes have to put food back, or
add the charge to my credit card debt, because I don't have the
cash. What is going to happen when all of my credit card debt
is maxed out, and still don't have the cash?
I am not the only person in this boat that is sinking.
There is many others out there, too.
What has really helped me lower my anxiety is getting
involved with Put People First!, PA. This is a group that gives
people like me the opportunity to organize to make things
better. To be honest, it has really become like family. I co-
coordinate our health care rights committee in Johnstown, and I
often go door to door, talking to people about the need for
health care for all. It is hard work, but I love the challenge
of trying to persuade people to have hope, and that we can
improve the situation.
What makes me sad is when I talk to people who say there is
no poverty problem in Johnstown, and that they have been told
that if you are poor it is your own fault, or that you should
just work harder. Or they say that immigrants are the problem.
The real problem, I believe, is that a few people are getting
very rich, while poor people in towns like Johnstown are just
forgotten about.
Last fall Put People First! PA organized demonstrations
against health care companies, and one was at Conemaugh
Hospital owned by Duke LifePoint in Johnstown. Do you know how
much the CEO of Duke LifePoint made in 2017? More than $13
million. Meanwhile, people, including some of my own family
members, have gotten poor care at that hospital, which has a
one out of five-star rating on Medicare.gov. Nobody should get
that rich off of a health care system that is not even working.
And the problems are not just in Johnstown, either. Can you
believe that the life expectancy in the United States is
actually declining because of all the drug overdoses? Life
expectancy for African-Americans in Johnstown is just 64.8
years, almost 15 years below the national average. That is just
crazy.
We need to make health care a right with universal health
care for all. And we need more public investment in communities
like Johnstown, so that everyone has the opportunity to a
secure, dignified life, not just the few wealthy at the top.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you all
today.
[The prepared statement of Savannah Kinsey follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Pastor Fields for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF LATASHA FIELDS
Rev. Fields. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Latasha
Fields. I am the founder of Christian Home Educators' Support
System in Chicago, Illinois. I want to thank Chairman Yarmuth
for having me, the Ranking Member Womack, and Members of
Congress. It is a blessing to be here today.
I have been married to Ronald Fields, II, for 13-and-half
years. We are home educators of four wonderful children. I have
two girls, 22 and three, and two boys, 12 and nine. My husband
I were both born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I spent
33 years there before I came to move to Chicago, Illinois
seven-and-half years ago to expand our evangelistic work. We
serve as the overseers and pastors of Our Report Ministries and
Publications in Chicago. I am also the founder of Christian
Home Educator, which is a homeschool academy, and Christian
Home Support System, which is our support group.
These are evangelistic outreach ministries to serve and
support the families of the City of Chicago and surrounding
communities. We provide assistance, resources of our home
education, cooperative educational and recreational resources,
curriculum, and parental rights issues, and much more. Our
mission is to empower parents to take back the responsibility
of educating their children.
I am also the state coordinator of parentalrights.org, a
volunteer of Junior Achievement of Chicago, and a member of
CURE Clergy Network. I also have over 19 years of
entrepreneurial experience, with 14 of those years being
concentrated in the real estate industry, and several
certifications in property management and non-profit housing. I
am also a recent graduate of Trinity Christian College in Palo
Heights, Illinois, with a bachelor's degree in business
administration with a 4.0 GPA.
So let me tell you a little bit about my journey, which is
nothing short of the grace of God towards me. My grandmother,
who raised me, also raised nine kids of her own, was a
homeowner living in a poor, black, drug-infested community in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She raised me and my younger sister. My
mom was a teenage mom on drugs in and out of prison. My
grandmother was a strong woman, hardworking woman. She showed
tough love and had amazing, independent work ethics.
So I basically grew up in a typical black community
surrounding me, the lack of motivation for education,
promiscuous behavior, drugs, crime, and some on welfare. In
spite of the circumstance that surrounded my childhood, I was
one that often fought against the odds. I had a love for
education. I never did drugs, and I never committed a crime.
But however, I did fall into promiscuous behavior. And at the
age of 17 I became a teenage mom.
This was the turning point of my life. I will never forget
the day that I found that I was pregnant. I went into a Planned
Parenthood in my neighborhood. I was devastated, I was
frightened, and I was scared, because I was one of those kids
that excelled in school, was popular in school, played sports,
was on the homecoming court. You name it, I was in it.
So basically, I kept myself from the normalized behaviors
that plagued the black community. So becoming pregnant was
embarrassing to me. I didn't want to be like the rest. I had
always strived to be better. I didn't want to be like the
social norm. I didn't want to be another statistic. I didn't
want to be the 72 percent of moms raising a child single.
So, while waiting for the result of my pregnancy test, I
was crying. I was thinking how I had ruined my life. The nurse
came back in the room and she told me that I was three weeks'
pregnant, and she consulted me that I had another choice. I had
a choice to abort my baby.
In that very moment, my life flashed before my eyes because
I had a big decision to make. Do I get rid of my baby, and
proceed as normal, as though nothing happened, and go back to
my family and friends and continue to live out my life? Or do I
live the rest of my life knowing I had killed my baby? Do I
keep my baby, and face the challenges that lie ahead of me, and
press past the shame, the regret, and the disappointment?
I chose the latter. I chose to do what I will always hear
my grandmother say: You make your bed hard, you lie in it.
Those words rang loud and clear in my heart and mind. Yes, we
did this. No one else is responsible for the choice we made. I
must take responsibility for my actions and live with it, live
the best possible life I can, give my child the best possible
life I can, finish high school, go to college, and make
something of myself.
I decided, in spite of my teenage pregnancy, that I would
continue to press past the popularized social norms of the
black community. I worked hard, I graduated from high school
five months pregnant. During my teenage years I worked at
Burger King. I was a part of an entrepreneurial program that we
had. I worked throughout my high school years, from 15 until I
graduated, but I was a mom, so I had to continue working at
Burger King to provide for myself and my baby.
My--I lived with my grandmother for several months after I
had her, and she encouraged me to get on food stamps, to
receive week--to receive child care assistance. During this
time she also helped me to get my first apartment.
After about nine months of renting, the real estate company
asked me did I want to buy a house. I was shocked. I was
excited. I went to the first-time home buyers program, and I
purchased a three-bedroom, one bath house at 18 years old.
After two years of being on food stamps, I found myself
increasingly growing to hate the program. I felt awful while I
was on the program. It was such a level of disrespect and
deprivation. I couldn't take it any longer. I removed myself
from the food stamp program. But however, due to me working and
going to college, I had to remain on child care assistance.
After having my baby in 1996, buying my home in 1997, the
same real estate company offered me a job. I became a
secretary, later a rental assistant manager, and later, in
December of 2005, I became a licensed real estate agent.
However, from 1996 to early 2005 I was a single mom,
working hard, working two jobs sometimes, going to college, and
maintaining honors. By November 2004 I gave my life to Christ,
then my husband. We got married October 2005.
After becoming a Christian I became an ordained minister.
My faith began to challenge and propel me to work with families
and kids, and tackle the problems that plague the black
communities. I lived it, and I wanted to reverse the plague. I
had begun and purposed in my heart that I would become that
change, and advocate for my family and friends.
In 2006 I felt compelled by God to take more responsibility
for my daughter's education. I took her out of the public
education in the fourth grade, and I wanted to give her a
Christian education by homeschooling her, so we did. My husband
and I did not know what that would entail, but we obeyed God.
Later, in 2007, we opened up a Christian homeschool academy
as an extension of our evangelistic work. My husband and I are
now homeowners in Chicago, Illinois. For the last three years
my husband is the owner of his own barber shop in the South
Shore Community in Chicago for the last five years, and we are
continuing our ministerial work with our Christian school and
our co-op group to support the families in the City of Chicago.
Chairman Yarmuth. Ms. Fields, if you could wrap it up, your
time is considerably over.
Rev. Fields. Oh, it is?
Chairman Yarmuth. So, if you could, wrap it up. You can
make a concluding statement.
Rev. Fields. Oh, wrap it up, okay. And one more point, that
we graduated our oldest daughter--she is 22--from being
homeschooled all the way to 12th grade. We graduated her from
our homeschool academy, and now she just walked across the
stage from the University of Bridgeport, with a degree in
nutritional science with a 3.1 GPA from being homeschooled.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Pastor Latasha Fields follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Pastor Mahan for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF PASTOR DAVID MAHAN
Pastor Mahan. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Womack, all
the esteemed Members of the House Budget Committee, I thank you
for this opportunity to share my family's journey out of
poverty.
Growing up, my wife and I were raised in lower middle-class
households with the public schools, experienced some of the
same societal ills far too many American children face. Abuse,
addiction, divorce, depression, parents who have more bills
than money most months were all part of our building blocks
that formed--the building blocks that formed our childhood.
In 1993, soon after I completed my senior year, my
girlfriend informed me that she was pregnant, and that I had
some serious decisions to make. I was terrified, confused. As I
was--it seemed like everyone around me kind of knew what I
should do more than I did.
So my friends thought that we should have an abortion, just
go ahead and kill the baby, and then you can just go on with
your life. My mother, well-meaning, she decided that I should
take care of my children, you know, always, but that it is my
wife that I should not--I shouldn't marry my wife, that I
should just basically take care of the kids.
This is, later on, what I found would lead to about 70
percent of African-American kids being born, you know, being
born into households without fathers. And so I am so glad I
didn't take that advice.
Despite all of the advice to the contrary, we decided to
keep our baby, get married, and trust the Lord for answers
along the way. I went home from being a popular student leader,
a newly enrolled college student, to a poor college dropout and
teen father overnight.
The first year of our marriage I made $11,000 in 2017 in
debt. While living with--or living with our relatives, we had
to put our baby girl in the bottom drawer of a dresser and--to
sleep, because we just couldn't afford a crib. Her nightlight
was the orange security light that shown through the window
from the back wall of the grocery store. And my wife and I
pillowed our heads at a bed that, basically, they found my
alcoholic uncle dead in just months before we moved in.
After living with a few relatives and working hard, I
finally was able to move my family into a small duplex
apartment in a rough neighborhood. Drugs were being sold across
the street. The smell of marijuana frequently crept into the
house through the paper-thin walls from our neighbors. Shortly
after we had our second daughter, I was working several jobs,
struggling to study for the ministry.
We finally worked ourselves off of the WIC program, and I
even started a small cleaning company, where I was thankful,
basically, to work and clean out crack houses that were roach-
infested and everything from property managers that kind of
frequented our company.
I was working so much that one day, when my wife, you know,
came, I was home between jobs, and my wife came home and said
she was looking for me, calling my name. And she said she came
downstairs where I was zoned out, staring blankly at a empty TV
screen with tears streaming down my face. I was demoralized,
utterly exhausted, and I felt like I was beginning to lose my
mind. However, looking back, I can clearly see how the Lord
rescued us time and time again, and how, when we felt the
weakest, He faithfully stepped in to strengthen us.
For instance, once when our car broke down, our only car
broke down unexpectedly, we had a friend randomly call the
house to say that they got an amazing deal at the auto auction.
They bought two cars, and so they offered the one that they
were currently driving to my wife and I.
Another time I came home and I put my bags down in the
front room and I saw my wife weeping in the kitchen, looking at
the empty cabinets and refrigerators. And she said, ``Lord, I
never seen the righteous forsaken, nor my seed begging bread.''
And she prayed that we would have food that night. Her friend
called that night and said that her brother was working at the
grocery store up the street, said that they had some extra meat
they were about to throw away, and that night we all ate steak
for dinner.
And then there was the year we decided to step out on faith
and take our children out of the failing public school system.
We could not afford private school. Our family thought that we
were nuts, but the Lord connected us to a group of homeschool
families in our church who took us in, guided us through the
entire process. Years and a whole lot of criticism later, when
we were able to move into a better neighborhood and enroll our
children into a high-performing high school, we once again
recognized the sovereign hand of God in the decision that we
made to homeschool our children.
Two poor African-American teen parents with little post-
secondary education somehow raised four brilliant children with
exemplary character who would all rank in the top of their
classes, 4.0, 4.3, 4.6. Mentoring programs, thousands of hours
of community service, GE/Reagan and merit scholarships, a
neuroscience degree from the Ohio State University, double
majors. With God's help and a strong community of faith, we
were blessed to achieve outcomes that many of our public
schools in our area could not, and all from the kitchen table
of our modest inner-city home.
In closing, I understand the pain of poverty, and the sense
of hopelessness that it engenders. However, I also understand
the hope that comes from personal responsibility, strong
marriages and families, and an act of faith in Jesus Christ.
While there is a place for poverty relief programs in
society, for sure, I feel that our reliance upon them has
become excessive, and that many of them have grossly missed the
mark of empowering their recipients to achieve self-
sufficiency.
Today, my wife lovingly serves disadvantaged women in one
of the poorest neighborhoods of our city. As a youth
development consultant and minister, I serve thousands of youth
and families per year, teaching character education and the
word of God all over the country and abroad. We just celebrated
our 25th year in marriage together, and our four children are
absolutely thriving. However, there is nothing special about
us, but for the fact that we are trophies of God's grace and
beneficiaries of the love and kindness of family, friends, and
others within our community who committed to love God and love
their neighbors, to be clear.
Personal responsibility, strong marriages and families, and
an act of faith in Jesus Christ is the formula that worked for
us. This is the formula that worked for our ancestors before
us. And this is the only formula that will work for Americans
today. Government programs will only prove successful to the
degree that they supplement these key factors without
supplanting them.
I appreciate your time to come and share my family story
today. It is a big deal in the Mahan house, and I am free to
answer any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Pastor David Mahan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman for his testimony.
We will now begin the question-and-answer period. I yield five
minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Jeffries.
Mr. Jeffries. I thank the distinguished Chair for convening
this hearing and for your leadership. And, of course, I thank
Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her persistent leadership on this
issue within the caucus, and thank all of the witnesses for
your presence here today and for your testimony.
It seems to me that tackling the issue of poverty should be
something that we do in a bipartisan way. Jim Clyburn has
frequently raised the issue of the need for Congress to address
persistently poor counties. And when you look at the measure of
what a persistently poor county is in the United States of
America, it is based on the fact that 20 percent or more of the
people have lived below the poverty line 30 or more years. That
is a persistently poor county.
And when you look at who represents persistently poor
counties in the United States House of Representatives, it is
almost equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, both
sides of the aisle. I haven't looked at the breakdown in terms
of the 116th Congress, but in previous congresses, in fact, my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle represented more
persistently poor counties than did Members of the House
Democratic Caucus.
This is an issue that, in the past, Dr. King spoken
eloquently about the effort to divide poor whites and poor
African-Americans from each other, notwithstanding the
commonality of condition that can often be found.
Dr. Barber, I would be interested in your take on where the
opportunities lie to tackle poverty as a moral imperative, as
you have eloquently laid out for the country, but to try to do
it in a bipartisan fashion.
Rev. Dr. Barber. First of all, I think that we have to, but
I think all of us have to get this right. We are not talking
about just addressing poverty a little bit. King talked about
ending poverty, militarism, and racism, and ecological
devastation, a war economy. That is why we have put together a
budget, as well as the facts.
And the reality is, even with the facts, we got to start
with what is right, 140 million poor people. We have got to
stop racializing poverty, like poverty is some black people
that don't work hard enough. The fact of the matter, they are
more white people that are poor than there are blacks. The
concentration is more whites, but there is actually more
African-Americans.
And so we should come together. I was actually looking at
the Ranking Member's state in Arkansas. I just thought I would
say I have looked at Arkansas. I think this is Arkansas. It
says that in Arkansas, 46 percent of people in Arkansas are
poor and low income: 493,000 of them are black, but 863,000 of
them are white.
Now, all those folks are not poor because they don't work
hard enough. To have anecdotal evidence about people working
hard enough, that--they are actually proving our point. People
shouldn't have to work three jobs. That is the point. People
shouldn't work without health care. That is the point. People
shouldn't have to pray to wait for food to come on their table.
That is the point. If you are working, you should be making a
living wage, you should have health care.
And the richest nation in the world--every one of you that
comes into this chamber, one of the first things you get is
free health care, because we pay for it. We pay for it. You
make sure that, for instance, you have the ability to get all
of your preclearance--all your--this lady didn't have that
chance.
Ms. Greer. No.
Rev. Dr. Barber. She didn't have that chance. And so, what
we have put together for you is an agenda of what can happen if
we invest in living wages, and how many dollars that can put
into the economy for everybody. What can happen if we cut the
military budget by 350--and it will still be higher than
Russia, Iran, North Korea, all of them combined.
We have a complete plan. And we are not here talking about
Democrat or Republican. We are not trying to racialize--but
that is why we dis-aggregated the number. We are tired of the
racialization of poverty, the partisanism of poverty.
What we are saying is you cannot have a society where 43
percent of your people are poor and low-wealth. I don't care if
they are from eastern Kentucky, where we have been, that is
predominately white, or eastern North Carolina, that is
predominately black. It is wrong. And we have a plan, and we
must work together to change this.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Dr. Barber, but one last question.
You also mentioned that the traditional poverty measures don't
actually capture the distressed conditions that the American
people are confronting in incredibly large numbers. And one of
the statistics that has startled many of us, I believe, is the
fact that at least half the country has indicated that they
couldn't afford a sudden, unexpected $400 expense. That is over
160 million people in the United States of America.
How do you think we should measure poverty? And maybe Dr.
Theoharis can address that, or Dr. Barber. I yield to you at
your discretion.
Rev. Dr. Barber. I am going to take one shot and turn it
to--we have the official poverty measure and the supplemental
poverty measure. The problem is even the official poverty
measure didn't really measure poverty at the beginning. The
supplemental poverty measure looks at poverty based on the
federal-federal poverty line, but also those who are less than
200 percent of the federal poverty line. And what it shows us
is that that is a broader measurement. It gives us a truer
picture.
And if we are going to have this conversation, let's start
with the facts, not the phoniness, not the mythology, but let's
start with the facts of what is happening to the people across
this country.
Liz?
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. Yes, indeed. We actually need a more
effective poverty measure. We need to not just talk about a
food budget, when housing is one of the biggest expenses, when
health care and health care crises--when 73 percent of this
country can actually have health care insurance and still not
be able to afford many of their basic health care services. We
got a problem.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for five
minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, boy, I tell you,
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. This
is a really, really important hearing, because the issue of
poverty in America is very real. I know, because I have got
some personal experience with it. And I know many of you are
going to look up here and say, ``Yeah, right, okay.''
But let me give you a little bit of my background. I was
born on a two-wheel wagon-rut mule farm. We had no indoor
plumbing. We cooked and heated on two big, old, black
potbellied stoves. We farmed with mules up until I was about 13
years old. We went to the store once a month, and that was to
get sugar and salt, if we had the money to do it. Everything
else came from the sweat of our brow, and the toil of our
hands, in growing and raising what we consumed. My mother
worked three or four jobs, picking cotton, picking tobacco,
working on produce farms, you name it. That was--we didn't know
we were poor. We thought we lived like everybody else did in
the community in which we were raised.
Mother had to find a way to take care of two kids, so she
lied about my age. Mom's dead now, so I can say that, you can't
go after her. But she lied about my age to start me to school
when I was five years old. And because my dad was an alcoholic,
and she had to jump from place to place to try to find a job
because he wasn't providing much input, we were all over the
place, 13 schools in 12 years.
So education was a big, big problem for me. I didn't get a
very good one in elementary school and middle school and high
school. And thank God that I lived in a country that helped
provide some opportunities.
I see a lot of testimony here about Christian principles.
We got two reverends, two pastors, and a lot of people with
Jesus signs on their shirts. I have been a Christian since I
was 10 years old. And I am going to tell you the scriptures
that I read, one of the problems that we have got in this
country--it is not a head problem, folks, it is a heart
problem, because I don't find anywhere in the scripture where
Jesus said that it was Caesar's job to feed the poor and to
clothe the widows and to take care of the orphans. He said it
was the churches. It is the church's responsibility. It is the
community's responsibility. It is your neighbors'
responsibility, it is your responsibility, as a neighbor, to do
those things.
Pastor Mahan, I find your testimony especially inspiring,
both because we are fellow Ohioans, and I plan to get with you,
because I got some thoughts to share with you later, but
because you too have thought a lot about how fathers and father
figures can impact the lives of children and young adults. I
wrote a book about that called ``Raising Fathers'' that was
published in 2017. We can talk more about that later, too.
But in your work with at-risk youth, can you describe the
effect that a strong male role model can have on young people
and their ability to overcome poverty and succeed in the
future?
Pastor Mahan. I, first of all, appreciate your kind words.
I have not seen a more powerful influencer in anti-poverty in a
kid's life than a father. Obama said that the leading cause for
child poverty was fatherless homes.
I have seen it go the positive way, and I have seen it go a
negative way. I have seen it where we have got mentoring
programs, we are working with kids, Father gets out of jail,
and that power of a father comes in and undoes everything we
did in the mentoring program. But I also see it work in the
opposite way, where we can be fathers to the fatherless, where
we can go into communities where 80, 90 percent of kids have no
dads. We can be coaches, we can be mentors, we can be teachers,
and turn that kid's life around, too, by being a father, to
somebody that didn't have one.
It is just that--it is something that can't be understated.
And that is my biggest piece. When I come into the room and I
am hearing folks talk about, you know--I don't hear anybody
saying we don't want to end poverty. What I am hearing is that
you have got some that are talking about intentions, and you
have got some that are talking about results. And this is not
new. You know, we have got the war on poverty that started
years ago. We had 7 percent of the kids in America that were
born in homes without fathers. At the end of the doggone thing,
today, we got 42 percent of kids in America that have no
fathers.
Mr. Johnson. Yes. Pastor Mahan, I really--I wish I could
take all day with you, but let me get to Pastor Fields real
quick.
You know, access to quality education is often referred to
as the silver bullet for success in life. Can you talk just
briefly about some ways that that has played out in your life,
or the lives of your children? What role has federal policy had
in your and your children's education?
Rev. Fields. Yes, it has been a tremendous blessing. And,
like I said, I pulled my daughter out in fourth grade. And so
we began to homeschool.
And what we have seen what education has done--because, of
course, me and my husband are products of the public education
system. Well, because I have always been a stickler and an
advocate for education, with homeschooling my children their
education was unlimited. It was vast. So we were able to give
them a quality education. And I believe some of the ones here
who were saying that even teaching our children our history--so
we was able to give them that, that the public school has
failed to give them.
And so, with me going back to school, and just recently
graduating in December, I am an advocate for education. I
understand where I felt the federal dollars are being spent in
order to give us those opportunities to get an education. So
education is definitely a key for our children and for society
to succeed and to come out of poverty.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Boyle, for five minutes.
Mr. Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to just say
thank you to each and every one of the eight witnesses, for
both the head and the heart that was present in each one of
your different testimonies.
You know, one of the things I have noticed in our political
discourse--and this is not just in one campaign, it is
throughout many campaigns--sometimes some people use a very
dishonest frame. They will say there are the economic issues,
and then there are the moral issues. And the moral issues,
typically, they are referring to a few hot-button social
issues. And then they will say, ``Oh, but then there are the
economic issues: taxes, and spending, and budgets.''I believe
that is wrong. The economic issues are moral issues. And this
really goes back to our founding documents, because we are a
nation born not of one race of people, but of a commitment to a
certain set of principles and ideals. In our founding documents
is the acknowledgment that all of us, by virtue of human
beings, have certain rights.
However, if we don't have the economic ability to
participate fully in those rights, then those rights remain
just abstract. That is something that the UN human--UN
Declaration on Human Rights recognized over half a century ago,
which the United States led the drafting of, and have signed up
to it, including in that document, by the way, a commitment for
universal health care as a human right.
Now, I want to transition just briefly, because there are
so many different topics that were raised, from education, to
housing, to opioids. And I wanted to focus specifically on
opioids.
And Ms. Kinsey, Savannah, thank you for your testimony. As
a fellow Pennsylvanian, you make me proud. I thank you
especially for sharing the story of your friend, and I am sorry
for her loss and the loss that you have experienced for Nycki.
The opioid epidemic is horrible in all 50 states. But for
our home state of Pennsylvania, for the Commonwealth, it is
nothing short of a catastrophe. In my home town of
Philadelphia, we, I am sad to say, lead the nation among major
cities for opioid deaths. It is something that I have worked--I
have spent a lot of time on, as it has been especially a
scourge in my own community, in my own district.
I was wondering if you could speak to the ways in which our
SNAP program, Medicaid, and other financial systems actually
make it harder to break that cycle of addiction, the way the
economic conditions actually exacerbate the cycle of addiction,
and if you had any ideas or thoughts on ways we could make it
easier for people to kick that opioid epidemic addiction,
knowing that it would, A, be the right thing to do, but, B, in
the financial interests of society to help them do so.
Ms. Kinsey. Thank you. So, to the last part of your
question, I will just answer that first. I believe that putting
folks in prison for the opioid epidemic is not the way to do
it. I believe a treatment center would be the correct route,
just because going into prison you don't even get treatment, or
very little treatment. And then it just turns to in and out, in
and out. And then eventually it just ends--leads to death, and
doesn't end anywhere well.
And then can you repeat your first question? I am sorry.
Mr. Boyle. No, that is good. I was--the first part was
talking about the ways in which the system that we have created
actually makes it more difficult to break this cycle of
addiction.
Ms. Kinsey. Okay.
Mr. Boyle. And it is not a quiz. If you don't have anything
to offer, then don't worry about it. But I just--I think that
it is so important that we listen to voices, the lived
experiences, people like yourself, because I think, in many
ways, those are the voices we don't hear enough of here in
Washington.
Ms. Kinsey. Yes. So I don't really feel like food stamps
and the WIC program and stuff like that really affect, like,
the opioids, like, in a bad way. Like, I feel like by not--I
might be misunderstanding your question, but I feel like by not
having the money for all of them, I feel like it affects it
tremendously, just because you end up--like, your mental health
is just declining. And, I mean, I have not experienced it
personally, I have just known folks. But just from what I have
heard, and all of that, and living there, it is just, like--so
you go to the store, and you can't afford food for your family.
Like, I know a lot of us have talked about children and,
like, that is very depressing, to not be able to, you know,
afford food for your family. And, like, just the route of my
friend, Nycki, like, she actually was just, like, smoking weed
with her friends. And so she was smoking and they, you know,
ran out of weed. So a friend of hers actually said, you know,
``Try opioids, like, you know, try heroin, it is just--you
know, it is just as good, like, you know, nothing is going to
happen.''
So, you know, they were poor because, you know, they ran
out of the weed, and then like, you know, so----
Chairman Yarmuth. Okay, the gentleman's time has expired. I
now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Smith, for five
minutes.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sixty-five days. Sixty-
five days. That is how many days that have passed that we have
not did the responsibility of this Committee, and that is to
pass a budget. A budget hasn't even been filed amongst the
Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi, who spoke in this Committee just at the very
beginning, said that a budget is a statement of your values.
Show us your values. That is whenever her party was in the
minority, just a few years ago. I am asking Speaker Pelosi and
the House Democrats to pass a budget.
We are having a hearing today on poverty. Poverty hits home
directly to me. But before we can address a lot of the issues
in poverty, we have to do a budget, which was supposed to be
done 65 days ago. File a budget. Let us talk about it. Let us
see your values. House Republicans have a budget. Take up ours,
if you don't want to take up yours. The President even has a
budget.
When we talk about the area that I represent in southeast
Missouri, it is called the Bootheel. It is a very impoverished
congressional district. We have over 200 miles of the
Mississippi. My family has called that district home for seven
generations.
Growing up in high school and in college, I would go work
on my grandparents' farm. Whenever I would work at my
grandparent's farm, in order to wash my hands after working
cattle, or picking up rocks, clearing brush, to wash my hands I
had to pump water out of a cistern. My grandparents never had
running water. They died not having running water. So I
understand what poverty is all about.
More than 20 of my 30 counties are persistent-poverty
counties in the 8th congressional district. It is a very
impoverished area. But you know what my family always taught
me? My father was a minister. My parents showed a lot of love.
They have been married for more than 55 years. But they taught
me that hard work, and determination, and support from your
family can do a lot. And a lot can happen from a family that
had nothing. And so there is a way to get out of poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty over 50 years
ago, and since then we have spent over $25 trillion on
different government programs. We had 36 million people in
poverty in the 1960s, when we granted the war on poverty. Now
there is over 40 million, according to the statistics from the
government. I know that you all have said 140 million, but 40
million.
So regardless, it has increased. But we have spent $25
trillion. Those 40 million that is considered in poverty right
now, we spend a trillion dollars a year in 80 different federal
programs to help those that are in poverty. If we just took
that trillion dollars and divided it up amongst those 40
million people, that would be over $20,000 a year in a check. I
would say the federal government is not doing a good job at
trying to get people out of poverty. Think about those numbers.
We have a poverty trap in these 80-plus federal programs.
We have had people come and testify before Congress that says,
you know, ``I work 40 hours a week at the local convenience
store. I have to get child care subsidies. I get assistance
with my rent. I get food stamps. But I got a $2 pay raise, and
guess what? I lost my child care subsidies. My food stamps got
reduced.''
There is a certain level, according to our federal
programs, our welfare programs, that they push people down. And
that should be a Republican and Democrat issue, is to reform
that. We want people to better themselves every day, to
gradually work themselves off the system. That is a way that we
can do it. We don't want to keep people on the system. We want
them to have a better quality of life.
So many people are worried about that security blanket. But
if they can see the progress of a better life, it is good. When
I go into the schools and I talk to the kids and Hayti,
Missouri, or in Caruthersville, or Kennett, or Bunker, I say it
doesn't matter what zip code you are born in, or what family
you are born in. If you get a good education and you work hard,
you can do a lot.
But love also helps. So I think the churches--being the son
of a pastor, the love that you can nourish these folks is
amazing.
And I could say so much more, but poverty hits home. It is
an important topic. But before we can even hit it, let's get a
budget done.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Khanna, for five
minutes.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Reverend Barber, thank you for your incredible moral
leadership in this country. Thank you to all of the witnesses
for taking time to come and testify before Congress.
Reverend Barber, I want to ask your wisdom and candid
advice to this Committee. Representative Barbara Lee, about a
week ago, led a group of us down to hear President Carter teach
Sunday School. And President Carter had a hip injury, and three
weeks later he is at the pulpit teaching, showing his
resilience.
And there are two things he said that struck me. One, he
talked about a phone call he had with President Trump, and
President Trump said to President Carter, ``I am concerned
about China.'' And President Carter said, ``Well, China hasn't
been in a war since 1979. We have been in over 40 conflicts.
And if we had taken those trillions of dollars and invested it
in our infrastructure, in our education, and in high-speed
rail, and in broadband, we would probably be in a much better
place.''
And then President Carter talked about what he thought it
meant for America to be a superpower, informed by his own
understanding of the teachings of Jesus and his own Christian
faith. And he said what it means to be a superpower, in his
view, is a place where leaders from around the world would come
to Washington to seek our guidance and counsel on how to bring
peace, where people would come to look to America in
understanding how to bring justice.
President Carter, as I know it, is the last president who
actually ran on cutting the defense budget and won. He talked
about 5 to 7 percent cuts in defense.
And here is the reality, Reverend Barber. Representative
Lee and I introduced an amendment in this Committee to freeze
the defense spending, not to cut it, to freeze it to the levels
that Donald Trump has in 2009. And we only got seven votes for
that.
Now, the arguments we hear is, well, we can't shut down
government. The Republicans are in charge in the Senate. The
President has to sign something. We need a budget. And I am
sure they are well-meaning arguments.
But, Reverend Barber, I would like your counsel to this
Committee, to this Congress, given all the constraints, how do
we succeed in making the case and standing up for responsible
cuts in defense?
Rev. Dr. Barber. You know, I come from somebody who--and
the people here who remember--who know that we were deeply
impacted by government, by Caesar, if you will. And it took
religious people who had to stand up to Caesar when Caesar
said, ``Separate, but equal.'' There wasn't but one dissenter,
Justice Harlan out of eastern Kentucky, that stood up to that.
But he stood up. And because he stood up, he eventually brought
other people to his position, and we won.
Somebody has to stand up to the lies. I have heard so many
distortions here today it actually hurts my head. I mean, to
suggest that work--these people work hard. We all have to tell
our stories and our children--but for somebody to say, well,
Jesus never said anything about Caesar. First of all, it is
interesting that you all would define yourself as Caesar. That
in itself is--right? I mean we need to stop for a minute to
even hear that.
And then the next thing is that you have read the 2,000
scriptures in the Bible that talk about how society is supposed
to treat the poor, the immigrant, the least of these. And you
don't know that Jesus started his first sermon with good news
to the prototokos. That is a Greek word which means those who
have been made poor by economic systems. I mean it really is
shocking that folk are saying the same thing that we heard
people say about slavery.
Slaves, just work hard and wait. Civil rights, we don't
need to be involved. Just work hard and wait. Social Security
that, you know--people saying you were against Social Security,
and they said God was against it. It is bothersome that, in the
21st century, we still have these weak, tired, old mythologies,
lying about the world poverty when the Russell Sage Foundation
actually says that it did decrease poverty. But we left the
field.
So I would say to all of us, Democrats and Republicans, we
brought you people, Republicans, Democrats, white, and black,
see the people. Stop just talking about how know poverty--and
hear what these folk are saying, and put together a full plan
to deal with this issue.
This is traumatic, to see this happening in America today,
that people would stick with their partisan lines and ignore
the people that are really hurting.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Flores, for five
minutes.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, and thank you,
Republican Leader Womack, for holding this important hearing
about poverty in America today.
I come at poverty from a personal perspective. After my
family started--or my early years were in poverty. And I
remember there were nights when my dad would come home after
working hard and say, ``Well, the soup is going to be a little
thin tonight.''
And we were able to persevere and ultimately prosper, but
there was no Medicaid. There were no--there was no SNAP. All we
got was a little bit of help from friends from time to time,
from the community, and my dad's hard work. And I was blessed
to be able to go to a quality public school that didn't have a
lot of federal mandates or oversight over it. It was local
leaders that decided how they wanted to educate their kids, and
they did a wonderful job with it. And we ultimately persevered.
But along the way I started working at 9, threw papers at 10,
and by age 13 I was driving a tractor, building fence six days
a week, 12 hours a day during the summer times.
And again, there was no federal support along the way. I am
not saying the federal government doesn't have a role, I am
just trying to say it is not the end-all be-all. But what it
did--what my early life did tell me is that there is a value to
work, and that paychecks can solve a lot of--paychecks and good
jobs can solve a lot of issues. And so that leads me back to
where we are today.
By all accounts, our economy is very strong today, and
average hourly wages have increased by 3.2 percent, which is
significantly higher than the 2.3 percent over the last 10
years. And this recovery has been broad and it has been deep.
Unemployment for African-Americans and Hispanics and females is
at record lows. Wage growth in the bottom 10 percent of our
nation's workforce is 50 percent greater than that work--than
that income growth in the top 10 percent, the first time that
income inequality has shrunk in the last several years.
So a strong economy has opened a lot of doors. They lift
all people. We have more jobs available today than we have
people to fill them. So my view is--I come at this, again, from
a perspective of how do we help people have the workforce
training programs that they need, an education system that
understands the needs of the future, and flexibility for
students and youth to access more options to apprenticeships
and technical skills?
And while we may have disagreements about how to best lift
low-income Americans out of poverty and into prosperity, I
believe it is important to have this discussion.
My questions start with a question for Pastor Fields. I
believe one of the key ingredients for success for at-risk
youth is a stable family and a stable household. Unfortunately,
a lot of our at-risk youth come home to an environment that is
not healthy, and they don't live in encouraging communities.
Are there examples of successful anti-poverty programs that you
have been a part of that address these problems for youth?
Rev. Fields. Thank you, Member Flores. Yes, and that is--I
am hearing everybody testify, as well, about the same thing.
And I am finding it hard to understand why, when the word is
said, 'hard work,' why is that interpreted in a different way?
I realize all of us sitting here, everyone in this room,
has worked hard to some extent. But what we are saying is--and
I believe you all would agree--that even where you all sit, as
representatives, in Congress and Senators, you did not do it by
not working hard. And so we just need to understand what that
word means.
We are saying that you have to persevere. You have to
endeavor. And for me, I grew up in the same environments that
everyone sitting here is testifying about. Again, my mother was
on drugs, in and out of prison. My grandmother did not have
federal aid. My grandmother bought a house in 1972, working as
a janitor at Louisiana State University. So before the civil
rights, there was no federal aid. There was no welfare and food
stamps. So I am sorry if I come from an environment where I
have seen that you do not have to rely on government, you can
work hard and persevere, no matter how long it takes, and that
is what I did.
Mr. Flores. And that is--that takes us to our question.
Well, give us examples of successful community programs that
help restore healthy families so that we can have that economic
success. Your story is a great one.
Rev. Fields. I mean, like I said, I got the food stamps for
a couple years. So I am not here to say totally dissolve it.
People do need help. But what I am here to say, and especially
working in the real estate industry, it doesn't have to be
perpetual.
Mr. Flores. Right.
Rev. Fields. You know, you got families that pass Section 8
and welfare down like it is an inheritance. The Bible says we
ought to lay up an inheritance for our children. And it is not
government entitlement.
Mr. Flores. Pastor Mahan, we have talked a lot about the
inputs into anti-poverty programs, where we are trying to solve
the effects of poverty, but we don't look at the underlying
causes of poverty. Can you walk us through?
What--what should our approach be to anti-poverty programs?
Instead of looking at the--trying to solve the effects, solving
the impact, going after the impacts?
Pastor Mahan. Empowerment is--to me, I think empowerment is
the key. You know, empowering a single father, empower a single
mother to get back on her feet to where she can do so in a way
that builds dignity, and not dependence.
To answer the other question, I would say the churches, in
my opinion, have been probably some of the strongest
organizations to deal with these issues, and especially the
opiate piece of it in Ohio. Our faith-based opiate programs
have been phenomenal all across the state, to where they are
always at the governor's office talking about the successes of
their programs.
In my personal life, it was the church. They got me
involved in homeschooling, when everybody thought we was crazy.
They got me involved--and even opportunities for employment,
and things like that. And so that would be the number-one
organization, I would say, that we would need to empower a
little bit more, with the TANF, and things like that.
But again, can they do so, and still be able to preach
Christ, and to have the same world view, and positions that
basically made them conspicuous to the government in the first
place? Like, you guys are doing an amazing job, but then when I
give you money, ``Shhh.'' You know, ``We don't want to talk
about what made you so successful.''
Mr. Flores. I want to apologize to the Chairman for going
over my time, but I do appreciate all of your testimony as we
work together on this very important issue.
Thank you, I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired. I now recognize the gentlelady from Connecticut, Ms.
DeLauro, for five minutes.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I just
want to say a thank-you to Reverend Barber, to Dr. Theoharis,
and to all of our witnesses this morning. It is very, very
compelling.
I just want to make a couple of points here. First, to
start out with, some of my colleagues have talked about a
budget resolution. Keep in mind that two years ago the other
side of the aisle did not have a budget resolution; four years
ago this side of the aisle did not have a budget resolution. We
have moved forward with looking at Appropriations Committees
that will do precisely what we are talking about doing here
today--is help lifting people out of poverty.
So this is a critically important hearing. The issue of
eradicating poverty, addressing people's economic security is
at the heart of what we do in this body, because the biggest
economic challenge facing American families is that their pay
is not keeping up with their rising costs. They struggle to
deal with health care, prescription drugs, and child care, and
a number of other areas.
And I am reminded by a--of a quote by Robert F. Kennedy,
which I think is very fitting here this morning. And his quote
is, ``I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is
evil. We live in a land of plenty. Poverty is evil. And
government belongs,'' he further said, ``wherever evil needs an
adversary, and there are people in distress.'' People are in
distress in this country, and we are the government. And we
need to have a role in what is going on here.
Let me just talk about those who would say--that say that
we went to war on poverty with Lyndon Johnson and nothing
happened. Wrong. We created a social safety net, and that
social safety net includes Social Security, lifts 26.5 million
people out of poverty. And I might add, religiously, it was Leo
XIII, who is Pope Leo XIII, who talked about a Social Security
program. He didn't call it Social Security, but he said we need
to take care of other generations.
The Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, 9.1
people--million people lifted out of poverty; the SNAP program,
4.5 million people lifted out of poverty; SSI, 3.3 million;
housing assistance, 2.5 million people. We have reduced poverty
in this country with the creation of a social safety net,
which--there are some people who are serving today in this body
would like to decimate, because they don't believe we should--
government should be involved in this area.
This is not self-serving. I wrote a book two years ago
called ``The Least Among Us: Waging the Battle for the
Vulnerable.'' And you know what I found when I went to look at
the creation of a social safety net in this country? It was
Democrats and Republicans. It was a McGovern and a Dole who
said, ``People are hungry in this country. We need to do
something about it.'' It was a Jake Javits who said we need to
have housing assistance for people. That is a role of
government. It was the Kennedys and the Schweikerts and others
who came together saying we have an economic challenge, we face
it together, and we move on- on these issues.
So that--to say--when you talk about empowering something,
how does a person get empowered? Just by saying, ``You are
empowered?'' You don't do that. We need to take a look at what
the problems are, and identify them.
I just wanted to make this other point. This is not--we
have a social safety net in this nation. It is being frayed,
and it is being decimated, and hollowed out. And if we are not
willing on both sides of the aisle to stand up and make the
fight for the strength of that safety net--and Reverend Barber,
you talked about the supplemental poverty measure, which is the
measure we currently use. And I--and when Mr. Jeffries asked
you that question, you said that is the one that we should use,
but we should redefine poverty.
You should know that today, in this body--and Barbara Lee
and I are leading this letter--we have--there is the use of the
chained CPI, which is now being talked about by this
Administration, that would, in fact, create a new measure for
poverty that would decrease the number of poor people, that
would put more people in jeopardy. This is what the answer is
by some of the folks here. This is what it is. And I am just
going to ask you and advise you, please, help us to fight back
on this chained CPI effort, because it is wrong, and it will
hurt the most vulnerable people.
The other efforts that you need to be engaged in--excuse
me, I am pontificating, you may say this--but the Child Tax
Credit. We have legislation called the American Family Act,
which would increase the Child Tax Credit for children over six
years old and those under six, the kids who are the most
vulnerable in this country.
And I would just tell you that the National Academy of
Sciences did a report called ``A Roadmap to Reducing Child
Poverty,'' that if we did something like the American Family
Act, we could reduce child poverty by 50 percent in the next
decade. That measure is coming up in short order in this body,
through the Ways and Means Committee. All of the advocacy that
all of you can muster needs to be focused on this Child Tax
Credit that is for the most vulnerable children in the nation,
and those children who have been left behind. And we could do a
remarkable amount of work if we were there.
I am sorry there is no question. But there have been so
many questions I felt the necessity to respond to some of the
charges that were made here this morning. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Meuser, for five minutes.
Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, as well,
Republican Leader Womack. Thank you all very much for being
here with us today.
I think it somewhat goes without saying that we do have a
very strong economy today. There have been 6 million jobs
created just in the last couple of years. We have an
unemployment rate of 3.6 percent, the lowest in 50 years.
Opportunities are there.
When I got into the workforce, it was 1987. And these times
are reminiscent of those times. There are choices there. There
are opportunities. And we still are a nation where people can
move from low income to high income. I don't think that is
terribly disputed.
Now, on the same note, I am in a district where our
unemployment rate is higher in Pennsylvania, and the--
Pennsylvania's 9th--than the national average. And the
opportunities perhaps aren't exactly what we want them to be,
but we are going to continue to work for that.
There--personal charities are very important, as well. I
have experienced and worked with--from the United Way, to Head
Start programs, to something that was--an organization up by me
known as the Willamette Valley Children's Association I was the
Chairman of for a couple of years. They are very important. All
of us here have seen firsthand the need to provide a hand from
time to time, and sometimes longer than that. So that goes
without saying.
JFK also did say that the best form of welfare is a good-
paying job. So I would like to first ask Pastor Fields and
Pastor Mahan. You both have exemplified effort and courage, but
sometimes in our society effort and courage aren't enough. They
do require purpose and direction. So could you share with us
how you found your purpose and direction, and how you found it?
Rev. Fields. Number one, I know for a fact I found mine in
Christ, you know, as Pastor David said earlier. It is in the
things of God that I found my strength and my purpose. And
also, in finding Christ I found the sense of family, how
important family is. And so, when we cover ourselves with
Christ's presence and his family, that is how you find your
sense of purpose. That is where your strength comes from.
And so, for me, that is my personal testimony. My faith in
Christ, and me and my husband raising our children, and we are
seeing the strength of family is how we are surviving. That is
how we are protected, because we have family.
Mr. Meuser. All right, thank you.
Pastor Mahan?
Pastor Mahan. Yes, it is--you know, I am right there, as
well. And again, I am not here to debate anybody. I am here to
give my testimony, something that has been done, something that
has succeeded. And I am just saying that the reason for that
success is Christ.
And I noted that, you know, we are in a--you know, we are
at the Capitol and everything, but the reality is that is my
inspiration. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not
into your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge
him and let him direct your path.
He directed me to homeschooling, He directed me away from
the public system that was failing our community, He is the one
that directed me to the people that gave me opportunities for
employment and opportunities to increase my, you know,
education, and things like that.
And now I end up here to share my testimony. And somehow I
don't want to communicate that somehow it was the government or
some great works of David Mahan that did that. It was Christ,
and Christ alone. And as simplistic as that answer is, that is
my answer.
Mr. Meuser. To empower you, to create opportunities, to
motivate you, to make you want to make the most of the day----
Pastor Mahan. Yes, to get my head up off the pillow, to
keep working, to keep directing my children in the path that
they should go.
Again, you know, the context of poverty is important, and
family, and that context, man, you can get through anything.
And what I was bringing up earlier with the whole beginning of
the war on poverty is that this is something we need to talk
about. Seven percent of kids were being raised in homes without
fathers. After it, now we have 42, 50 percent of Latinos, 72
percent of African-Americans. We have destroyed the context
that allows people to overcome any obstacle, whether it is
poverty or anything else. And that needs to be addressed.
Again, I am not against, you know, public endeavors and
government endeavors to avoid poverty. However, I am against
them if they subvert that unit of the family.
Mr. Meuser. All right. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back my
time.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Price, for
five minutes.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank
our--the leadership of our Committee for holding this hearing.
And I want to thank all of our witnesses.
Of course, I want to pay a special greeting to Reverend
Barber. His work as the leader of the Moral Monday, the
inspiration and the leader of the Moral Monday movement in
North Carolina, has as moved our state. And now, to have that
work transformed to the national--transferred to the national
level with the Poor People's Campaign, we are appreciative, and
have great hopes for this movement.
A lot of talk this morning about our own personal histories
and personal experience. I will reflect briefly on that. I do
want to then have a--pose a question. I had the good fortune to
come to social and religious and political maturity as the
civil rights movement swept across the South. One of the things
that the civil rights movement, I think, taught us was that
individual morality is not enough. In religious terms, we need
to rediscover the Hebrew prophets.
You know, I grew up surrounded by upstanding people, self-
reliant people, loving, kind people. And I learned a lot from
them. But I also learned, as I looked around the community,
that many of those same people were perpetuating systems that
denied other people their humanity, either through their active
perpetrating of such systems, or their failure to challenge
such system, social and political systems that were denying
others their humanity. And the civil rights movement spoke to
that. Our faith is not just about our individual morality and
self-reliance, it is about the kind of community we wish to be.
Rediscover the Hebrew prophets.
And when it comes to providing for our children, of course,
we provide for our children, but we have to care about other
people's children. We have to care about the kind of
educational opportunities that are available across the
community. It is not just about protecting ourselves or
withdrawing. It is about working for a public education system,
I would say, that serves the entire community, and that lifts
up the entire community. That is what our faith requires us to
do, not simply to provide for ourselves.
I have a particular role here, with--as the Chairman of the
Transportation and Housing Appropriations Subcommittee, and so
I want to just put an issue on the table, realizing that I have
taken a good bit of the time that might be used for an answer.
I want to talk about evictions.
The affordable housing crisis in this country has many
dimensions, but one of them is rising eviction rates and
foreclosures. This is a problem across many communities, it
does have a particular effect in communities of color. I won't
give the statistics, except to say that we have virtually
erased all the gains made since the Fair Housing Act in 1968,
by virtue of the rate of foreclosures and evictions. And black
homeownership has declined, as a result, in the last 10 years,
declined 7 percentage points. And now TARP and other programs
designed to deal with this are winding down.
So my question, Dr. Barber, for you and for any others who
want to chime in, is what--you have a section in your budget on
affordable housing, which we are glad to see, and will study
carefully. What would you say, though, about eviction rates and
foreclosures, and the kind of effect that has had, is having on
community health and well-being, as TARP points down? How might
we carry forward such efforts as we have made here? And, of
course, these efforts have not been totally successful. But I
would just appreciate your reflections on that issue.
Rev. Dr. Barber. Let me yield to Dr. Theoharis and just
continue to say we have to look at all of this comprehensively.
But let me yield to her.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. So I just want to start by saying I am
stunned that basically we have had unanimous acknowledgment
that poverty is widespread across this country. We have pulled
a group of testifiers who are deeply, personally impacted by
these problems. They are in the room, and people are not
talking to them. People are not asking questions about how are
we going to solve this problem of homelessness, and an
increased rate of evictions.
And then people are being blamed for the problems that this
society has caused. How is it that you can say the war on
poverty failed, when it is politicians who de-funded that war?
How can you say that Head Start is a personal charity when it
has lifted 65 million children out of poverty since it was
started? So it feels very important to me to say we need a real
serious conversation in this country led by those that are most
impacted.
And I love this question of does the Bible say anything
about what nations, what Caesars are supposed to do? Because
Matthew 25, says, ``I was hungry'' to the nations, not to a
church, not to a charity, not to a an individual. I was hungry,
and what did your nation do? I was homeless and did you cut
public housing, or did you start building new public housing? I
was homeless, and did you allow banks to be bailed out, but
families who owe more on their houses than they are worth to
become homeless?
We have a moral crisis in this country. It is a crisis when
250,000 people can die every year because of poverty, and
people in this Committee can admit that in your towns there are
people hurting. But what are you going to do about it? What are
you going to do about it now?
And when we talk about housing subsidies, we heard the
power of them. You got a loan, you were able to get a house.
That is government helping out. You were on food programs. That
is the government helping out. We need more of these programs.
We need to lift wages. How is it possible that in this country
there is not one county where, if you are working minimum wage,
you can't--you can afford a two bedroom apartment.
Chairman Yarmuth. Reverend----
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. So we got to connect this housing, and
this poverty, and these wages, and lift the load of poverty.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much. The gentleman's time
has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina,
Mr. Timmons, for five minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all
the witnesses for taking the time to come and testify before us
today. Poverty is a serious issue in this country and in my
district, and I look forward to working with all of my
colleagues to do everything we can to improve the lives of
everyone.
My colleague, Mr. Hern, is particularly passionate about
this, and I would like to yield the remainder of my time to
him. Thank you.
Mr. Hern. I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania--from
North Carolina, rather. Oh, South Carolina. One of the
Carolinas. Yes, sorry.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Hern. No, I really appreciate the opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, this is something that is very near and dear
to my heart, and the Ranking Member knows this. I have spent a
lifetime working to help people get a first job. I always say
that the only way you really know how something really, truly
affects people is having lived it. And many of you have read my
story before you came in, and--looking at the panel.
But I grew up in extraordinary poverty. And, you know, I
appreciate what you all are doing here, I really do, because I
think it is something we need to address in this country. And
not only here, but, you know, we have got issues around the
world that, you know, so many people are involved in. But I
always say, before we help around the world, we should look at
our country, as well. This is still the greatest nation on this
planet. But we need to do a better job of doing things to help
people that really need it.
You know, I looked at a lot of things that Martin Luther
King said, and I think we all look at how to solve a problem,
and there are multiple ways to solve a problem. He--I look at
his dream, and I think of what he said, he said, ``Change does
not roll on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through the
continuous struggle. And so, while we must straighten our backs
and work for our freedom, a man cannot ride unless your back is
bent (sic),'' I agree with that completely.
I am a product of--like some of these folks have said in
here, I am a product of being in poverty and found the only way
out was to work my tail off. And I am here today at 57 years
old, soon to be 58 years old, to say that there are times the
safety net--I wouldn't be here today, I am certain of that--the
safety net of getting a helping hand was very instrumental in
my early life.
It didn't start out that way, though. What I had happen
was--is my mother got married at 15 years old to a fellow who
was in the Air Force at 24, who was my dad. Less than a year
later, they had my sister, who died two hours after birth from
spina bifida. And a year later I was born, and my brother was
born 18 months after that. We lived on a Air Force base in
Wichita, Kansas. In 1968, when he went to Vietnam for the third
time, a young mother of two--of three, really, couldn't take it
anymore, and moved us to the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, and
she married a guy who did not like to work.
And because of that, that was the first stage, the first
time in our family history that we ever lived on government
subsidies. And it wasn't because he couldn't work, it was
because he figured out how to manipulate the system, how to
declare himself insane so he could check himself in and out, so
he could use that to further get subsidies from the federal
government. I lived that way from the time I was seven years
old until I left home at 17 years old.
I remember the embarrassment very--I was the oldest,
because my mother went on to have three more children with him.
My oldest sister with him has spina bifida. She has had it
since--she just turned 50 two weeks ago. Her daughter, oldest
daughter, has spina bifida.
I understand what you are saying, ma'am, and it is a
terrible tragedy. I have lived that life. And I have also, as I
have said, I have seen the way out. And I am not saying a lot
of time just work a lot harder. But, you know, this--what we
have had the opportunity to do in this country is to provide
helping hands so people can get a start in life.
I--for the first--until I was in eighth grade, had no
running water. We lived on food stamps until the time I left
home at 17. No indoor plumbing until I was in eighth grade. We
moved houses. People thought my step-dad was in the military.
It wasn't because of that, it was because he wouldn't pay the
propane bill, he wouldn't pay the rent, he wouldn't pay for
anything. And we moved from everywhere. We would drive cars and
trucks, and I would sit on the fender, and hold the gas can,
because the fuel pump wouldn't work. I have seen bad stuff.
And I am also here today to tell you I have been in
Congress now for seven months, and I came here not because I
needed another job, because I wanted another career, it is
because I wanted to make a difference. And that is what it is
all about. You have to have people here who have truly
experienced it, not read it in a book, not seeing it on the TV
show, not watching a movie, some people that have actually seen
what you can do in this country, still the greatest country in
the world.
It is the American Dream to come to a place where you have
the opportunity to be as poor as you want to be or as wealthy
as you want to be.
I heard a guy say one time the bus leaves town every day.
And I got on that bus and I never looked back. I am not saying
it was not ups and downs along the way, but it has been a tough
road. It has not been easy. There is no doubt that people that
I know today think I got everything given to me, everything.
And it was never that way.
And I have never taken a dime from the federal government.
I am not saying I am proud of that, but I just said it was my
mission in life to do whatever I had to do, not to do that. And
does that mean I am critical of those who do? I am absolutely
not.
But I am here to help people get a job, a better job, and a
career.
I will tell you what I think has happened in this country,
is that we have kind of lost what that journey is. I worked
three jobs--I mean, when I was young I would go to California,
we would pick cherries, live in cherry fields and olive fields
all the way through summer, come back. You know, I got married
when I was 19 years old, worked hard, got an engineering
degree, worked three jobs in college, all this kind of stuff.
Chairman Yarmuth. You are a minute over your time, and you
have got your five minutes coming.
Mr. Hern. Okay, thank you. I will get the rest of that when
I come back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired. I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from New
York, Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for yet
another important hearing that you are holding. And I want to
thank all the witnesses for being here today and sharing your
personal stories.
In particular, Ms. Greer, I lost my daughter to breast
cancer, so I am particularly grateful to you for demonstrating
the courage to be here and sharing your story, as well.
I think the testimony today shows how vital federal safety
net programs are to so many people's survival throughout our
country. And I would echo the comments of many of my
colleagues. I am very familiar with the critical need for many
of these programs, as Rochester, New York, which I represent,
has an overall poverty rate of 33.1 percent, with the
percentage of children living in poverty sitting at 52 percent,
the second highest in the United States.
And we need to recognize that individuals and families
impacted by poverty are fighting, literally, for their
survival. From affordable housing to food insecurity, from
transportation barriers to adequate child care, the challenges
are overwhelming. And more often than not, leave far too many
people trapped in a perpetual cycle of hopelessness.
So I want to take just a few minutes allotted to me to
discuss the need to develop an integrated system of supports
for individuals and families living in poverty, in crisis. And
if I might quote Dr. King, aptly he once said, ``There is
nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we
have the resources to get rid of it.'' That is what inspired
some of the work we have undertaken in my district. I want to
take a moment to just describe it, and then ask a couple of
questions.
In the summer of 2017, I helped convene over 40 individuals
and leaders from health, human service, and the education
sectors to discuss the current state of disconnected services,
the poor outcomes that result, whether it--and whether a single
integrated system of supports had the potential to deliver
better results for people in our community.
And out of that conversation, hundreds of people in our
community--educators, social service providers, health care
providers, and people impacted by poverty--have created the
Systems Integration Project, and it recognizes the impact of
structural racism, the need for trauma-informed care, and the
need for community building. And it aims to provide
comprehensive, connected supports that link program silos
together, the fragmentation that we often see. And we hope to
move people from crisis to self-sufficiency.
So I do want to talk about the way we deliver services. And
perhaps, Dr. Barber, maybe you could just reflect and give me
some thoughts about how the current fragmentation, and the
different silos, and people needing to move from program to
program, and--to get eligibility and continue to fill out
forms, to be moved around, have you seen the impacts of that?
Is that something that troubles you? Is it something that the
Poor People's Campaign has thought about, in terms of how
better to deliver the actual services that we do have?
Rev. Dr. Barber. Well, first of all, let me just say part
of the problem is, yes, we have poor people chasing here and
there. We have siloed these issues that can't be siloed. That
is what we have said, poverty, systemic racism, systemic
ecological devastation, a war economy must be seen together.
But I want to also say some other concerns. And I am like
Liz we have here. It is almost as though people are afraid to
talk to poor people who would challenge the system. They would
rather talk to poor people who say, ``Everything is just fine.
We just work hard.'' That is not true.
We are not talking about working hard. Living wages--we are
saying folk ought to have a living wage if they work hard. They
ought to have health care. We are saying what--we are saying
that this is not some kind of government handout. This is the
fact that 62 million people in this country work every day
without a living wage. And if you just raise it to $15, you
would have over $300-and-some billion going into the economy.
It is amazing to us, as people of faith, and we sit here
and look--and we are showing--this is showing the moral crisis:
We never say this to business when they fail. When people fail,
``We want to love you, and work hard. And we all got a story
about poverty.'' When businesses fail, let's find the money.
Let's find the money to lift them up. Let's give them
government welfare, corporate welfare.
And instead of talking about, wow, this article just came
out, a moral economy would save taxpayers billions of dollars.
If we had immigration reform, it would save and lift people up.
If we had eliminate--we could eliminate child poverty,
universal single payer would empower this economy. Free higher
education. If we invested in true voting rights, if we had
Pentagon cuts, if we had an end to mass incarceration, if we
had invested to give people safe drinking water, job creation,
living wages, climate justice.
We are not--we are talking about lifting this country up,
not about everybody giving us--I could tell the story of
poverty, and I say to people who say that story--just because
society failed you then doesn't mean it ought to continue to
fail now.
It is tragic in a society where our first constitutional
duty is to establish justice and promote the general welfare--
the general welfare--that we would allow the injustice of
poverty--43.5 percent of poor people are poverty--and people
here who could teach this society. And we would walk away from
our constitutional values, and walk away from our spiritual
values that tell us that it is dangerous for a nation not to
lift up the poor.
I tell you that we have a deeper moral crisis, and this is
why we need this Committee to go out and organize even more and
more and more poor people until folk are willing to listen to
the people who are hurt and beat up every day about what must
be challenged and changed.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize Mr. Hern again. I didn't charge you--I won't you----
Mr. Hern. I am back.
Chairman Yarmuth--for the extra minute, but I will hold you
to your five minutes this time.
Mr. Hern. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Hern. I appreciate it. And again, I want to thank the
witnesses for being here today. And I--you know, Reverend, I
agree with you 100 percent. We have got to listen, we have got
to do more. I would--I have gone back and studied this a lot.
It is one of the reasons I ran, because, you know, again, you
heard my story.
And I will abbreviate it by saying this: I had the
opportunity--kind of fluke, how it happened--to get into
McDonald's Corporation, or into the franchising program as an
assistant manager. And I worked my tail off, created three
jobs, learned how to be a computer programmer when I was in
college. I was very blessed to get my first McDonald's
restaurant in 1997. It was the last time I signed--that was the
first time and the last time that I ever worked for anybody
else, other than myself.
The thing that is interesting about it is, as most know,
entry-level jobs, that was not satisfying to me. I worked at
minimum wage when I was dipping pickles at the pickle plant
when I was 16 years old.
The point being with this is I made it a mission in life to
figure out how to get people accelerated, teach them how to
work, teach them how to pay taxes, teach them how to appreciate
things. And we have had a lot of folks that have come up with
minimal education making $60, $70,000 a year. I don't--all my
average wages are way above Oklahoma's living wage. We offered
insurance. People have insurance. Long before Affordable Health
Care. I think it is critical.
I think what has happened in America, as I have looked back
over the last 20 years, when you look at real wages in America,
they are about the same as they were, while everything else has
gone through the roof. Cars are doubled, houses have doubled.
We have shipped those great-paying jobs that--for entry level
and middle class overseas.
And I think, if you look--regardless if you like President
Trump or not, if you look at what has happened by bringing jobs
back to America, that is what it is all about, bringing good-
paying jobs back to America, so that folks have the ability to
transition off of the helping hand into a entry-level job that
quickly accelerates into a middle-class job that can quickly
accelerate into a career.
Rev. Dr. Barber. You don't believe that should start with a
living wage?
Mr. Hern. You know, it is according to what the person is.
If it is a person who has got kids----
Rev. Dr. Barber. A human being that created by God. They
shouldn't start with a living wage, if they are working 40
hours a week?
Mr. Hern. If they are 16 years old, living at home, that
might be different.
Rev. Dr. Barber. I am talking about--if they are 16, or 18,
or 19, or 20, shouldn't they have a living wage?
Mr. Hern. Sure.
Rev. Dr. Barber. A living wage.
Mr. Hern. If they are living by themselves, and yes. I mean
I worked my tail off----
Rev. Dr. Barber. They should have a living wage if they got
two people in a house, but they should have a living wage if
they----
Mr. Hern. Well, again, we have to look at the numbers. You
have got stats. I will look at the facts, as well. Again, I----
Rev. Dr. Barber. I hope we can. I really want to talk to
you, because I believe that down in there there is a heart
somewhere.
[Laughter.]
Rev. Dr. Barber. I want to get with you brother. I want to
get with you. Maybe you can save the other folk that just want
to blame the poor.
Mr. Hern. No, I don't blame the poor.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. Especially when wages have stagnated,
especially when wages have stagnated for the past 40 years.
Mr. Hern. Oh, sorry?
Chairman Yarmuth. You control your time, Mr. Hern. You can
do whatever with it. You can continue the dialogue----
Mr. Hern. No, no, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it. And again,
I just want to thank you for the passion in this group, because
it is something we all should be concerned about. And I know
everybody is.
And you came in here with the statement, Reverend, that
said this should be a bipartisan issue. And I agree, 110
percent, that it should be a bipartisan issue, and we should do
everything that we need--we should look at the things we are
doing to help folks rise out of that poverty when times are
bad. We heard it from our folks on our side.
And also we should look at how we get them--because, as you
said, you want folks to get a job, and you want them to be
moving forward, because it is not just about working hard. A
lot of people work really hard. There is some bad things that
happen out there, some bad things that happen. And how do we
take care of them?
And I have seen it firsthand. I have lived it firsthand. I
have seen folks--as you all know, there are people who start at
McDonald's that has had a tough life. I have listened to those.
I have had folks who have had their wives killed, you know, and
the list goes on and on. I have been there to help them. I
don't go broadcast this, because that is what--you don't do
that, as a person that is trying to help somebody, when you are
in business.
I am here now in a different role, a role to go back and
represent my district and those folks who elected me, because
they heard my story time and time again, and had time to proof
it out. And so that is why I am here. I want to help.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now
recognize the gentlelady from California, the Chairwoman of the
Poverty Task Force in the House, Barbara Lee from California,
for five minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank
you and our Ranking Member for putting this very important
hearing together today.
And let me thank Bishop Reverend Barber. Let me thank
Reverend Theoharis, and let me thank all of you for being here
today, because you are truly bearing witness on behalf of the
poor and the near-poor who are living on the edge in the
wealthiest country in the world.
Now, I want to thank you also for leading the Poor People's
Campaign, and calling it a national call for moral revival,
because that is what it is, and for all of your moral clarity.
You remind me today of Dr.--another one of Dr. King's
speeches, which he gave at Riverside Church, when he talked
about society's three evils: poverty, racism and militarism,
which still loom large today in our own country. Now, let me
just mention a couple things.
First of all, as someone who was on food stamps and public
assistance, I know just how important your presence is here
today, and how important your voices are. But let me tell you,
when I was on public assistance, I was able to buy a house
because of a government policy that allowed people on public
assistance to purchase a home. I was able later to go to
college, and it was because of government policies that
promoted and allowed for affirmative action and the civil
rights movement. I was allowed later, before coming to
Congress, to establish and own a business. I had 450 employees,
union workers, good-paying union wages, good-paying jobs. I was
able to start my own business because of government policies
that allowed for that.
I received the opportunities through many years of struggle
by so many people and so many organizations who forced our
government to--the war on poverty--to establish policies that
would provide those opportunities so that myself, as a young
African-American black woman, would have some opportunities to
achieve justice and parity. Now we see all of these policies
being, unfortunately, rolled back.
Many of you know that I have worked with a group of non-
denominational clergy members--we call it the Circle of
Protection--to highlight and make recommendations on the
intersection between racism and poverty. It is a document
called Unity Declaration on Racism and Poverty.
Mr. Chairman, I would like permission to insert this
document into the record.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Because many of these recommendations
incorporate many of the line items and the budget
recommendations which you have presented in terms of the moral
budget, we also must begin to repair the damage for the
inhumane government-sanctioned institution of slavery, which
continues to be manifested today in systematic and
institutional racism.
But your recommendations in the poor people's moral budget,
it puts us on a path to closing these economic and racial
disparities, not only for African-Americans, but for the 140
million who are poor and who are low-wealth individuals.
And so I thank you for putting forth a budget, and a plan,
and a roadmap where we know we can do this: raising the minimum
wage to a living wage; universal health care; federal
investments in affordable housing; lowering the cost of
prescription drugs; child tax credit, all of your
recommendations are recommendations which this Committee should
embrace.
And so I wanted to ask specifically regarding one of the
recommendations, the $350 billion in annual military spending,
and what this would do if we were able to finally have the
political will to look at the Pentagon budget, how this would
begin to help us reduce poverty in America, and addressing the
economic inequality which we once again see each and every day,
which you all are fighting to ensure that we eliminate and end.
Rev. Dr. Barber. Representative Lee, can I say something?
If his time has run out, I hope we can get his back that he
gave up.
But anyway, we--first of all, we are taking--53 to nearly
60 percent of every discretionary dollar is going to our
militarism. Less than $.16 is going toward health care and
infrastructure, the things that will lift us out.
But there is another piece we have to add to this, and I
want to bring this as a race piece. Liz and Callie and I talk
about this all the time. In this country, every state that is a
voter suppression state, there is a high poverty state, high
child poverty state, lack of health care state, low living wage
state. And guess what? The people who get elected, the racist
voter suppression, they then turn around and pass policy to
hurt mostly white people. Let that sink in this room. The
people who use racialized voter suppression end up passing
policy that hurt mostly white people, because they are more
poor whites in raw numbers--not in concentration--than there
are black.
We have to--and if we don't get the voting piece right, we
are never going to get people in these offices that will deal
with the military issues and those kinds of things. So there is
a direct connection between racialized voter suppression and
the poverty that concentrates in people of color's lives, but
also affects, in raw numbers, more white people than people of
color.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is there a way we can get
some time that our colleague gave back?
Chairman Yarmuth. Well, he has got--if you want to go to
the minute mark, you got another 30 seconds, because he went
over a minute.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. So we will take it, because $.53 of
every discretionary dollar going to the military, we are having
welfare programs for the rich, for the Pentagon, for the
military. And so I want- I want Callie to talk a little bit
about what we could do with the money, what we are asking you
all to do with the money.
Ms. Greer. So----
Chairman Yarmuth. How about--the gentlelady's time has
expired. How about if, when I get my time at the end, I will
let Ms. Greer answer that question.
Ms. Greer. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. Fine. So now I yield five minutes to the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
all being here. This is an important subject. And, really, what
it comes down to is what works and what doesn't. We all have an
interest in solving any kind of poverty problem, no matter how
small it is. We have to ask the question: What works and what
doesn't?
Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on
poverty. In the last 50 years we have spent trillions of
dollars to alleviate poverty. What is the result? Our poverty
rate when the War on Poverty started in 1966 was about 14.7
percent. By 2014 it was about the same. Even after spending
trillions of dollars in the last 10 years, spending on means-
tested welfare programs have increased from $430 billion to
$742 billion. It has almost doubled.
And we can attach the size of our heart to dollar signs all
we want, we can claim that anybody who argues otherwise is
immoral. I think that is unfair. You can argue it, but you
can't argue the fact that it hasn't worked.
But actually, in the last three years or so, since 2014, we
have seen some decrease in poverty: 12 percent. But what
changed? What changed? It is not the increase in spending, that
has been continuous. Wage growth has increased. The economy has
boomed. A 3.2 percent wage growth. By the way, the overwhelming
amount of that has gone to the bottom quintile of earners. It
does not go to the top. That is by the statistics. It is also
more jobs than we have ever had to fill them.
I would say things that don't work are policies that make
it harder for the poor to survive.
A carbon tax, for instance--we have been talking a lot
about ecological justice. Well, what about a carbon tax that
would raise energy prices? It would raise gas prices. Look at
California. Look at Germany's experiment with their own form of
a green new deal. They haven't reduced emissions, and they have
raised prices on everybody. The rich can handle that just fine.
They have got no problem handling that. The poor, they cannot
handle that.
Over-regulating housing markets, hampering development,
that causes rents to rise. Just look at San Francisco. Look at
New York. Again, the rich don't mind, but the poor do. It hurts
the poor.
Occupational licensing requirements, they can be terribly
hard and burdensome on the poor. If you are trying to be a
hairdresser, or just get into cosmetology, or become a plumber,
it is more difficult, the more regulations you have. In Texas
we just solved this. We just made it easier for anybody to get
a good-paying job as a plumber. We are very proud of that.
Any of you agree, I wonder, that Congress should actually
increase payroll taxes on everybody across the board, from
12.3, 12.4 percent to over 14 percent? I doubt any of you would
agree on that, because that is an increase in taxes on
everybody. It takes away from everybody. And I bet you would
definitely not agree that that money should then be transferred
to people in retirement who are millionaires. By the way, that
is Social Security 2100, that is the Democrats' plan right now.
I don't think any of you would agree with that.
The method in which we have been delivering welfare
payments isn't working, either. We have created perverse
incentives and disincentives, well intentioned through our
desire to help, to the trap people in these safety nets. And
let me show you what I mean.
For instance, in Texas there is a single parent of two on
welfare and SNAP programs. They will end up taking a huge cut
on their benefits if they even get a minimal raise. So, to
flush this out, a single mom is desperately trying to provide
her children with a better life. She works really hard. She
pays it off. She is offered a promotion. But that raise comes
with it--it will actually make her worse off than before,
because she loses some of those benefits. So she has to turn it
down. This is not a good policy. In Texas, this means you are
actually taxing the poor at a 53 percent marginal tax rate. And
in other states it can be as high as 104 percent.
So let's talk about what has worked. Brookings says it is--
and this is a left-wing think tank--studies have shown that if
you finish high school, you get a job, any job, and wait until
21 to get married and have kids, you have an overwhelming
chance of getting out of poverty. Seventy-five percent join the
middle class, only two percent remain in poverty.
Earned Income Tax Credits. The EITC does not punish someone
for earning more. Its benefits continue, even as you make more
income. This is bipartisan. We all agree on this. This is good
policy. So it incentivizes people to improve their livelihood,
while also maintaining that final--financial cushion beneath
them. They don't fall off of a benefits cliff. So rather than
being stuck at an entry-level job, they can keep making it.
We also have to be focused on addressing the skills gap.
All right. That is a huge part. We talk about building more
capital for the poor. Education is a big part of that. Why
don't we look at changing the Pell Grant program? I bet a lot
of you would say that it is not always realistic for somebody
to get a four-year degree. Spend that four years--maybe they
have a family to feed. Why don't we make Pell Grants available
for skills, or for trades? Shorter-term duration training?
God, I wish I had more time to ask you all questions,
because I do have a lot. But Ms. Fields, I want to end with
this.
Rev. Dr. Barber. Please read this--you haven't--please
read----
Mr. Crenshaw. Ms. Fields, I want to end with this.
Rev. Dr. Barber. Please read it.
Mr. Crenshaw. When you teach your kids, do you----
Rev. Dr. Barber. Please read it.
Mr. Crenshaw. Do you teach them--Mr. Chairman, if you will
indulge me this one question, or----
Chairman Yarmuth. Go ahead and get it out.
Mr. Crenshaw. Okay.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When you--you said you homeschooled your kids. I want to
understand what values you teach them. Do you teach them to be
responsible for themselves? Do you teach them that their
actions matter? Or do you teach them that the system is working
against them? Do you teach them that, no matter what they do,
they can't thrive? I mean, what would you teach somebody if you
loved them?
Rev. Fields. Well, I definitely teach them personal
responsibility. And even to add to that, where you are saying
about trade, me and my husband both, even though I have a
bachelor's degree, I also have a trade. My husband is a barber.
He has a trade. We have lived the life they are saying with the
living wages. I bought a house making $4.25 an hour. So we
understand living on wages. But the way we got out of poverty
is what you are saying, is we got trade. We went and got an
education.
And me and my husband talk about that all the time. If the
government could make trade more accessible, you know, spend
those federal dollars so people can sharpen their skills and
get out--my husband just bought us a three-bedroom home, two
full-bath home in Chicago being a barber, with a trade. He has
a 10th grade education, and he did it with a trade skill. So
those are the kind of programs that we should be advocating for
our government to sharpen our skills, bring back those trade
skills into the black community, so that we can rise above
poverty. We can't do it with just a high school education all
the time. We need trade. We need skills.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, and----
Rev. Dr. Barber. Could I just say that----
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and----
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time----
Mr. Crenshaw. It was a good conversation about solutions,
thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth.----has expired. Reverend Barber, I am
sorry. I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Nevada,
Mr. Horsford.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is a
very important hearing today. I want to thank Reverend Dr.
William Barber, II, as well as Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis. It
is good to see you. I know your brother. He does work with my
wife, who is a professor at Columbia. But thank you for being
here today, and for talking about the Poor People's Campaign
and your vision for how we strengthen children, families, and
communities, which is at the core of what this hearing is
really all about.
Thank you to my esteemed colleague, Congresswoman Barbara
Lee, the Chair of the Poverty Congressional Caucus, for
highlighting this issue, not just today, but for many years
prior to today's hearing.
Now I want to get right to it. Since I was sworn in on
January 3rd of this year, the Trump Administration and my
colleagues on the other side have attacked nearly every safety
net program from every angle that they can think of. This after
passing the jobs and tax cut scam of the last Congress that
provided 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent wage
earners and biggest corporations in this country.
And now on the backs of those individuals, because their
tax cut adds to our federal deficit, they have proposed cutting
SNAP by $220 billion, cutting Social Security by $84 billion,
and other disability programs, cutting $1.5 trillion from
Medicaid over 10 years, and a 10 percent across-the-board cut
to TANF block grant.
This Administration's most recent attack on safety net
programs came by way of a proposed rule through the U.S. Office
of Management and Budget that would change the way the federal
government measures poverty, which is--has not been very well
publicized, because this Administration does not want to bring
attention to the fact that they are balancing their tax cut on
the backs of poor people.
Chairman, the Chairman and I sent a letter to the acting
OMB director, expressing our deep concerns about this
rulemaking change. And Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter that
letter into the record.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horsford. I would also like to enter a article, ``Black
Poverty is Rooted in Real Estate Exploitation'' into the
record.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horsford. The proposed rule would inevitably lower the
income eligibility limits for safety-net programs that are tied
to the poverty line, and will impose unfathomable hardships on
families. The proposal would disproportionately affect many
constituents in my home state of Nevada, including 425,000
Nevadans that receive SNAP benefits, 633,000 Nevadans that are
enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP, and 3,000 children that are
eligible for Head Start and Early Head Start programs that I
can't get in because they want to cut the budget.
I have young people and their families that are on a
waiting list. You talk about investing in education, talk about
investing in career and technical education. Their budget cuts
the very programs that you propose to invest in.
And it's personal, because it comes to the children, our
families, and the communities. I come from a poor community. I
grew up in a poor community, raised by a single parent. I lost
my father to gun violence when I was 19. But for the support of
programs like this, I would not be sitting here as a Member of
Congress. So I have an obligation, like my colleagues who are
trying to bring attention to this issue, to the priorities and
the values of our budget, as the Speaker said.
Ms. Kinsey and Alcocer, I listened to your deeply personal
testimonies. Can you explain to us what you would have done,
had you been kicked off of these safety net programs? How would
you have been able to survive?
Ms. Alcocer. As an undocumented person, first of all, most
of us don't have access to any of these programs. Um, I just
want to make that clear.
The reason--and the way that our community is coping is
making survival methods. I mean, we literally have to organize
ourselves in a way that we are protecting our community and
protecting ourselves.
And like I said before, [speaking foreign language], there
is times where our government even tells us that they don't
have money to cover potholes. What are communities doing? They
fundraise for cement and cover our own potholes.
There are times where we are told that there is no lighting
for our alleys. And what we are doing is that we are buying--go
to Home Depot and buy the solar panels with lighting, and
install them ourselves.
These are the things that our community has to resource to,
because there is a lack of will within our government to
resolve issues that are very basic. The fact that we have to go
to our community members when there is someone in need and say,
``Hey, do you have a tomato, do you have a potato? Do you have
some chicken so we can put a basket together for this family
that is in need,'' it is something that we have to resource to.
And there is--it is true. There are churches that do lend a
helping hand. There are churches that are serving--giving food
out on Sundays because they understand that there is a need for
hunger in their communities (sic), but they also understand
that they need to push the government to do more.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you. It is a partnership.
Ms. Alcocer. Exactly.
Mr. Horsford. And we have to work together----
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you----
Mr. Horsford.----to meet the needs of our people.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, for five
minutes.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to my friend, Barbara Lee, for her unwavering leadership on
lifting up poverty across this country, and the urgency of now,
the urgency of addressing this issue now.
But most of all, I am grateful to you, from the Poor
People's Campaign, who are here, bringing the people's voice to
the people's house. I am grateful for your courage and for your
moral clarity, which came through so clearly in every one of
your testimonies.
And your organizing reminds us that poverty is not
inevitable. It is caused by human-created structures and
immoral policies. You remind us that we can lift up a whole
society to create community prosperity. And you remind us that
we can and we must have health care for all people. You remind
us that no human being is illegal. You remind us that mass
incarceration is dangerous, racist, and completely avoidable,
that war and a giant military budget are moral outrages, and
that, most importantly, you remind us that those most directly
affected by poverty and oppression are actually the ones best
equipped to lead us forward.
As your people's moral budget report so eloquently states,
poverty is a willful act of policy violence that leaves over 43
percent of the population poor or low-income.
So thank you for being here today with us. And thank you
for your clarity and your courage.
Let me start with you, Ms. Greer. I could not listen to
your story without feeling the same tears that you were-you
were feeling, nothing like what you were feeling, but feeling
some piece of that. That painful story of the loss of your
daughter, what you had to go through--and you said something
very powerful. You said we shouldn't have to ask for this. We
shouldn't have to ask for health care. It is a right.
Hearing your personal story about the immense suffering of
your family, and so many other families across the country that
are experiencing not having health insurance, this basic right
of health insurance--as you may know, I have introduced a
Medicare for All bill for universal health care because I
believe this is a human right.
But one of the things that I am confronted with, with
critics constantly, is people who say that this would be too
expensive, that the United States can't do universal health
care because it would be too expensive. Can you give me
guidance on how you would respond to that, and what you want me
to say every time I hear that?
Ms. Greer. I would say to you the federal cost for
expanding Medicaid in those--in 14 states will be about $25
billion in the first year. That is about the same amount the
Pentagon hands over to Boeing every year.
Okay, one more time.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. That is right.
Rev. Dr. Barber. Teach us.
Ms. Greer. The federal cost for expanding Medicaid in 14--
not one--in 14 states would be about $25 billion in the first
year. That is about the same amount that the Pentagon has owed
to Boeing every year.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Thank you for that. And you have
transitioned me to my next question. I have questions for every
one of you, but I am not going to have time. But my next
question is for Mr. Overfelt.
I have been trying to take on with some of my colleagues
the outrageous amounts of money spent on military defense. And
it seems like this increasing spending on war and military
defense is often seen as something you cannot even challenge,
and that, if you challenge it, you are somehow unpatriotic.
Mr. Overfelt, you are a patriot, a true patriot who has
actually put your life on the line and served in the military
yourself. Many of the people who advocate for increased defense
spending have not done that. So can you tell me how we should
respond to the charge that it is somehow unpatriotic to try to
cut our spending on military defense and endless wars in order
to have a better world? But yes, also to transfer some of those
funds to the things that we really need to have a safe and
secure nation and world.
Mr. Overfelt. Well, I flew in here from Kansas City. And
when I flew in, I flew--I could see the Pentagon out the
window. And I saw right next to the Pentagon, I saw a building
with the name Boeing on it. And right next to that, I saw a
building with the name Lockheed Martin on it. These are--these
entities are--go hand in glove. The Pentagon acts as a siphon
towards military contractors, I siphon of taxpayer money that
could be used to help us in our communities.
I want to say that when we talk about American foreign
policy, we need to understand the context in which it operates,
which is the flow of resources from the southern hemisphere to
the northern hemisphere. That is not to keep us safe, that is
in the national interests of corporations, of transnational
corporations, and to ensure their profits. So we are spending
taxpayer money to subsidize transnational corporations, not to
keep the American people safe.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The----
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, just quickly,
before I yield back, let me say Boeing is in my state, and it
used to be the kind of company that actually supported living-
wage jobs, unionization, good-good working-class jobs. That is
not the case today. And I thank you for raising that up.
And let us just imagine a world where we could have
corporations who understand that they can only be successful if
they are lifting up the communities and the people that are--
that make up those corporations, that that make up those
communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, the gentlelady's time has
expired. I now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Sires, for five minutes.
Mr. Sires. Well, good afternoon, and thank you for being
here. I made sure I stayed here to listen to every one of you
before I had to go to my office.
Let me give you a little bit about my background. I
represent the northern part of New Jersey. I represent cities
like Jersey City, portions of Newark. I represent the town of
West New York, the city I live in. And just to give you an
idea, that is--it is one square mile, and we have 53,000
people. Ninety-three percent of the student body in that town
is Hispanic. So that tells you that it is not a wealthy
district.
We depend--I was--I am a former mayor of that town. As a
mayor, I depended on federally-funded clinics to be able to
help these people. If we didn't have that, I don't know what we
would have done, even just to get the shots so they could
attend to school. That federally-funded clinic was very, very
important. That is not to mention all the other--diabetes,
which, in minorities, is a big, big problem. So federally-
funded clinics and federally-funded programs, I think, are
extremely important to help people get out of poverty.
I just visited a housing complex on Friday in Newark, New
Jersey. I mean, it is just incredible, some of these conditions
that people are living in. They are trying to do something
about it.
And we have a lot of problems with these formulas. You
know, this poverty formula goes back 40 years, and only a
little bit for inflation. But there is also a great area that
you can help people. They seem to fall off that formula to
assist the people.
And not to mention--and to mention the amount of veterans
that we are getting that have no place to live, no housing for
veterans. After World War II there was an effort to help the
veterans. I am hopeful that in the future we can have the same
kind of programs so we can help veterans.
So when you talk about poverty, you know, I live it. I grew
up in that town. I came to this country when I was 11 years
old. My father and mother had a fourth and fifth grade
education. But some of these programs are just necessary for
people to take on the next step. Housing, affordable housing,
low-income housing, I think, is a priority. And I just want
from you to tell me which of those programs you think is the
best to improve, so we can get some decent housing for some of
these people.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. So, I mean, there are quite a few
programs that we need. I mean, we need rent subsidies, we need
to build more public housing. We need to stop the
criminalization of people who are homeless.
So it is--so I think how we take these issues in the
Campaign is that we see them all connected. And we need to
raise wages, because that is a housing issue. We need to ensure
medical care, because that is a housing issue. We need to fund
education and health for our veterans, because that is a
housing issue. That we need to build up Head Start, because
that is a funding--a housing issue.
All of these programs that you all have power to fund, we
need--when people talk about the question of wages and then
losing your eligibility for some of these programs, we need to
raise eligibility and raise wages. We should not be talking
about lowering eligibility of poverty programs, of housing
programs. We shouldn't be talking about attaching work
requirements to housing programs, to food programs.
Mr. Sires. You know, talk about Head Start. One of the most
successful programs that I saw is when we contracted with Head
Start to take care of the children after they get out of
school, what they call their wrap-around program, because that
gave the ability of the parents to go and get a job and work,
they know that their children were being taken care of. So
those are the kind of programs that I think would help.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis. And Head Start has this piece on the
maximum feasible participation of people who are poor. It is a
community jobs program. It is a community health program. It is
a- a interlocking program.
But Kenia had some insight.
Ms. Alcocer. Housing----
Rev. Dr. Barber. Poor People's Campaign--out of the first
Poor People's Campaign program is because preachers and
everyday people came to this body, because they heard what the
Lord said about the homeless and housing. That is a part of the
Poor People's Campaign. Yes.
Chairman Yarmuth. Very, very briefly, please.
Ms. Alcocer. Well, one of the things that I want to say is
public housing is very important. People living in public
housing are----
Mr. Sires. Decent public housing.
Ms. Alcocer.----decent public housing are only paying 30
percent of their income into homes. People who are paying
market rate rent today are paying 60 to 70 percent of their
income into housing.
Mr. Sires. Absolutely.
Ms. Alcocer. That means that sometimes we have to stay up
at night, figuring out what bill we pay, if we can buy milk for
our children, and if we are going to be able to pay our rent.
That is what we need, we need to be able to pay only 30 percent
of our income into housing.
Mr. Sires. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize Mr. Stewart for five minutes.
Mr. Stewart. I thank the Chairman and Ranking Member, and
apologize to you and other members and the witnesses for not
being able to be here earlier. Other hearings and some I had to
chair, and I just wish I could.
I understand it has been a very interesting hearing. I
don't know that I have been to a hearing where we have had
quite so many witnesses; I hope you all have had a chance to
express your views.
And I want you to know that I think we have common goals. I
don't think there is anyone in this room who doesn't have a
desire to lift people up, to help them live productive lives,
to help them feel like the government wants to make their lives
easier, if possible, and not harder. I think the concern I have
is sometimes some people think government is the answer.
Sometimes they think it is the only answer. And we know that
there are other pieces to this puzzle. And I would like to
spend a few minutes talking about some of those, if we could.
Again, recognizing government is not the only source of
anti-poverty spending, I love these statistics, some of these
facts. America is the most generous nation, I think, the world
has ever seen. And we should be proud of that. We should
recognize that. $410 billion in 2017 Americans gave to
charitable organizations. There is not another country that
comes even close to that.
In some of my writing, I have had a chance to analyze that.
We are a very generous people. Interestingly, more than a 5
percent increase from the previous year. So we are not becoming
less generous. In many ways we are becoming more generous. And
I am grateful for those people who participate in ways like
that.
Anti-poverty programs, they don't just rely on government
funding, and we are grateful for that, for these other people
that are generous. Being from Utah--most of you don't know
that, it is not something you would know, but I am from--Salt
Lake City is my district, and a beautiful city, and it is,
obviously, the headquarters for the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints. And they are a great example, I think, of an
organization that is involved in trying to lift people up and
to help them.
They are not the only example. There is many other faith-
based organizations. There is hundreds or thousands of them who
also do great work. The Church of Jesus Christ, I think, is a
good example of it, though. They work in employment services,
they work in food assistance, the Bishop's Warehouse,
partnering with other organizations. I have been to the food
pantries and seen the great work they do. They are not just in
Utah, by the way, but throughout the country and, frankly,
throughout the world. Family services, free courses in
education, and finding a better job. I mean, the list goes on.
Pastor Mahan, I guess I would ask you, in your background
there, in your experience, how important are these community
and faith-based organizations in helping combat poverty, and
helping do as we all want to do, and that is lift people and
help better their lives?
Pastor Mahan. You have to engage them. Thank you, sir. You
have to engage them. Because anybody in this room that has been
a part of a program, a government program, whether it is a
government school, whether it is a government housing program,
whether it is a government food program, we are being
disingenuous if we lift those programs up like they are
blessings all the time. There is a lot of churches that don't
want to be involved in government stuff, just because it smells
like government.
It is like we are just going to throw money at this thing,
regardless of the values as being, you know--you guys said it.
There is values behind budgets, but there is also values behind
programs. And a lot of times they don't want to engage because
of the values that come behind the money. It is like a Trojan
horse. Yes, we are going to bless you with money and housing,
but yet we are going to give you all of these values that are
against what we believe, and how we raise our families.
And so you have to engage the churches and, really, all
faith communities. You have to engage them on how to reach
their own people. I think it would be a huge step forward.
Mr. Stewart. And I am going to dive down on that just a
little bit. A lot of times we talk about money. And you
obviously can't do much without financial resources. It makes
it very, very difficult not to have, you know, as I said, the
resources to fund some of the things.
But there is another element to that, and that is the
volunteers, that is people who are willing to, hey, I will be a
big brother. Hey, I will work at the homeless kitchen. Talk a
little bit about that, would you, Pastor? And how important are
volunteers to your community and the service you are trying to
provide----
Pastor Mahan. Yes, in our community we just--the mayor just
gathered all the churches together--it is 20-some pastors--and
he said, ``If anything goes wrong in this city, everybody knows
that it is going to be you all that does the brunt of the work
of fixing and getting people out of this crisis.''
And so, yes, the churches is critical, and putting their
hands to the plow. Training the churches to get engaged with
the schools, training the churches to get engaged at the
governmental levels, the school board levels, these are
critical pieces. Because, again, they don't know about what is
going on in this room. All they know is that we care about
people. But we are not going to care about people and sacrifice
our values because the government says that we need to because
we won't get the money.
Mr. Stewart. And that is a fair thing to--you know, to
expect. It would be unfair for someone to be compelled to do
something that they don't believe, just to have government
assistance. We could go on.
But, Chairman, my time is out. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Panetta, for five
minutes.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Womack, and, of course, all of the witnesses for being here, as
well as your preparation to be here. Thank you very much for
your time, as well as your expertise on these topics.
I am sure there have been a number of questions asked that
deal with a number of areas that I wanted to talk about, but I
am just going to kind of narrow it down. And if I am limited in
that sense, that is fine. And if you have talked about this, I
apologize. But I want to talk about affordable housing, and how
that affects people put in situations and into poverty.
And in my district, on the central coast of California,
especially when it comes to renters, what you are going to see
is about 29 percent of all renters--that is about 31,000
households--are severely cost burdened, as it is called.
Basically, then, what that means is that they are paying more
than 50 percent of their income to housing costs and utilities.
And so I was wondering if any of you could speak about the high
cost of housing, and how that drains the pockets of low-income
families, and how that contributes to homelessness.
And go ahead, if Drs. Barber and Theoharis, could maybe
talk about----
Rev. Dr. Barber. Let Kenia start, because----
Mr. Panetta. Please.
Ms. Alcocer. Just to let you know, I work in the city of
Los Angeles. I am, with Union de Vecinos, which is a tenant
advocacy organization. We are with the LA Tenants Union. And
part of my job and my work every day, it is to go into the
office and see people that are going through eviction
processes, not just in the city of LA. I have folks coming from
Long Beach, from Orange County, from San Bernardino, from
different parts.
And the issue of housing, it is very, very ingrained in the
fact that there is no safety net when it comes to housing,
unless you are in public housing, or--because even section
eight you can lose, right?
So one of the things that I think it is very important is
that we have to talk about rent control. There needs to be a
cap on these rental markets. We need to make sure that we are
doing something about it. And communities have been organizing.
But the reality is that all of these corporations, and all of
these land owners, and homeowners lied. We tried passing Prop
10 last year. That would have allowed us to have a statewide
rent control that would have allowed communities to feel safe.
In Boyle Heights our community is being gentrified. There
is high investment that is coming into our community, but it is
not for our community. Our community is being driven out of
Boyle Heights into San Bernardino County, where we have seen
that it is an under-developed county. So part of the work that
we need to do, it is to make sure that, when we are investing,
we are investing in the actual community that lives in that
community, and not pushing those communities out.
Rev. Dr. Barber. We have to have an increase in investment
infrastructure in impoverished communities. But we always have
to connect. It is interlocking injustices. There is not one
county in the United States where working at a living wage--at
a minimum wage job 40 hours a week, that you can afford a basic
two-bedroom apartment. In most places you have to work plus-80
hours, plus-80 hours.
And from a moral perspective, a Christian perspective,
poverty, housing, immigrants' rights are the values of faith.
They are the values. I am a pastor. I didn't want to talk like
this. But since I am a pastor--I have been a pastor over 30
years. I have 500 years of ministry in my family, as pastors.
Our church has built homes for low and moderate-income people.
We house senior citizens. We have programs for the poor. But
pastors also must be prophets, like Jesus was, and challenge
the system. And all the homes we built has nothing to do with
people not getting a living wage. That is like government
policy.
And I just want to say it to this Committee again and to
the people here. Slavery was a government policy. The lack of
civil rights was a government policy. The lack of living wages
is a government policy. The lack of housing is a government
policy. So to say weak government is bad is ridiculous. We are
here in the government.
It--what the problem is, when you have a government that
pushes for the few, and caters to Wall Street, and caters to
the greedy, and does not care for we the people--and to suggest
that 43.5 million people in the--I mean 43 percent of this
country, 140 million people, if they want to--I am going to
keep saying it like a broken record, that if they just loved
and got charity from the church when the government created the
poverty, then you are going to ask the church to fix the
poverty? No.
The church should be challenging the government, just like
we challenged the government over slavery, just like we
challenged the government over the lack of women's right to
vote, just like we challenged the government over civil rights.
We should be prophetic and challenge for a policy shift that
could lift people. And to not do that is, at best, theological
malpractice. At worst, it is heresy.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Omar, for five
minutes.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Congresswoman
Barbara Lee, for your championship in championing this
particular issue.
I am a little frustrated, because I heard a lot about love.
And one thing that I know is it is not because of the lack of
love that we are not able to feed our children. It is not
because of lack of love that we are able to house people. It is
not the lack of love that we are unable to save people from
dying because they don't have health care. It is not because of
lack of love that you were able to finish college because you
got help with child care.
Love has nothing to do with this. And if you want to bring
love into this, you got to bring radical love, because radical
love means that we radically love every single person within
our communities to make sure that we are providing for them the
basic rights as humans. That's what love is. And that's the
godly thing to do.
So if we want to talk about faith, we also have to remember
that we can't pray our problems away. You can't pray for your
children to be fed so you are not crying because they're crying
and they can't go to bed. You cannot pray for your medical
bills to disappear. You cannot pray for the mold to stop
poisoning your children in the classrooms.
The other thing that frustrates me is people who have
experienced poverty, who have gotten the straps for their
bootstraps, who sit and talk about how we shouldn't do anything
for the next person. See, as someone who knows severe poverty--
I lived in a refugee camp on the floor, no water, nothing. And
I hear somebody say here in the United States they are fine
with their grandparents not having running water. And that is
supposed to be okay? Or we hear someone say it was a choice
made up to me to have my children and not be like the other
black people who get to have children out of wedlock.
We don't get to have those kind of conversations. The
conversations we get to have is how we are responsible for
fully funding our schools so all of our children have the
opportunities we have as we sit in this room. We get to talk
about the kind of opportunities we have as government to make
sure health care is provided to everybody so that we don't have
people dying in the United States because they can't afford
insulin.
The conversation we get to have is making sure that there
are no children, no children going to sleep hungry or being
shamed in classrooms and in lunch rooms because their families
don't have enough money to pay for their lunch.
The conversation we get to have about the kind of poverty
we have in this country, is the kind of poverty that says it is
okay for us to take photo pictures with veterans, and be okay
with the fact that they are sleeping on the streets here in the
United States.
So as an immigrant, as someone who came to this country
hearing about American exceptionalism and prosperity, I am
appalled that we get to sit here and have conversations as
Americans about being the most charitable country in the world,
and not being charitable enough to house our homeless, feed our
children, care for our veterans. What is charitable about that?
So, I ask you. The kind of systematic barriers that exist
in prosperity, that is the conversation we should be having.
Rev. Dr. Barber. And----
Ms. Omar. And so I want you guys, for the little bit of
time that I have, to talk about the systematic barriers that
exist in creating prosperity, and what it means for us to
remove those so that all of us could have the prosperity that
is guaranteed within our Constitution.
Rev. Dr. Barber. I want----
Chairman Yarmuth. Since the gentlelady's time is basically
expired, why don't you address it to one person----
Ms. Omar. Yes.
Chairman Yarmuth.----and then let that person respond.
Rev. Dr. Barber. I was going to yield to Savannah. But
Savannah, I tell you what to do. I want you to hold my hand.
Because we came here to have a real conversation. We didn't
come here to talk this mythology and foolishness about, you
know, I grew up in poverty and therefore I have just worked
hard and got--that is not what we came here to talk about. We
have a budget. If--you got your budget? Hold it up, Liz. I want
the nation--I am going to speak to America now. We want--I want
to see the front of it.
Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is. We can
talk all day long about a love, and where your treasure is,
where your heart is. And justice requires not just praying and
going to church, but it requires justice. Jesus said that
people who engage in religiosity but do not care for justice,
he called that hypocrisy. So let's talk about investment. Let's
talk about barriers.
Love in a democracy, we would be investing in democracy and
equal protection under the law. That is what is in here. It
would be investing in domestic tranquility, investing in an
equitable economy, fair taxes, raised income. It would be
investing in life, and health care, and full health care for
everybody, and equal treatment.
It would be investing in our future, investing in early
learning. Childcare helps the K through 12 higher education,
inclusion for all undocumented youth. HBCUs investment, and
tribal school investment. And love would be investing in the
planning, access to clean water and sanitation, addressing
climate change through clean energy. Love, real love and
justice, would be investments in peace and common defense,
ending the culture of war, reducing military spending, ending
militarism at home, eliminating militarism and immigration,
eliminating militarism and policing and mass incarceration, and
ending easy access to firearms.
We came here with a plan, not just with partisan mythology.
We came here with a plan to challenge both Democrats and
Republicans. But it seems like one side we really got to
challenge--but we are going to work on everybody, because we
need a plan, because the 43.5 percent and 140 million people,
their backs are against the wall, and they are dying at a rate
of 250,000 per year.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Reverend Barber. We are going to get
the radical love that Jesus preached. So, thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank--the gentlelady's time has
expired.
And as we mentioned earlier in the--at the beginning of the
hearing, your budget and plan is part of the formal record.
Under normal circumstances, the Ranking Member and I would
now have 10 minutes each to use as we saw fit. We are about to
have votes called on the floor. So, the Ranking Member and I
have just agreed to spend just a small portion of our time
closing the hearing.
Mr. Womack. So----
Chairman Yarmuth. I recognize the Ranking Member.
Mr. Womack. I thank the Chairman. It has been a long
hearing, and we have heard a lot and we have learned a lot. I
think the common thing that we have learned is that we have a
poverty issue in our country. We have had a poverty issue for a
long time. We have done a lot of things, spent a lot of money
trying to address poverty issues.
The challenge for the Congress, which is the, I guess, the
final arbiter of these issues, is to figure out how much we
have to spend, what programs are most meaningful and beneficial
to arrive at the outcomes that can address the root causes of
the problem, and allocate those resources accordingly, in a way
that, with proper oversight, that we can get the very best
return on that investment that we can.
That is what the taxpayers of our country ask of us, is to
make sure, as the people who hold the purse strings, to ensure
that the money that is going out is being spent in a wise and
productive fashion.
There is not a person on this dais that does not want to
see every single person in this country lifted out of poverty
to become productive in their lives, to make really, really
good personal decisions, to really live that American Dream.
But there are a lot of different opinions as to exactly how we
approach that.
I liked what my colleague, Bill Johnson, said at the very
beginning about the importance of the father in the household.
And we have got too many single-parent households these days.
We can't legislate that. But we can have it as a goal for this
country to improve the family circumstance in such a way that
we can help our young people get that education, make those
decisions that break, if you will, that cycle of poverty. And
that is what I hope to see out of this.
Now, there have been some references made out of defense
spending today. And as you heard in my opening remarks, I am a
30-year veteran with a deployment under my belt in support of
the national security of this country. And I am a strong
advocate for the men and women who, on a voluntary basis, put
their hand up and say they will go anywhere, any time, under
any circumstance, and fight for something greater than
themselves.
It was mentioned by one gentleman on the panel today that,
when you fly into Washington, you fly over the Pentagon, and
then you fly over names of major defense contractors. Let me
also remind you that you fly over Arlington National Cemetery.
And those headstones that I see out there, and those crosses
represent something to me. And the way that we can continue to
honor the commitment and the sacrifice and the hardships
suffered by well over a million people who have died in defense
of their country, the way we honor them is to make sure that we
protect the principles espoused in the founding of this country
throughout the rest of history, so that we can give the rest of
society an opportunity to pursue the American Dream that has
been given as hope for all of us.
So with that said, Mr. Chairman, I don't have any questions
for the panel.
I know we are about to head to the floor for votes, and I
want to thank everybody for coming today and telling your
personal stories.
And I will yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman, and I yield myself
time for my closing remarks.
You know, I agree with the Ranking Member, that the over--
without question, the goal of this government should be to lift
as many people out of poverty as possible. It is not to support
as many poor people as possible. That should be our objective.
But reality is that we live in a different world.
And I--you know, I empathize with all the stories that we
have heard today from some of my colleagues about their
background and how they came up in poverty. We are in a very
different world when--from when those gentlemen were describing
their upbringing. And it is going to get even tougher in this
world.
The technology revolution that we are seeing now, that we
are going to continue to see, is going to disrupt far more
lives than anything we have ever experienced in this country.
And we are going to be in for a rough stretch. And it is not
just going to be poorly-educated or lesser-educated people. It
is going to be CPAs and radiologists and a lot of people who
spent a lot of money getting an education, and were working for
high wages, and their jobs are going to be drastically changed,
as well.
So I am very conscious of what we need to do, as a country.
I don't have the answers, but I know what we are going to have
to cope with. And we are going to have to make sure that
everybody in this country is supported to the extent that they
can be productive as possible.
I don't think there is any greater need in this country
right now for our long-term prospects than early childhood
education. Because if we don't make sure that the next
generation of Americans, that younger generation of Americans,
has the opportunity and the resources to make--be productive
citizens, then we are arguing over nothing now, because there
won't be a tax base for us to argue about how to spend. We
won't have people--when the Baby Boomers retire and pass on--
and I am one of those--and then the next generation--if we
don't make sure that the youngest generation and the generation
after that are productive citizens, where is the tax base going
to be?
And I have said this to a lot of white people I have had
arguments with. If we don't make sure non-white Americans make
a lot of money and pay a lot of taxes, then white America is
not going to retire, not going to be able to retire, because
there won't be any resources.
So this is not a simple issue. Just like everything else we
deal with on the federal level, it is really complicated.
Poverty is not an easy issue.
The fact remains we have the greatest disparity between the
wealthiest Americans and everybody else that we have ever had,
well, in the last 100 or so years. And we have greater
disparity in wealth and income in this country as most--any
other industrialized nation.
And I look at things like the Earned Income Tax Credit, a
great program, has lifted a lot of people out of poverty and
supported a lot of people. And Democrats love it, and some
Republicans love it. But you know who loves it more than
anybody? Corporate America. Corporate America loves it because
it helps them. It allows them to pay lower salaries and--
because the EITC is supporting their workers. And that is the
same thing with Medicaid in a lot of cases, and it is the same
thing with SNAP. These are all, to a certain extent, subsidies
to corporate America.
I once had a conversation--it was my first election--with a
McDonald's franchisee, and we were arguing about minimum--
raising the minimum wage. Then it was $5.25. And he said how--
what a difficult imposition that would be on him, if he had to
raise the--if we raised the minimum wage on him.
And I said, ``You know, what would you say if I came to you
and I said, 'You know, I have got the greatest business concept
that ever came down the pike, and it is just absolutely
foolproof. The only catch is that I have to have people working
for me for nothing.' What would you say?''
He said, ``I would say you are insane.''
I said, ``In today's world''--that was 2006. I said, ``In
today's world, what is the difference between $5 an hour and
nothing? Not much.'' And here we are, 13 years later, and we
are at $7.25.
Now, the reality is, I understand not many people are
making $7.25, but there are a lot of people out there making
$9, and $10, and $9 and $10 are not living wages, either. And
you all know that extremely well.
So, there--there is a lot of institutionalized--there are a
lot of institutionalized issues that we have to deal with, as a
country. Congress can't deal with all of them. But the fact
remains that we have an obligation. I always say government is
the way we recognize our--we organize our responsibilities to
each other.
And one of those responsibilities is to understand that we
have a capitalistic system that ends up with winners and
losers. And the losers are not necessarily losers because they
didn't try hard, because they weren't talented. They were
losers because there are naturally winners and losers in
society.
And it is the government's obligation to make sure we do
everything we can to make sure they have a decent standard of
living, and then give them the support to rise out of poverty
and become winners at all levels.
So, with that, I would say we got a lot of work to do. The
Poor People's Campaign has done a lot of work and has a lot of
work to do.
And I want to thank everybody here for focusing on a very,
very important national issue. Thank you for your time, your
passion and, most of all, bringing your experience to the
Committee and this Congress.
And with that, with no further business, the Committee is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:28 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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