“The ransom note that Speaker McCarthy unveiled in front of a crowd of Wall Street bankers is dead on arrival,” said Agriculture Ranking Member David Scott.
Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member David Scott released the following statement in response to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt limit framework which, if passed as proposed, would include additional punitive work requirements to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP):
Let me be perfectly clear: holding food assistance hostage for those who depend on it, including 15.3 million of our children, 5.8 million of our seniors, and 1.2 million of our veterans, in exchange for increasing the debt limit is a non-starter. The ransom note that Speaker McCarthy unveiled in front of a crowd of Wall Street bankers today is dead on arrival.
Putting SNAP benefits at risk for millions of America’s children, veterans, and seniors is both un-American and ungodly. Republican attempts to punish low-income families to pay for tax cuts they pushed through under President Trump will not result in self-sufficiency; it will only drastically increase hunger for our American people. The radical work requirements Republicans are attempting to insert into the program, on top of our already existing, stringent work requirements, will not spur economic growth. The American people must know that we already have stringent work requirements for Americans that can work. By including these radical proposals as a lever in debt limit negotiations, Speaker McCarthy and his extreme Republican colleagues are ensuring their failure.I encourage Speaker McCarthy to reconsider his strategy and come back to the American people – not Wall Street bankers – with a clean raise of the debt limit that does not burden our children, seniors, and veterans.
