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BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR FAMILIES:

FIGHTING HUNGER, INVESTING IN CHILDREN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Serial No. 111–3

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget

(

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/budget/index.html 
(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

JOHN M. SPRATT, JR., South Carolina, Chairman 

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

ALLEN BOYD, Florida 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut, 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin, 

Ranking Minority Member 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

MARIO DIAZ–BALART, Florida 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

[Vacant] 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

THOMAS S. KAHN, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

AUSTIN SMYTHE, Minority Staff Director 
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page 

Hearing held in Washington, DC, February 12, 2009 .......................................... 1

Statement of: 

Hon. John M. Spratt, Jr., Chairman, House Committee on the Budget ..... 1

Additional submission: 

Partnership for America: ‘‘Reading, Writing and Hungry’’ ............. 35

Hon. James P. McGovern, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Massachusetts, letter submitted by ........................................................ 2

Additional submission: 

The study, ‘‘The Almanac of Hunger and Poverty in America 

2007,’’ Internet address to ............................................................. 2

Hon. Paul Ryan, ranking minority member, House Committee on the 

Budget ............................................................................................................ 3

Hon. Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 5

Hon. James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Rhode Island, prepared statement of ...................................................... 6

Hon. Betty McCollum, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Minnesota, submissions for the record: 

Policy study, ‘‘Early Intervention on a Large Scale,’’ Internet address 

to ............................................................................................................. 88

Nobel laureate study, ‘‘Early Intervention on a Large Scale’’ ............... 89

Hon. Marcy Kaptur, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Ohio, question for the record ....................................................................... 95

Sharon Parrott, director, welfare reform and income support division, 

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ....................................................... 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

Responses to questions for the record ..................................................... 95

Dr. Deborah A. Frank, founder and principal investigator, Children’s 

Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program (C–SNAP) .................................. 14

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 17

Additional submissions: 

‘‘Child Nutrition Forum Statement of Principles’’ ........................... 20

Table: ‘‘Measures of Food Insecurity by House Committee on 

the Budget Member’s State’’ .......................................................... 34

Leon Lott, sheriff, Richland County, SC ......................................................... 40

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 42

Douglas J. Besharov, senior scholar, American Enterprise Institute .......... 46

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 49

(1)

BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR FAMILIES: 

FIGHTING HUNGER, INVESTING IN CHILDREN 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m. in room 210, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John Spratt [chairman of the 

committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Spratt, Schwartz, Doggett, Blumenauer, 

Berry, McGovern, Tsongas, Etheridge, McCollum, Yarmuth, DeLauro, Scott, Larsen, Bishop, Moore, Connolly, Schrader, Ryan, 

Hensarling, Lummis, and Nunes. 

Chairman SPRATT. I will call the hearing to order. Today we 

meet to consider an important part of the Federal budget, a topic 

that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Investments in 

fighting hunger and investments in children are the right thing to 

do in the short term, no question about it, but they are also prudent, wise investments over the long term because without adequate funding our society and our budget pay a price that is higher 

later than if it is avoided now. It is easy to say that our children 

are our future, but harder to make the hard choices about what 

works and where you come up with the resources to fund what we 

know needs to be done. 

I hope our witnesses today, drawing on their research and their 

personal experience, can help us set our priorities and help us to 

invest wisely. 

I want to thank Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts for asking that 

we hold this hearing. He has been a national leader in efforts to 

fight hunger and support efforts to address the problem. 

Rather than make an extended opening statement I am going to 

yield the balance of my time to him to make his opening statement. 

Then I will yield to Mr. Ryan for any remarks he would like to 

make. We will then hear from our witnesses: Sharon Parrott from 

the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Dr. Deborah Frank of 

the GROW Clinic for Children in Boston; Sheriff Leon Lott from 

Richland County, South Carolina; and Douglas Besharov of the 

American Enterprise Institute. 

I would like to extend a special welcome to Sheriff Lott from my 

home State of South Carolina. He comes from Richland County, 

which adjoins my congressional district. He is here today because 

he is active with Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a network of law enforcement officials who are dedicated to finding and promoting better ways of reducing crime. He has an impressive record of public 
2

service, and we are indebted to him for coming today. Thank you 

very much indeed. 

Now I yield to Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you for holding this important briefing today. I want to thank the 

witnesses for their time and for their testimony. I especially want 

to thank Dr. Deborah Frank from the Boston Medical Center and 

the C-SNAP program for coming. Her testimony has always been 

a great value to this Budget Committee in understanding why we 

need to invest in hunger, nutrition and children’s health, so I appreciate it. And I appreciate all the witnesses here. 

Let us be clear today. Fighting hunger should be a top priority 

of this Congress and this new administration. Whenever we talk 

about improving the lives of children, about giving them better 

health care and education, we must also talk about ending hunger. 

Ending hunger is not a quixotic endeavor. Many of my colleagues 

may be shocked to hear this from a guy whose last name is McGovern. But President Nixon did more to combat hunger than any 

other President, although I hope that will change with President 

Obama. 

In fact, we were on track to end hunger in the 1970s before many 

of the most important anti-hunger programs were slashed during 

the Reagan era. More than 36 million people went hungry in America in 2007. Over 12 million of them were children. This is unacceptable, and it is time that we make the critical investments in 

programs that are proven to combat and end hunger. 

According to a 2007 study commissioned by the Sodexo Foundation, more than $90 billion is spent each year on addressing the direct and indirect costs related to individuals and families who simply don’t have enough to eat. This means that every single person 

in the United States pays about $300 annually towards covering 

this hunger bill and $22,000 over a lifetime. In 2005, direct and indirect costs for illness alone were $66.8 billion. And I would like 

to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the report by 

Sodexo. 

[The study, ‘‘The Almanac of Hunger and Poverty in America 

2007,’’ may be accessed at the following Internet address:]

http://feedingamerica.org/our-network/the-studies/hunger-almanac-2007.aspx

Mr. MCGOVERN. But the cost of ending hunger is much less expensive than the cost of doing nothing. The same study estimates 

that we could end hunger by simply strengthening existing, not 

new, Federal nutrition programs by about $10 to $12 billion over 

current spending. Specifically, we must provide breakfast to every 

child at school and do so after the school day starts. School meals 

should be provided to all children at no cost, and the meals should 

be healthier. We must also ensure that all children who receive a 

meal during the school year are able to eat during the summer 

months when school isn’t in session. We also need to make sure 

that WIC is fully funded and that every eligible family is signed 

up for and receiving proper food stamp benefits. 

President Obama has committed to ending childhood hunger by 

the year 2015. Our budget must reflect that. And I look forward 

to working with you, Mr. Chairman, members of this committee, 
3

and with this administration on this important investment in our 

children’s future. 

All of us in Congress talk the talk, but quite frankly we haven’t 

always walked the walk. I have yet to meet anybody in Congress 

who is pro hunger. Yet a lot of the budgets that we have passed 

over the years, a lot of the appropriations bills that we have passed 

over the years do not reflect this commitment to ending hunger. 

This is the time to develop a comprehensive plan to end hunger 

and insist on its implementation. 

Let me be clear. Our goal should not be to simply hand out food, 

though now unfortunately that is necessary. Our goal should be to 

increase each individual’s purchasing power so that every person 

has access to enough healthy food to feed them and their families. 

And ultimately that means an all out attempt, an all out effort to 

end poverty in this country. 

We have a long way to go. We have ignored this problem for far 

too long, and I hope that today is the beginning of a new era in 

which we will build on some of the successes that we have already 

had. In the stimulus package that we are going to vote on there 

is a significant increase in monies for food stamps, which is a good 

thing. In the farm bill that we passed last year, though there are 

lots of parts of the farm bill I don’t like, the food and nutrition part 

I do like, and there is a $20 billion commitment to new food and 

nutrition programs. And I want to specifically thank my colleague 

from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, for her efforts in that. But we are 

playing catchup, and we need to go beyond that and into devising 

and implementing a comprehensive plan to end hunger once and 

for all. 

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to make this 

opening statement, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. Ryan. 

Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Chairman, and welcome, witnesses. Our 

focus today is on American families struggling in this severely 

weakened economy, and specifically the children of those families. 

The most obvious, and I know the well-intentioned, response is to 

increase the size and scope of nearly every program that is already 

on the books and likely even add a few more. But what always 

seems to come as an afterthought, if ever at all, is what all these 

well-intentioned actions will mean for the future of those same children Congress is today aiming to help. 

CBO tells us its deficit this year will be $1.2 trillion, and that 

is before taking into account the so-called stimulus legislation we 

are voting on today or tomorrow. Compounding this is an entitlement crisis looming on the horizon. So I think if we are talking 

about a hearing about the future of children, the condition of children, this has got to be a part of this conversation. 

Today the Federal Government has an unfunded liability of $56 

trillion, or about $185,000 for every man, woman and child in the 

United States of America, and that gap between what we have 

promised and what we can actually deliver is growing by an incredible $2 to $3 trillion per year. 

What does this mean for our children’s future? According to the 

GAO, by the time today’s five-year-olds hit their mid-30s they will 
4

have to pay twice as much in Federal taxes as we do now just to 

keep our largest entitlements afloat in their current form. It is important to note that these estimates were produced prior to today’s 

economic crisis and assume no new spending, no new benefits and 

certainly not the stimulus bill with its hundreds of billions in 

spending and program expansions. 

But if we fail to reform these entitlement programs, we are all 

but guaranteeing an economic crisis for our children that will be, 

as OMB Director Peter Orszag said to this committee last September, substantially more severe than what we are even facing 

today. Failing to address the entitlement crisis will also mean that 

our three largest entitlements, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, alone will grow to consume the size of the entire Federal 

budget today and crowd out every other domestic priority, including early childhood education and the 21 existing food subsidy programs on the books today. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that Congress throws up its 

hands and says challenges are too great, the debt is too large, there 

is nothing we can do to help those who are in need today. Congress 

has already taken extraordinary steps to address the current economic crisis, including the bipartisan passage of measures such as 

temporarily extension of unemployment benefits to cushion struggling families from this serious economic downturn. 

If you could bring up chart 1, please. Let us look at food stamps 

for another example. Since 2000, we have more than doubled the 

size of this program. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 

food stamp spending will increase by 22 percent this year alone, 

and that increase jumps to 34 percent with the stimulus bill passing.

But we simply cannot pretend that the answer to every question 

and every challenge is always just more spending. At best the government’s well-intentioned efforts to help the vulnerable have a 

mixed record of success and in too many cases have simply trapped 
5

their beneficiaries in a cycle of dependency while adding to our already burden of debt. 

Instead of simply racing to do something for struggling families, 

let us try to do something that uses the lessons of the past and actually betters their prospects for the future. We all know the elements of this. We have got to get our economy back on track now, 

and that means encouraging the investment and job creation critical to get the people kids look to to provide for them, their parents, 

back to work. That means we have got to remove tax hikes that 

in less than 2 years will hit workers, businesses and families. And 

equally important, this means beginning to address immediately 

the looming entitlement crisis so that we can give the next generation an even better America than that which our parents passed 

to us. 

I thank you, Chairman, and I yield. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I think the committee 

members have pretty well set the bookends for this argument 

today, and there is a lot of room between us to argue and consider 

what is doable, feasible, and what is necessary in this critically important area. 

I would like to attend to a couple of housekeeping details. First 

of all, I ask unanimous consent that all members be allowed to submit at this point an opening statement for the record. If there is 

no objection, so ordered. 

[The statement of Mr. Connolly follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding this hearing, bringing to 

light the positive impacts on the health of our economy and of our children obtained 

through investments in childhood development and hunger prevention efforts. Investing in the most vulnerable members of our society has always been of vital importance; however, in these difficult and challenging economic times the need for 

adequate investment becomes ever more critical. 

We know that the current need is great. In 2007, there were 37.3 million people 

living below the poverty line in the United States; up 800,000 from the previous 

year. Given the current economic downturn, especially the 4th quarter GDP decline 

of 3.8%, one can only surmise that without action, the number of Americans living 

in poverty in 2008 will grow significantly. In my home communities of Fairfax and 

Prince William Counties in Virginia, our poverty rates may seem low, 5.2% and 

4.9% respectively; however, based on our population size, those numbers represent 

almost 70,000 people living in poverty. In Prince William County, more than 500 

people are homeless, and Fairfax County has more than 2,000 homeless individuals, 

1,200 of whom are children. It is truly a tragedy that the development of our children is so thoroughly impaired, and the negative implications to our economy from 

the opportunity costs of their diminished future potential are staggering. 

The situation is by no means a lost cause; we have already taken efforts to alleviate the dire consequences of under investment in our children and we have seen 

that concerted, continual support for our children’s development pays positive dividends. 

In my district, 15% of Fairfax County schoolchildren and 21% of Prince William 

County schoolchildren are currently receiving free lunches at school. That’s 40,000 

children whose families are too impoverished to afford essential nutrition; but 

thanks to the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, we have been able to 

ensure that their nutritional needs are met and they have a chance to succeed. As 

Dr. Frank has explained in her written testimony, providing an adequate level of 

nutrition for our children is essential to their cognitive development and their scholastic performance. 

Of course, childhood nutrition is only one component. As Sheriff Lott will address, 

investing in crime prevention efforts today that are aimed at our children produces 

a tremendous return. In my previous role as Chairman of the Fairfax County Board 
6

of Supervisors, I initiated an expansion of our after-school programs from three middle schools to all twenty-six. As part of our preventative approach to addressing 

gang crime before it ever started, we were able to expand the legitimate opportunities that our children had available to them. The results speak for themselves: there 

was a 50% reduction in gang participation among school children and a 32% reduction in gang crime. We saw direct results in the schools; 80% of our middle schools 

reported improved academic performance and 76% of the schools reported an improvement in overall student behavior as a result of the after school program expansion. 

These programs, along with other early childhood health and learning initiatives 

have shown verifiable results in the improvement of our children’s development and 

in their increased productivity in our economy in the future; however, due to the 

current economic situation, they are in jeopardy. Most state and local governments 

are faced with budget shortfalls and may be forced to reduce even essential programs. We cannot allow our children to operate at a competitive disadvantage. We 

cannot allow our children to have no place to call home. We cannot allow our children to remain mired in poverty. We cannot allow our children to go to bed hungry 

and wake up malnourished. For the good of our children and for our nation, we 

must make the critical investments in our children so they have the opportunity to 

make future investments in America. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like again to thank you and Mr. McGovern for your leadership on this issue and for fighting for our children’s futures.

[The statement of Mr. Langevin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding this very important hearing 

to examine the real economic and human benefits of investing in our children and 

fighting hunger and poverty. This is an extremely relevant topic, both in the context 

of the economic recovery package that came out of conference just yesterday, as well 

as the upcoming budget cycle. It is also an issue in which I have been involved in 

my home state of Rhode Island—particularly through my work with the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. 

According to the USDA (Economic Research Report No. 66), there were 47,000 

food insecure households in Rhode Island in 2007, meaning that 10.9 percent of all 

households were unable to afford adequate food. Since the USDA survey was completed, the unemployment rate in Rhode Island has doubled, now reaching 10 percent. With this downturn in the economy, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank 

and its network of member agencies have seen a dramatic increase in need, particularly in the last six months of 2008. Rhode Island food pantries are now serving over 

45,000 people each month. 

While programs like the Rhode Island Food Bank rely on a mix of funding 

streams to support their efforts, it is clear that government investment will be crucial to the continued success of these programs. Given this fact: 

• What are the most effective programmatic investments to address hunger and 

poverty contained in the economic stimulus package, particularly in terms of their 

ability to stabilize families and promote economic activity? 

• What programs not contained within the stimulus bill should this committee 

consider for future budgetary priorities in addressing hunger and poverty? 

While the Food Bank and its member agencies are at capacity, the federal nutrition programs are underutilized in Rhode Island. In particular, the latest USDA report (Food and Nutrition Service, October 2008) ranks Rhode Island has having one 

of the lowest participation rates in the country in the Food Stamp Program, now 

known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Increased effort 

to enroll people in SNAP would translate into more people receiving the food resources they need for their families, and less pressure on the emergency food safety 

net, which is already stretched to the limit. I am, therefore, interested in determining: 

• How can provisions for increased SNAP benefits in the stimulus best be utilized 

by states like Rhode that have such a low participation rate? 

• Are there additional budgetary considerations that this committee can make to 

properly address this problem? 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this important hearing. I look forward 

to working with this committee and my colleagues in Congress to determine the 

most effective and sustainable means to address these critical issues.
7

Chairman SPRATT. Now, to our panel of witnesses, thank you for 

coming, thank you for the efforts you have put into coming. We 

have your testimony, we will make it part of the record so that you 

can summarize it. But we have got one panel this morning I believe, and take your time and explain your position because we are 

going to have questions for you afterwards. 

Thank you again for coming. We look forward to your testimony, 

and we will begin with Sharon Parrott, who is the Director of Welfare Reform and Income Support Division at the Center on Budget 

and Policy Priorities. Ms. Parrott. 

STATEMENT OF SHARON PARROTT, DIRECTOR, WELFARE REFORM AND INCOME SUPPORT DIVISION, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES 

Ms. PARROTT. Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting 

me here today. I am going to focus my remarks here this morning 

on the current economic downturn, its impacts on poverty and families in the recovery package. And I am happy in the question period to talk more about the longer term. 

First the bad news. I don’t have to tell you that the current recession has already pushed the unemployment rate from 4.9 percent in December 2007 to 7.6 percent in January 2009. We are 

nearly to an unemployment rate that represents the very highest 

unemployment rate in the recession of the early 1990s. 

Alternative measures of the labor market paint an even bleaker 

picture. Almost one in seven workers is either unemployed, involuntarily working part time or is jobless, willing to work but has become discouraged from looking for work, typically after being unsuccessful for many weeks. Private and government payrolls combined have shrunk for 13 straight months and net job losses since 

the recession total 3.6 million. Rising joblessness leads to increases 

in poverty. It happens in every recession. Not only does poverty go 

up, but people lose health insurance and hardship grows. 

While the census data on the most recent changes in poverty 

won’t be available for some time we have other indicators that unfortunately already point to a rise in poverty. The clearest recession indicator is a dramatic rise in recent months in the food stamp 

caseloads. Between December 2007 and November 2008 caseloads 

rose by 31⁄2 million people, or 13 percent. In 28 States at least one 

in five children now receives food stamps and about 30 million 

Americans now need help from the food stamp program to buy groceries. 

In another indication of rising poverty and hardship data from 

various sources show that homelessness is on the rise amongst 

families with children in many parts of the country. One in five 

school districts that responded to a recent national survey reported 

having more homeless children in the fall of 2008 than they saw 

over the entire 2007-2008 school year. Schools have to track homeless children because of the particular services they provide them. 

So it provides a very good source of data. A number of cities have 

reported increases in families seeking shelter. 

The housing market’s ongoing troubles heighten the potential for 

rising homelessness. Home foreclosures have pushed many owners 

into the rental market and have left many renters without a place 
8

to live when their properties that they live in, and they may be 

fully current in their own rent payments, when those units are 

foreclosed on they are often tossed out. That is rising up rental 

costs in some markets and making it difficult for people to secure 

affordable housing. 

In addition, a number of States and localities are beginning to 

cut back on homelessness prevention programs due to the very serious budget shortfalls at the State and local level. 

Using the historical relationship between poverty and unemployment, we estimate that if the unemployment rate rises to 9 percent, as has been projected by Goldman Sachs in prior weeks, the 

number of poor Americans will rise above its 2006 level by between 

71⁄2 and 10 million people, and the number of poor children will 

rise between 2.6 and 3.3 million children. 

In addition to pushing up unemployment and poverty, the recession is also wreaking havoc on State budgets by shrinking revenues 

and raising costs. We estimate that the cumulative State deficits 

for the rest of 2009 and the next two State fiscal years are a cumulative total of $350 billion, and this excludes the large deficits that 

many local governments are also facing. As State budget holes 

have opened up States already are having to make very painful 

budget cuts. Just a couple of examples. 

At least 28 States have proposed or eliminated cuts that will reduce low-income children or a family’s eligibility for health insurance or reduce their access to health care services. At least 26 

States have proposed or implemented cuts in K through 12 or early 

education. At least 22 States have proposed or implemented cuts 

to medical rehabilitative home care and other services needed by 

low-income people who are elderly and who have disabilities. And 

at least 32 States have proposed or eliminated cuts in public universities and colleges. 

Cuts like these ripple through the economy, worsening the downturn. When States and localities reduce funding for schools or scale 

back day programs for the frail elderly or cut back on child care 

programs, this shrinks overall demand for the products and services that the public and private entities provide. This results in a 

loss of jobs in both the public and private sectors. 

But now I want to turn to the good news. The final economic recovery package, the details of which are now emerging, will ameliorate projected increases in poverty and hardship and help avert 

some painful cuts in critical services at the State level. First, by 

boosting overall demand, the package will reduce projected job 

losses, which means fewer families will have their jobs lost and 

fewer will be pushed into poverty. 

Second, the package targets relief on low-income families hard 

hit by the downturn and those who have lost their jobs. This relief 

will help keep some families out of poverty and keep others from 

falling deeper into poverty. 

And third, by providing fiscal relief to States, the package will 

help plug gaping holes and forestall some cuts or tax increases that 

States otherwise would have to make. 

While not perfect, the recovery package is for the most part well 

designed to produce significant stimulus and to produce it as quickly as possible. It includes high bang for the buck items such as ex-
9

pansions in food stamps and unemployment insurance, provisions 

that a broad range of economists and the Congressional Budget Office have rated as the most highly stimulative forms of spending. 

It also includes funding for infrastructure projects which are highly 

stimulative once underway. 

It includes tax cuts, some of which are targeted on low and moderate income households who are among the most likely to spend 

the money and to spend it quickly, thereby boosting aggregate consumer demand and the economy. It also increases funding for a 

range of programs, such as education, child care and job training, 

programs that can spend the money quickly and stimulate demand 

while also serving a useful public purpose. 

These measures will make the current recession less damaging 

both in economic and in human terms. The package also includes 

about $140 billion in fiscal relief for States. This is less than the 

House package included, but still a significant amount that will reduce the need for both cuts in critical services and tax hikes at the 

State and local level. 

However, the overall fiscal relief in the package closes less than 

half of States’ projected by the deficits over the next two and a half 

years. The tough choices for State policymakers and painful cuts 

for families and residents will still be required. 

Unfortunately, the final agreement lacks the provision in the 

House recovery bill to give States the option of providing Medicaid 

coverage to workers who are laid off during the recession. Under 

the standard Medicaid program unemployed parents typically cannot receive Medicaid coverage unless their income sinks to below 

half the poverty line, and other workers without children who have 

been laid off are typically shut out of the Medicaid program no 

matter how poor they are. Without this provision, large numbers 

of Americans unfortunately are likely to lose their health care coverage and access to health care coverage in the recession. 

Still, this package remains a real accomplishment in my view. It 

reflects the best thinking about what provides the highest bang for 

the buck stimulus of a broad range of economists. Relief for lowincome families and the unemployed, fiscal relief for States, infrastructure investment and funding in programs that can spend the 

money quickly and serve a useful public purpose. The package in 

my view will provide effective stimulus to an ailing economy and 

will push back against a rising tide of poverty and hardship. 

Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Sharon Parrott follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHARON PARROTT, DIRECTOR, WELFARE REFORM AND

INCOME SUPPORT DIVISION, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the current recession, its impacts on poverty and families, and the recovery package. 

The current recession already has pushed up the unemployment rate from 4.9 

percent in December 2007 to 7.6 percent in January 2009. Alternative measures of 

the labor market paint a bleaker picture. Almost one in seven workers—some 13.9 

percent of all workers—are unemployed, involuntarily working part time, or are jobless and available for work but have grown discouraged from looking for work. Private and government payrolls combined have shrunk for 13 straight months, and 

net job losses since the start of the recession some 14 months ago total 3.6 million. 

And, those who have lost jobs are having a very difficult time finding a new one: 

more than one-fifth (22.4 percent) of the 11.6 million unemployed have not been able 

to find a job despite looking for 27 weeks or more. 
10

Rising joblessness leads to increases in poverty, losses in health insurance, and 

growing hardship. While Census data on changes in poverty in recent months will 

not be available for some time, other indicators point to a rise in poverty. The clearest such indicator is a dramatic increase in recent months in caseloads for the Food 

Stamp Program (recently renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 

or SNAP): between December 2007 and November 2008 (the latest month available), 

caseloads rose by 3.5 million or 13 percent. In 28 states, at least one in every five 

children is receiving food stamps. As Figure 1 shows, food stamp caseloads have historically tracked poverty and unemployment. 

In another indication of growing poverty and hardship, data from school districts 

around the country as well as other state and local data sources show that homelessness is on the rise among families with children:1

• The number of families entering New York City homeless shelters jumped by 

40 percent between July—November 2007 and July—November 2008.2

• Massachusetts reports a 32 percent increase between November 2007 and November 2008 in the number of homeless families residing in state-supported emergency shelters.3

• Hennepin County, Minnesota (Minneapolis) reports a 20 percent increase in the 

number of homeless families in emergency shelters between the first ten months of 

2008 and the comparable period in 2007.4

• Los Angeles County reports a 12 percent increase between September 2007 and 

September 2008 in the number of families receiving welfare assistance who are 

known to be homeless.5

Two recent national surveys support these data. In a fall 2008 survey by the U.S. 

Conference of Mayors, 16 of the 22 cities that provided data on the number of homeless families with children reported an increase in 2008, some of them substantial. 

(Louisville reported a 58 percent increase.) 6 In another national survey, one in five 

responding school districts reported having more homeless children in the fall of 

2008 than over the course of the entire 2007-2008 school year.7

The housing market’s ongoing troubles heighten the potential for significant increases in homelessness during this recession. Home foreclosures have pushed many 

owner and renter families into the rental market, driving up rents in some areas 

by increasing the demand for housing—despite falling incomes and rising unemployment. In addition, a number of state and localities are beginning to cut back homelessness prevention programs due to large state and local budget shortfalls, even as 

the need for these programs grows. 

HOW MUCH WILL POVERTY RISE DURING THIS RECESSION?

Goldman Sachs projects that the unemployment rate will rise to 9 percent by the 

fourth quarter of 2009 (the firm has increased its forecast twice in the last month). 

If this holds true and the increase in poverty relative to the increase in unemployment is within the range of the last three recessions, the number of poor Americans 

will rise above its 2006 level by 7.5-10.3 million, the number of poor children will 

rise by 2.6-3.3 million, and the number of children in deep poverty will climb by 

1.5-2.0 million. (This increase will not take place in a single year, but will occur over 

several years.) 8
11

A strong recovery package would reduce these increases in poverty, in three ways. 

First, by boosting overall demand, it would reduce projected job losses, which means 

fewer families would be pushed into poverty. Second, the package now before Congress includes a number of provisions to assist struggling families that would keep 

some families out of poverty and keep others from falling into deep poverty. (These 

include a temporary increase in SNAP benefits, a temporary expansion of the EITC 

and Child Tax Credit, an extension and increase in unemployment benefits, resources for states with rising TANF caseloads, health coverage to unemployed workers, and emergency shelter grants to prevent homelessness.) Third, as discussed 

below, fiscal relief to help states avert deeper budget cuts would help support critical public services, including supports for vulnerable families. 

We examined the likely impact on poverty of three tax provisions in the bills: the 

Making Work Pay credit, the EITC expansions, and the expansion of the refundable 

portion of the Child Tax Credit. Under the House Child Tax Credit expansion, these 

three tax provisions would protect some 2.7 million people from poverty, including 

1.1 million children.9 Other provisions, such as the temporary increase in SNAP 

benefits and the unemployment insurance provisions, also would help protect some 

families from poverty and reduce the depth of poverty for many others. 

STATES ARE CUTTING SERVICES TO HELP CLOSE BUDGET GAPS, FURTHER SLOWING THE

ECONOMY

The downturn has wreaked havoc on state budgets. States are facing mammoth 

deficits: we estimate the cumulative deficit for the rest of 2009, 2010, and 2011 at 

$350 billion. This figure does not include the large budget gaps many local governments now face. 

The claim that the deterioration in states’ fiscal conditions reflects shoddy planning on the part of states is false. Not only do states balance their operating budgets each year, but states entered this recession with the largest budget reserves in 

their history. But because of the recession, which has sharply reduced projected 

state revenues while increasing state costs in areas such as health care, these reserves are mostly gone and states now face large shortfalls. The fact that the states 

with the sharpest increases in unemployment are also the states with largest shortfalls is further evidence that the economy, not fiscal mismanagement, is to blame. 
12

As state budget holes have opened up, states have already made a series of painful budget cuts.10 For example: • At least 28 states have proposed or implemented cuts that will reduce low-income children’s or families’ eligibility for health insurance or reduce their access to 

health care services. • At least 26 states have proposed or implemented cuts to K-12 and early education. • At least 32 states have proposed or implemented cuts to public colleges and universities. • At least 38 states and the District of Columbia have proposed or implemented 

cuts affecting state workers. 

Cuts like these ripple through the economy, worsening the downturn. For example, when states and localities reduce funding for schools, scale back day programs 

for seniors, or cut back on child care programs, this shrinks overall demand for the 

products and services that public and private entities provide. This results in the 

loss of jobs in both the public and private sectors. 

RECOVERY BILL WOULD HELP FLAGGING ECONOMY AND STRUGGLING FAMILIES

For the most part, both the House and Senate recovery packages are well-designed to produce significant stimulus as quickly as possible. They includes fastspending, high ‘‘bang for the buck’’ items such as expansions in food stamps and 

unemployment insurance—provisions that a broad range of economists and CBO 

have rated as the most highly stimulative types of spending. They also include state 

fiscal relief, which is essential to moderate the depth of the budget cuts and tax increases that states will have to impose. In addition, they include funding for infrastructure projects, which are highly stimulative once underway. And, they include 

tax cuts, some of which are targeted on low- and moderate-income households who 

are likely to spend the bulk of the money, thereby boosting the economy. Finally, 

both packages increase funding for a range of programs—such as education and job 

training—that can spend the money quickly and serve a useful public purpose to 

further stimulate demand in the economy. 

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on 

Taxation, 85 percent of the spending and tax cuts in the House bill, and 94 percent 

of the spending and tax cuts in the Senate bill, would occur during fiscal years 

2009—2011, a period during which CBO predicts the economy will be operating at 

far below its potential and fiscal stimulus thus would be beneficial. 

CRITICISMS OF RECOVERY PACKAGES MISS THE MARK

While the House and Senate packages are by no means perfect, many of the criticisms that have been leveled against the bills reflect a failure to grasp key points 

about economic stimulus in general and the bills in particular:11

• Spending in safety net programs is effective stimulus—not simply a nice thing 

to do. Some critics argue that spending on safety net programs like food stamps and 

unemployment insurance may be justified on humanitarian grounds but does not 

provide stimulus or create jobs in the way that reductions in, say, taxes for businesses would. In fact, this argument is completely backward in a recession. 

When businesses cannot sell everything they can make, the way to help them retain workers and encourage them to expand is to give their customers more money 

to spend. When you increase benefits for unemployed workers or food stamp recipients, they spend the money quickly and the benefits spread through the economy. 

Whatever the merits of business tax cuts as a long-term strategy to promote economic growth, they are ineffective at putting more customers in stores. 

• Fiscal relief for states bolsters demand and saves jobs. In an economic downturn, states see their revenues fall off and their caseloads for safety net programs 

like Medicaid increase. As deficits begin to emerge, states must cut existing programs or raise new revenues. Those actions translate into layoffs of state workers, 

cancellation of contracts with vendors, and less help for needy families facing hardship—all of which reverberate through the economy, adding to the job losses and 

further suppressing economic activity. Fiscal relief allows states to cut programs or 

raise taxes by a smaller amount than they otherwise would have to; this helps prop 

up the economy and preserve jobs. 

• Spending increases and tax cuts in the package are temporary. Very little of 

the spending authority in the bill extends beyond 2011, and the evidence from past 

fiscal stimulus legislation is that Congress does allow temporary measures such as 

unemployment insurance and state fiscal relief to expire once the economy recovers. 

To be sure, some policymakers may want to make permanent such provisions as 

the Making Work Pay Tax Credit and the expansion in the Child Tax Credit. But 
13

they will have to do so in the context of the normal budget process, where budget 

enforcement procedures will be in place. 

With respect to infrastructure, the recovery package provides a large one-time 

boost to spending authority; the actual expenditures from that authority occur over 

a number of years, but the amount diminishes rapidly after 2011. Maintaining levels of infrastructure spending above those amounts would require annual appropriations through the normal budget process. 

Similarly, while some areas need increased long-term investment, such as early 

education and child care, the place to sort out these long-term priorities is the normal budget process, with pay-as-you-go rules in place and reasonable limits on discretionary funding levels. Neither the House nor the Senate package appears to presuppose the outcome of those long-term decisions. 

• Well-designed spending provides more stimulus per dollar than tax cuts. Goldman Sachs recently rated a number of proposals in the House package according 

to their ‘‘bang for the buck’’—that is, how much economic demand they generate for 

each $1 in cost. It found that spending on infrastructure, benefit programs for lowincome people and people who have lost their jobs, and fiscal relief to states outperformed tax cuts for individuals or businesses. 

This is not to suggest that money in the packages could not be redirected in ways 

that could improve the stimulus impact. For example, some of the tax cuts in both 

packages have low ‘‘bang for the buck’’ as stimulus, as explained below. In addition, 

there are undoubtedly spending items that are not well designed. But the funding 

associated with these programs is likely to be small, since the bulk of the spending 

in both bills falls into categories that are highly stimulative—aid to struggling families and unemployed workers, fiscal relief for states, K-12 and higher education, and 

infrastructure. 

ENDNOTES

1For more information, see Barbara Sard, ‘‘Number of Homeless Families Climbing Due to 

Recession,’’ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, January 8, 2009, http://www.cbpp.org/1-

8-09hous.htm. 2Data provided by the New York City Department of Homeless Services. 

3Data provided by Julia Kehoe, Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance. 4Memorandum from staff of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to the Board of Directors, 

December 18, 2008. 5Data from CalWORKS Program Division, Los Angeles County. 

6 Abt Associates, ‘‘U.S. Conference of Mayors 2008 Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness,’’ December 2008, http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/documents/

hungerhomelessnessreport—121208.pdf. 7 Barbara Duffield and Phillip Lovell, ‘‘The Economic Crisis Hits Home: The Unfolding Increase in Child and Youth Homelessness,’’ National Association for the Education of Homeless 

Children and Youth and First Focus, December 2008, http://www.naehcy.org/dl/

TheEconomicCrisisHitsHome.pdf. The voluntary survey was conducted October 24—December 

10, 2008. 8For more information, see Sharon Parrott, ‘‘Recession Could Cause Large Increases in Poverty and Drive Millions into Deep Poverty,’’ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, November 

24, 2008, http://www.cbpp.org/11-24-08pov.htm. 9These figures are not based on the same measure of poverty as the previously cited projections of recession-related increases in poverty and cannot be directly compared with them. Those 

earlier projections are based on the government’s official measure of poverty, which considers 

only a family’s pre-tax cash income and thus cannot register the effect of the tax credits examined here. To measure their effects, we used a poverty measure that follows recommendations 

of the National Academy of Sciences; this measure considers income after taxes and counts as 

income the value of certain government non-cash benefits such as food stamps and subtracts 

the value of out-of-pocket medical expenditures and work expenses. The measure also uses a 

slightly modified poverty line. 10For more information, see Nicholas Johnson, Phil Oliff, and Jeremy Koulish, ‘‘Facing Deficits, At Least 40 States Are Imposing or Planning Cuts That Hurt Vulnerable Residents,’’ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, revised February 10, http://www.cbpp.org/3-13-08sfp.htm. 11For more information, see Chad Stone, ‘‘Attacks on Congressional Recovery Package Don’t 

Withstand Scrutiny,’’ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 5, 2009, http://

www.cbpp.org/2-5-09bud.htm.

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you very much. And now Dr. Deborah 

Frank, who is the Director of the—well, who is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University, a graduate of Harvard Medical 

School, and Director of the GROW Clinic at the Boston Medical 

Center in Boston. Thank you for coming. Again we look forward to 

your testimony. 
14

STATEMENT OF DEBORAH A. FRANK, M.D., FOUNDER AND 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR OF THE CHILDREN’S SENTINEL 

NUTRITION ASSESSMENT PROGRAM, AND DIRECTOR OF THE 

GROW CLINIC FOR CHILDREN AT BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER 

Dr. FRANK. Distinguished Chairman and committee members, I 

was honored to speak before you 2 years ago, and I am really 

grateful that you give me an opportunity again to speak on behalf 

of all children, but particularly the quietest and most invisible victims of the recession, who are the youngest children. Since I last 

spoke there have been some important policy advances, particularly the farm bill and funding for low income energy assistance. 

And I am half ecstatic to hear that food stamps, now called SNAP, 

will get more money, because heaven knows it is needed. 

But alas, I must tell you that the plague of inadequate nutrition 

and its consequences for our young families has so far outstripped 

the availability of treatment and prevention. Most of the data that 

all of us will give you today is really out of date because it was collected before the current recession. But I can tell you from up-tothe-minute clinical experience that the grim economic news is reflected daily in my clinical practice and supported by research that 

my colleagues and I have conducted as part of C-SNAP, which we 

are going to rename Children’s Health Watch so as not to get it 

muddled up with SNAP, the food stamp program. I really sort of 

want to start from experiences in the trenches of clinical care. 

It was hard for me to get away because just since August my 

young colleagues and I have had to hospitalize 12 severely malnourished babies all under a year of age, which is double the number in the preceding 12 months before August. Let me tell you 

about one of them. 

Let us call him Joey. His father is a skilled construction worker 

who whenever there is work travels around the country with crews 

to install drywall. His mother used to have a job in retail, but 12 

months before we met Joey she was laid off. And nevertheless she 

stuck with her prenatal care and she was on WIC and she delivered a healthy baby, 7-pound baby. And then soon after that the 

father couldn’t find any work as the economy brought construction 

to a halt. 

So the family had to leave their market rent apartment and 

crowd five people into the living room of a not very welcoming relative. These kids are not reflected in the homeless statistics. We 

call them the hidden homeless. They are not in the shelter system, 

they are not in motels, they are not counted in street surveys, but 

there are lots of them. 

Joey’s mother was breast feeding and she lost her milk because 

of the stress. There was a muddle because WIC couldn’t change her 

vouchers for a month. And when I met him at 5 months of age he 

only weighed 9 pounds. That is 2 pounds over his birth weight, the 

weight of a normal one-month-old, and he was third degree malnourished by an international criteria you could name looking like 

an overseas relief poster. He had gotten diarrhea from his big sister who went to school, and she recovered but he didn’t because 

malnutrition weakens your immune system so much. And then the 

more malnourished you become the weaker your immune system 

becomes. 
15

Despite that he still smiled, which startled us. Children who are 

malnourished are not supposed to smile. But he was a baby who 

was loved and had spent hours being held by his family who were 

terribly worried about him and their inability to meet his needs. 

And when we went out and made a home visit it wasn’t just Joey 

who wasn’t getting enough to eat. It turned out the older children 

were drinking watered down milk purchased with the family’s important but inadequate SNAP benefits, food stamps. And because 

the mother’s unemployment benefits had totally run out that was 

all they had. 

Joey had intensive hospital care for thousands of dollars, and he 

certainly looks a whole lot better. I think when he came in I would 

have thought that he might not have lived to be taxed, as Mr. Ryan 

pointed out, when he was 30. In fact I was pretty worried. But now 

at 7 months he weighs 12 pounds, although he still can’t sit up. 

And this child is sort of the tip of the iceberg of children whose 

survival is threatened by the current economic conditions. Now, 

many of the kids are not as sick as Joey. We treat them as outpatients. But they suffer impairments of their health and their developmental potential. In 2008, our referral rates of underweight 

babies to our clinic went up 12 percent and our referral rate is double what it was in 2000. 

Now, I am sure people on the committee and your colleagues will 

tell me, well, this is very nice, Doctor, but it is all anecdotal, and 

that is why we do research. And there are a lot of statistics that 

my colleagues and others have gathered that even very mild food 

insecurity, without any change in the physical size of the child, and 

so children would be unnoticed by their clinicians, is a very measurable risk for poor health, hospitalizations, and developmental 

delays, at least in the youngest children, and actually also for developmental problems in school age. 

Before the current survey national surveys, which only are unfortunately current through 2007, showed that 11 percent of all adults 

and 17 percent of all children under 18 were food insecure. Again 

that doesn’t sound very dire, but I can tell you our research says 

that that is a measurable insult to children. Even more scary, the 

total number of kids in households with, quote, very low food security, which is now the delicate term that is used for what the government used to call hunger, but I gather that is not polite anymore, increased by over 60 percent. And again, the younger the 

child, the more vulnerable. In households with at least one child 

younger than age 6 the number more than doubled. So that more 

than a quarter million, it is actually almost 300,000 are regularly 

missing meals. 

For your interest we have appended a chart for the members of 

the committee showing the 2007 rates for households with insecurity, that is everybody, and specific data for the kids in the States 

that we conduct children’s health watch, but the child data is only 

calculable from government stuff from 2003 to 2005, so it is really 

out of date. 

If we look at the first 6 months of 2008 in the baby world where 

I work, food insecurity seems to be up about 34 percent. But we 

would be hesitant about those numbers until we get a full year and 

can analyze them in a multi-variate analysis. There has been lots 
16

more research which says that scientifically food insecurity affects 

children’s development. We have published it in the New York 

Academy of the annals—annals of the New York Academy of 

Sciences, which I would like to submit, in a report called Nourishing Development. Developmental risk is something that is now 

supposed to be done in all pediatric offices. There is an eight-item 

questionnaire called the PEDS that we do, and it basically refers 

to slow or unusual development in speaking, moving or behavior, 

and it is a very good predictor that a child will have later school 

problems. We have shown that even after considering multiple 

background characteristics food insecure kids under the age of 3 

are 76 percent more likely to be at developmental risk than similar 

children who are food secure. And underweight children, who are 

sort of more severe, are 166 percent more likely to be at developmental risk. 

We know that the developmental effects of poor nutrition in early 

childhood persist long after the acute nutritional deprivation has 

been treated because it is very hard to reverse an insult occurring 

at a time of rapid brain growth. It is sort of like the hardware of 

the computer. You just end up with less efficient hardware. It is 

not that it can’t work at all, but it is a lot harder to program it 

with the software, which I think is Head Start and things that people will talk about, since children are neither ready to learn in the 

near term nor ready to earn in adulthood. 

Now this isn’t a new epidemic, as Representative McGovern 

pointed out, of nutritional deprivation, ill health and impaired 

learning, but it is one that is becoming more virulent. And besides 

adequate funding that will support income, as Ms. Parrott reported, targeted nutritional programs such as SNAP and child nutrition which nourish children from the womb through high school 

graduation are essential. 

I would like to submit for the record the Children’s Nutrition 

Forum statement of principles which we signed on to. We are also 

going to publish, but I can’t tell you about it because it is embargoed, research on the health and developmental effects of WIC in 

the 21st century, and others have good data showing the important 

impact of school meals and childcare feeding. But as with SNAP, 

to assure the quality and wide availability of these medicines to the 

increasing number of children in need, significant new funding will 

be necessary. 

I was interested by Mr. Ryan’s chart because we have lots of 

data showing that the medicine of food stamps doesn’t meet anywhere near the full population of eligible children. It has gone up. 

But in fact, and the dose is still inadequate. So I don’t know whether that food stamp chart was good news or bad news. From my perspective it was good news, but not good enough news. 

I know from listening to the news that there is much discussion 

of entities that are, quote, too big to fail. But I will suggest to you 

that our children are really too important to fail. Since their whole 

life trajectories are being set today in the womb and in the early 

years of life and they really can’t wait until tomorrow, investment 

in the health and nutrition of our children will have short-term 

economic benefits because people spend money for food, but also 

long-term economic payoff in terms of decreased health care and 
17

special education costs. These were calculated by my colleague Dr. 

John Cook, who is an economist, I am not an economist. And the 

long-term benefit to society of course is a more productive and competitive workforce to handle the burdens that Mr. Ryan laid out. 

I would think that not all economic infrastructure development is 

done with a shovel. 

And finally, I want to bring all the complicated numbers and the 

stuff that we submitted that is flying around back to the lives of 

young children, because every number has a name and a face. A 

few weeks ago I walked into my exam room and there was a little 

3-year old sitting at our toddler table eating graham crackers and 

milk because we raised money to give those to our visitors, and she 

looked up at me and she said, Dr. Frank, this morning my stomach 

hurted me. Of course, I immediately went on alert and began to 

run in my head the differential of hurting stomachs in 3-year-olds. 

The first thing I knew it wasn’t, it wasn’t appendicitis. Kids with 

appendicitis don’t have any appetite. So I said, okay, good. But was 

it this, was it that. And the mother was watching my face and she 

saw me sort of thinking about the blood tests and the urines I was 

going to do, and she looked and me and she said, Doctor, it was 

just the hunger that was paining her and she will be okay now. So 

hunger hurts, and children who are verbal tell us so. 

And so I am here to ask you to do what you can to relieve their 

pain, not only because doing so will stimulate the economy in the 

short and long term; it is because it is the right thing to do for children today when they are hungry. 

Thank you for your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Deborah Frank follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. DEBORAH A. FRANK, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, CHILDREN’S SENTINEL NUTRITION ASSESSMENT PROGRAM (C-SNAP), DIRECTOR, GROW CLINIC FOR CHILDREN AT BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Committee members, I was honored to speak before this august panel two years ago and am very grateful to be again given an opportunity to speak on behalf of all children and, in particular, the quietest and most 

invisible victims of the current economic recession, our youngest children. Since I 

last spoke with you there have been some important policy advances in prevention 

and treatment of nutritional deprivation, particularly the recent Farm Bill and increased funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. But, alas, 

I must tell you that the plague of inadequate nutrition and its consequences for our 

young families so far has outstripped the availability of treatment and prevention. 

Much of the data that all of us on the panel give you today is already out-of-date 

since it was collected before the onset of the current 14 month recession, but I can 

tell you from up—to-the-minute clinical experience that the grim economic news is 

reflected daily in my clinical practice and supported by research that my colleagues 

and I conduct in the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program (C-SNAP). 

In March C-SNAP will be renamed Children’s HealthWatch, at least in part to avoid 

confusion with the recently renamed Food Stamp Program, which is now SNAP. 

Today, I will refer to our research center as Children’s HealthWatch to avoid any 

confusion with SNAP. 

To begin I want to share experiences from the trenches of clinical care. Just since 

August, my colleagues and I at Boston Medical Center have had to hospitalize 12 

severely malnourished babies all under a year of age. That is double the number 

we hospitalized in the preceding 12 months. 

Let me just tell you about one of these babies. I’ll call him Joey, whom we admitted just before Christmas. His father is a skilled construction worker, who, whenever there is work, travels around the country with construction crews installing dry 

wall. His mother used to have a job in retail but, 12 months before Joey’s admission, 

like so many Americans, she lost her job. Despite these challenges, five months ago, 

she delivered Joey, a healthy, seven pound baby thanks to WIC and excellent pre-
18

natal care. Soon after the baby’s birth, the father was unable to find any work as 

the economy brought most construction to a halt. The family had to leave their market rent apartment and crowd five people into the living room of a not very welcoming relative. Joey’s mother, who was breastfeeding, lost her milk from the stress. 

When I met Joey at five months of age he weighed only nine pounds, the weight 

of a normal one month old and was by international standards 3rd degree malnourished, looking like a baby from an overseas relief poster. His malnutrition was exacerbated by diarrhea that he had acquired from his school-age sister. She recovered 

but because his immune system was so weakened by malnutrition, he could not deal 

with the infection. 

Despite that he still smiled. He was a baby who was loved and had spent hours 

being held by his family that was terribly worried about him and their inability to 

meet his needs. It wasn’t just Joey who wasn’t getting enough to eat. It turned out 

the other children were drinking watered milk purchased with the family’s important but inadequate SNAP (formerly food stamps) benefits, since the mother’s unemployment benefits had run out. Joey required ten days of intensive hospital care 

costing thousands of dollars. Even now at seven months old, he is just twelve 

pounds and not yet able to sit up. This child is only one of many that our clinic 

has treated in the past few months whose very survival is literally threatened by 

the current economic situation. While not a sick as Joey, many more suffer impairments of their health and their developmental potential. In 2008, the referral rate 

to the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center was up 12% over the previous year. 

In case my colleagues on the panel tell you that these are mere anecdotes, my 

written testimony includes many statistics my Children’s HealthWatch colleagues 

and I and many other research groups have gathered, which show that even a mildly uncertain or inadequate supply of nutritious food, known as food insecurity, even 

without physical evidence of underweight, is an important risk for children’s poor 

physical and mental health, hospitalizations, developmental delay, and depressed 

academic performance. 

I can tell you what happens to my patients and I can tell you what I have found 

in my research, but in order to speak to you about how the recession plays into 

young children’s health, I would like to acknowledge my colleague, Dr. John T. 

Cook, who is an economist and demographer. He is much better able to explain than 

I the economic causes of pediatric tragedies we observe and also the economic implications of the excellent SNAP (formerly the Food Stamp Program) provisions in the 

stimulus bill as a good prescription for improved prevention and treatment of food 

insecurity. My colleague on the panel, Ms. Sharon Parrott, can explain other child 

friendly economic measures to you like improving the Child Tax Credit. 

The most recent preliminary data we have from the soon-to-be-named Children’s 

HealthWatch database shows that rates of food insecurity among families with very 

young children increased by 38% in the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. While these findings require further analysis, they are not hard to explain in light of the economic downturn. Even though there was an October cost of 

living adjustment in SNAP, benefits have not kept pace with food cost inflation. I 

have often spoken of SNAP benefits as ‘subtherapeutic’—like not giving enough 

antibiotics. They are an essential medicine but not enough to cure the illness. As 

you know, SNAP benefits are based on the Thrifty Food Plan, but the quality and 

quantity of medicine that people can realistically purchase is usually insufficient for 

the need. We have been forced in our hospital to establish a food pharmacy that 

dispenses food on prescription from medical providers because so many of our patients, of all ages, were unable to meet medical recommendations for their diets. 

Over and over we hear that by the middle of the month, no matter how carefully 

families try to budget, their SNAP benefits have run out. Despite this, SNAP is not 

only an effective and efficient program but also essential to low-income’s children’s 

good health. Children’s HealthWatch has found that young children and families 

who receive SNAP benefits are 25% less likely to be food insecure than those whose 

families do not receive them. Food insecure young children are 90% more like than 

other poor children to be in poor health and 31% more like to have been hospitalized 

in early life 

From research my colleagues Drs. Cook and Chilton conducted in Boston and 

Philadelphia families’ challenges with affording food have a very simple explanation 

outlined in detail in the report entitled ‘‘Coming Up Short,’’ which I submit for the 

record. As this graph shows, even if a family of two parents and two children receives the maximum SNAP benefit of $608/month, they are not able to purchase the 

Thrifty Food Plan in either city. The problem is compounded by recent runaway food 

costs. The proposed increase in SNAP benefits in the House stimulus bill is a key 

step in the right direction toward closing the gap and we strongly support the 

House’s proposed investment of an additional $20 billion in the program. However, 
19

at some point we must recognize that even these excellent improvements leave families in these cities more than $150 short each month in the amount needed to purchase what the government considers a ‘minimally adequate diet’ in line with the 

most recent nutritional science 

My colleagues and I are not the only ones who have noted the struggles families 

face in providing food for their children. National surveys which are current only 

up through 2007, notably before the current recession, also monitor food insecurity 

by using a scale composed of 18 questions. These show that in 2007, even before 

the recession and high inflation in food costs, 11% of all American adults and 17% 

of all children under 18 were ‘‘food insecure’’ or lacked consistent access to sufficient 

food for healthy lives. From December 2006 to December 2007 the total number of 

children in households that had ‘‘very low food security among children’’ (which 

USDA/Economic Research Service used to refer to as ‘‘food insecurity with severe 

hunger’’) increased by over 60%. In households with at least one child younger than 

6 years of age, the number more than doubled so that well more than a quarter 

million (292,000) are regularly missing meals. For your interest we have appended 

a chart for the members of the Committee showing the 2007 rates of household food 

insecurity in your states, with specific data about the youngest children in the 

states where we conduct Children’s HealthWatch research. In our data through 

June 2008, food insecurity among families with infants and toddlers under age 36 

months ranges up to 34%. Unfortunately state-level child food insecurity rates are 

not reported by the government and there are not yet state-level estimates from 

government data more recent than 2005. 

You may ask how we can believe that there is so much food insecurity and nutritional deficit when there is also so much obesity. The impact of food insecurity, like 

many biological insults, varies with the developmental stage in which it occurs, with 

increased low-birthweight and underweight in young children and, in some studies, 

increased obesity in elementary school children and adult women. This is a welldescribed phenomenon known as ‘‘the nutrition paradox’’ that is seen around the 

world. As the Director General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan stated, ‘‘The cheap 

foods that make adults fat starve children of absolutely essential nutrients. Children 

who do not receive protein and other nutrients during early development are damaged for the rest of their lives.’’ (www.who.int/dg/speeches/2008/20081024/en/

index.html) As this slide shows, when parents’ food dollars run short it is not irrational for them to keep children’s stomachs feeling full with sugary carbonated beverages although they know milk is healthier. Thus it is not uncommon to find, as 

in another family like that of a 12 pound ten month old I just treated, an obese 

older child and a severely malnourished infant—both of whom have been living primarily off French fries. 

I know that you are in the midst of determining the budget for this year’s reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Programs, which also protect children’s health 

and development from the womb through high school graduation. These extraordinarily successful, cost-effective programs play a critical role in helping children, 

especially those in low-income families, achieve access to quality nutrition, child 

care, educational and enrichment activities while improving their overall health, development, and school achievement. Though my focus is specifically on our youngest 

children, they are, of course, members of families and have older siblings. I see how 

children who participate in school meals, summer food programs and after-school 

snack grow and thrive in a way that the children who do not receive them cannot. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the records the Child Nutrition Forum’s 

Statement of Principles, signed by my organization as well as hundreds of other 

local, state, and national organizations. Children’s HealthWatch, and other research 

groups have identified positive health and developmental effects of WIC and school 

meals and child care feeding, but as with food stamps, to assure quality and wide 

availability of these medicines to the increasing number of low income children who 

need them in this current economy, significant new funding will be necessary. 

Since I had the opportunity to address you before, there has also been a lot of 

new research both by our group and by other investigators which bears on your deliberations as you consider what should make up the crucial components of the current budget and stimulus plan. I would like to submit for the record a scientific 

summary of the impact of food insecurity recently published in the Annals of the 

New York Academy of Sciences and a policy-focused report, entitled ‘‘Nourishing Development.’’ Developmental risk means slow or unusual development in speaking, 

moving, or behavior and increases the likelihood that children will have later problems with learning, attention and/or social interactions. We have shown that even 

after considering multiple background characteristics food-insecure young children 

are 76% percent more likely to be at developmental risk than similar children who 

are food secure. Underweight babies and toddlers are 166% more likely to be at de-
20

velopmental risk as compared to normal-weight babies and toddlers. We know that 

the developmental effects of poor nutrition in early childhood persist long after the 

acute nutritional deprivation has been treated. Such children are neither ready to 

learn in the near term nor ready to earn in adulthood. 

This is not a new epidemic of nutritional deprivation, ill health and impaired 

learning, but it is one that has become more virulent in the past two years, and 

I suspect, more widespread. Fortunately, we also have medicines that can treat it. 

Among these are first of all adequate incomes for all Americans, but pending 

achievement of this goal, targeted nutritional programs such as SNAP and WIC are 

essential. You have heard over and over that Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com 

has noted that $1 in food stamps generates $1.73 in increased economic activity—

at 73%, a return on investment guaranteed to be higher than will be received on 

any other stimulus investment, but that is only the short-term story. I would like 

to submit as part of my written testimony the Children’s HealthWatch and FRAC 

report commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trusts/Partnership for America’s Economic Success, ‘‘Reading, Writing and Hungry,’’ which includes extensive calculations showing that increasing all food insecure children’s SNAP benefits to the yearly maximum is not only humane but cost-effective, both in the short and long term. 

We know the amount food insecurity can be decreased or mitigated by SNAP likely 

will be reflected in children’s better health, fewer hospitalizations, less need for special education, and fewer behavioral and mental health problems. For example, as 

I have noted, our research shows that SNAP reduces food insecurity by approximately 25%. If every food insecure child received the current maximum monthly allotment of $176 per person in food stamps, the annual cost to the taxpayer would 

be $2,112 per food insecure child. We have estimated that if all food insecure, eligible children received SNAP benefits, the costs for hospitalizations would be reduced 

by $3500 per food-insecure child per year. A similar calculation can be made for special education costs. Preventive programs such as WIC and SNAP are substantially 

less expensive than acute treatment of food insecurity’s negative consequences, even 

accounting for the fact that those negative consequences will only manifest in a portion of food-insecure children. Food assistance programs reduce, but cannot eliminate food insecurity; thus, other measures to improve access and affordability of 

food in low-income communities are needed. 

I know from listening to the news that there is much discussion of entities that 

‘‘are too big to fail,’’ but I would suggest to you that our children should be considered ‘‘too important to fail’’ since their whole life trajectories are being set today and 

cannot wait until tomorrow. Thus investment in the health and nutrition of our children will not only have short-term economic benefits in terms of decreased 

healthcare and special education costs, but in long-term benefits in a more productive and competitive workforce. Not all economic infrastructure development is done 

with a shovel! 

Finally, I would like to bring all these complex numbers back to where I see them 

in the lives of young children. A few weeks ago I walked into an exam room and 

there was a three year old sitting at the toddler table eagerly consuming graham 

crackers and milk that we always provide for our young visitors. She looked up at 

me and said, ‘‘Dr. Fwank, this morning my stomach hurted me.’’ Of course, I immediately went on the alert and began to run in my head the differential of hurting 

stomachs in three year olds. I knew it wasn’t appendicitis because children with appendicitis have no appetite, but was it this or was it that. The mother was watching 

my face and before I could start drawing blood and collecting urine, she looked at 

me and said, ‘‘Doctor, it was just the hunger that was paining her, and she’ll be 

okay now.’’ Hunger hurts and children tell us so. I ask you to do what you can to 

relieve their pain, not only because doing so will stimulate the country’s economy 

in the short- and long-term, but because it is the right thing to do for our children 

today, when they are hungry.

[Additional materials submitted by Dr. Frank follow:]

CHILD NUTRITION FORUM STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

Congress has a unique opportunity in the upcoming reauthorization of the child 

nutrition programs to improve access, meal quality and nutrition for millions of children, particularly low-income children in child care (the Child and Adult Care Food 

Program—CACFP), in school (breakfast and lunch programs), during out-of-school 

time (afterschool, on weekends and during the summer), and at home (the WIC Program). Thousands of diverse national, state and local organizations are committed 

to a reauthorization bill that has a bold vision to eliminate child hunger. These organizations are now joined by a President-elect who during the campaign has set 
21

the goal of ending child hunger by 2015. To that end, these organizations are committed to passage of a strong child nutrition reauthorization bill in 2009. 

The extraordinarily successful, cost-effective child nutrition programs play a critical role in helping children, especially those in low-income families, achieve access 

to quality nutrition, child care, educational and enrichment activities while improving their overall health, development, and school achievement. In addition, the adult 

component of CACFP provides needed nutrition assistance to elderly and impaired 

adults. However, federal support for these programs has not always kept pace with 

children’s need for these programs, food cost inflation, the costs of delivering services, or increased scientific knowledge. 

A well-conceived, adequately funded reauthorization bill can reduce hunger and 

food insecurity in America, help reduce childhood overweight and obesity, improve 

child nutrition and health, and enhance child development and school readiness. To 

this end we call on the Administration and Congress to enact a reauthorization bill 

that:

• assures and strengthens program access and supports participation by 

underserved children and communities; 

• enhances nutrition quality and provides adequate meal reimbursements; 

and 

• modernizes technology and simplifies program administration and operation.

A substantial investment of new funding must be included in the Federal budget 

to achieve these goals. Without new program investments, it will be impossible for 

Congress to build upon the successes of the 2004 reauthorization. With enhanced 

Federal support, priorities for the 2009 Child Nutrition reauthorization should include: 

I. IMPROVING ACCESS TO NUTRITIOUS FOODS IN SCHOOLS, CHILD CARE CENTERS AND

HOMES, IN AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS, ON WEEKENDS, DURING THE SUMMER, AND IN

THE HOME

School Meal Programs: Numerous studies document the positive effect school 

breakfast has on reducing hunger and improving nutrition, classroom behavior, test 

scores, grades, and school attendance. Through expansion of breakfast programs, including ‘‘universal’’ and in-classroom programs in all low-income areas, all children 

can receive breakfast at no charge to ensure that many more of them begin the day 

with the nutrition they need to succeed. Federal funding for breakfast commodities, 

currently only available to the school lunch program, also would support efforts to 

provide nutritious breakfasts to more children. 

In addition, under the current school meals fee structure, many students from 

working poor families cannot afford the reduced-price meal charge. Free meal eligibility should be expanded so that children from households with incomes up to 185 

percent of the national poverty line can receive meals at no charge. 

Child Care and Out-of-School Time Programs: Through CACFP, summer food and 

school meals programs, providers offer meals and snacks, combined with enriching 

recreational and educational out-of-school time activities, to preschoolers and to 

school-aged children after school and in the summer. CACFP provides essential nutrition and monitoring of care for young children in child care centers and family 

child care homes. Current area eligibility guidelines for family child care homes and 

afterschool and summer programs are inconsistent with other federal programs and 

leave many low-income families without access to the nutrition supports, especially 

in rural areas. Eligibility guidelines and the reimbursement structure need to be 

broadened to serve more children. In addition, suppers should be made available nationwide through afterschool programs in low-income areas to provide food, supervision, and educational and enrichment activities as more parents work and commute long hours. Reauthorization should also include strategies and resources to 

provide more nutrition assistance for children vulnerable to hunger on weekends 

and when schools are not in session. As programs expand to address the needs of 

participants, appropriate training and technical assistance also will be necessary to 

ensure meal quality and effectiveness. 

WIC provides low-income at-risk pregnant and postpartum mothers and young 

children with critical nutrition services, health and social service referrals, and culturally appropriate nutritious foods that contribute to their overall health and wellbeing. Assuring access for all eligible families contributes to healthy pregnancies, 

improved birth outcomes, positive impacts on the incidence of childhood overweight 

and obesity, improved readiness for school, and reduced health care costs. As a discretionary program, it is critical for Congress to support WIC’s current eligibility 
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rules and nutritional support so that infants and young children continue to experience the full complement of WIC’s health benefits. 

II. ENHANCING THE NUTRITIONAL ENVIRONMENT TO PROMOTE HEALTHY EATING HABITS

FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Child nutrition programs play a critical role in addressing one of our nation’s 

most serious public health concerns—childhood obesity and related health problems. 

As food costs rise, families, schools and child care, afterschool and summer food providers struggle to provide healthy meals for children. 

National nutrition standards, consistent with the Dietary Guidelines, should be 

established for foods and beverages sold outside of the school meals programs. 

USDA should assist state and local school food service programs to work toward a 

consistent national interpretation of the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans while it completes the regulatory process for its new school meal standards. 

Improved nutritional health for our children can be achieved by increasing meal reimbursements to help schools, sponsors and providers improve meals and snacks 

and increasing children’s access to fruits and vegetables in all forms (including those 

sourced from regional farms), whole grains and low-fat milk and reduced-fat dairy 

products. 

The success of the WIC program in improving child health and nutrition outcomes 

is well-documented. Retaining current WIC eligibility rules and nutrition support is 

critical to promoting that success. In addition, Congress has an opportunity to further contribute to WIC’s success by preserving the scientific basis for the WIC food 

package and ensuring that the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 

are fully implemented. To that end, Congress should direct USDA to provide the full 

complement of foods recommended by the IOM for the new WIC food packages including yogurt and the full amount of fruit and vegetables the IOM determined was 

necessary for nutritionally sound WIC food packages. Moreover, Congress should refrain from dictating the addition of any foods, or increases in the amounts of foods, 

beyond the specific recommendations of the IOM. 

Nutrition education funding for all child nutrition programs also will provide children at all stages of growth and development with the skills necessary to make lifelong healthy choices. Promoting and teaching healthy eating is essential to addressing childhood obesity and other diet-related health problems. Congress supported 

nutrition education and promotion by authorizing the creation of a USDA Team Nutrition Network in the 2004 Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Now, funds should be 

appropriated to carry out those provisions. 

III. MODERNIZING AND STREAMLINING PROGRAM OPERATIONS TO IMPROVE PROGRAM

INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY

Across all programs, steps should be taken to streamline program operations, 

allow more cross program certification, increase flexibility, and maximize the use of 

technology and innovation to reduce barriers to eligible families and children and 

to reduce the administrative burden for service providers. 

Recent congressional efforts to ease the paperwork burdens in the Summer Food 

Service Program have begun to attract more sponsors and children to this underutilized program. Additional resources should be available in areas with access barriers 

(e.g. transportation problems). To improve the accuracy of the school meals programs without impeding program access or overly burdening school personnel, Congress should also strengthen and expand direct certification for school meals (enrollment based on data matching) and expand options that eliminate or reduce paper 

applications (electronic applications and alternative data collection systems, e.g., use 

of neighborhood or district-wide census data). 

Growth in the WIC Program requires policy makers to expand their commitment 

to technology enhancements—management information systems that meet core 

function needs and are Electronic Benefit Transfer-ready—making it easier for 

mothers and young children to access WIC foods, protect program integrity and 

achieve economies and efficiencies in the delivery of services. 

CONCLUSION: 

In 1946, Congress passed the National School Lunch Act as a ‘‘measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and 

to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities.’’ 

Since then, Congress has improved the child nutrition and WIC programs to better 

serve children and families and adjust to changes in our families, workplaces, 

schools and communities. The upcoming child nutrition reauthorization provides an 
23

opportunity to build on this strong tradition and to ensure the continued health and 

well-being of our nation’s most vulnerable population—our children.
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Chairman SPRATT. Dr. Frank, thank you very much for your 

compassion and very thorough testimony. Your article from Charitable Trusts/Partnership for America’s Economic Success, ‘‘Reading, 

Writing and Hungry,’’ without objection will be made part of the 

record. 

[The information follows:]
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Chairman SPRATT. Our next witness today is Sheriff Leon Lott. 

Sheriff, thank you for coming. We look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF LEON LOTT, SHERIFF, RICHLAND COUNTY, SC 

Mr. LOTT. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am the Sheriff 

of Richland County, which is in Columbia, South Carolina. It is the 

largest Sheriff’s department in the State of South Carolina. I am 

also the past President of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association, and a member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 

a national bipartisan anti-crime organization of 4,500 sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors and victims around the Nation. 
41

My colleagues and I in law enforcement know that dangerous 

criminals must be put away. But we also have seen that handcuffs 

and bars alone will not reduce our community’s crime problem. 

What we know from our experience, and the research backs it up, 

is that targeted investments in our children can give them a better 

start in life so they don’t turn to gangs, drugs, and crime. High 

quality early care and education for at-risk kids can reduce the 

risks of later crime. 

At-risk kids in Chicago left out of the government-funded child/

parent center programs were 70 percent more likely to be arrested 

for a violent crime by age 18, according to a study published in the 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Head Start is a federally funded pre-kindergarten program for 

kids of poverty at a cost of $8,000 per child. Research on the shortterm impacts of Headstart has often demonstrated only modest effects. However, given the disadvantages that many poor children 

face, even these modest improvements are meaningful. 

For example, a national randomized control trial of Headstart 

showed that Headstart cut achievement gap nearly in half of prereading skills between Headstart children and a national average 

for all 3 and 4 years old. Far more important is that Headstart has 

had a meaningful impact on children’s lives in the long term. 

For example, one national study found that Headstart increased 

high school graduations by 7 percent for children in the program 

compared to their siblings not in the program, but in other care, 

and decreased crime by 8.5 percent. Headstart already incorporates 

most of the key quality features, such as appropriate class size and 

teacher/student ratios, comprehensive and age appropriate early 

learning standards, related services such as health referrals and 

parent coaching. Under the recent Headstart reauthorization bill, 

a portion of all increased investments in this program will be dedicated to quality improvements which will make the program even 

stronger, such as require more teachers to have at least a Bachelor’s Degree and enhanced curriculum standards. And high quality 

early care and education for at risk kids can save $16 for every dollar spent, including more than $11 in crime savings. 

These programs work, but only about half of the eligible poor 

kids in this country are served by Headstart. Fewer than five in 

100 eligible infants and toddlers are in early Headstart. And only 

seven out of 100 kids in eligible low-income families get childcare 

assistance. With the economic recession more kids are eligible for 

these programs but unable to access them, and States are cutting 

back. 

Early childhood care and funding, education funding, gives teachers and staff jobs today, it helps today’s parents go to work, and 

invest in kids for a better and more crime free tomorrow. 

We understand the final version of the American Recovery Investment Act includes investment of $4 billion for Headstart, Early 

Headstart and the Childcare and Development Block Grant. This 

will create 60,000 jobs, allow over 110,000 more children to participate in Headstart and provide childcare assistance for 300,000 children. On behalf of thousands of law enforcement leaders around 

the Nation, I urge Congress to move the final passage of Headstart, 
42

Early Headstart, and childcare funding in the economic recovery 

package. 

I also urge this committee to ensure that the fiscal year 2010 

budget resolution expressly provides room for the increased investment of $10 billion for quality early care and education to which 

President Obama has made a strong commitment. The needs are 

clear. The results of high quality programs are clear. Let us work 

to be able to keep strengthening the quality of Federal programs 

and meeting more of the needs. Every day we are paying a far 

greater cost of our failure to have met these needs years ago. 

I saw some of these failures last Friday. I was the MC for a 

beauty pageant at the State prison for juvenile girls. These were 

seven years aged 15 to 17, some white, some black, who were in 

prison for charges ranging from armed robbery to drug offenses. Almost all of them shared a history of child abuse, single parent family, and truancy. None of the girls had been in preschool. The pageant winner was one of seven children of her mother by multiple 

fathers, and her father who has had children with multiple mothers is now in jail. 

Kids don’t choose their parents, but we as a Nation can choose 

to invest in what works to give these kids a chance in life. Otherwise they will pay and we will pay. 

My more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement tells 

me, and my 4,500 colleagues nationwide concur, that we can’t afford not to make this crime fighting investment in kids now. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Leon Lott follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LEON LOTT, SHERIFF, RICHLAND COUNTY, SC 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the House Budget Committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Leon Lott and, for 12 years, 

I have been the Sheriff of Richland County, South Carolina—the largest Sheriff’s 

Department in South Carolina. I began my law enforcement career as a patrol officer 34 years ago, and have been Police Chief for a very small, rural town in our 

state. I have also served as the President of the South Carolina Law Enforcement 

Officers’ Association. For ten years, I have been a member of Fight Crime: Invest 

in Kids, a national, bi-partisan, anticrime organization of 4,500 sheriffs, police 

chiefs, prosecutors and victims of violence around the nation, dedicated to reducing 

crime through proven-effective investments that give kids the right start in life. 

My colleagues and I in law enforcement know that dangerous criminals must be 

put away where they can do no harm. I have locked up more than my share over 

the years, particularly—in recent years—for gang and drug offenses. But I have also 

seen that handcuffs and bars, alone, will not reduce our communities’ crime problems. Putting a gang member into a prison cell will not bring a teenager he murdered back into his mother’s arms. 

What we know from our experience, the research backs up: targeted investments 

in our children can give them a better start in life—so that they don’t turn to gangs, 

drugs, and crime. 

Mr. Chairman, the members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids appreciate the difficult job facing Congress and, in particular, this Budget Committee in determining 

how best to allocate scarce resources in a time of enormous financial challenges facing this country. My message today is a simple one: Take the long view. Recognize 

that a dollar spent today on effective and proven programs serving at-risk children 

and their families will save many times the programs’ cost in the longer term. Our 

nation must not shortchange the very programs that have been proven to work. Our 

families and communities need these programs now more than ever, and our future 

safety depends on them. 
43

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATON AND CARE

The early years of life are crucial to a child’s brain development. The National 

Research Council has found that 90 percent of brain development occurs before the 

age of five. High-quality early care and education for at-risk kids during those critical early years not only can help close the achievement gap; it can also reduce the 

risk of later crime. In fact, at-risk kids in Chicago left out of the government-funded 

Child-Parent Center programs were 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18, according to a study published in the Journal of the American 

Medical Association. The study of Chicago’s Child Parent Centers, which served 

100,000 three- and four year-olds, also found that those left out were 67 percent 

more likely to be held back a grade in school, and 71 percent more likely to have 

been placed in special education. In another study, at-risk kids who were left out 

of high quality High/Scope Perry Preschool program were five times more likely to 

be chronic offenders with five or more arrests by age 27. By age 40, those who did 

not attend the Perry Preschool program were more than twice as likely to become 

career offenders with more than 10 arrests, and twice as likely to be arrested for 

violent crimes. Further, children left out of the program were four times more likely 

to be arrested for drug felonies by age 40, and seven times more likely to be arrested for possession of dangerous drugs. Children who did participate in the Perry 

Preschool program were 31 percent more likely to graduate from high school. 

Head Start is the federally-funded national pre-kindergarten program for low-income families that provides early education services for children ages 3 to 5, at a 

cost of about $8,000 per child. Research on the short-term impacts of Head Start 

has often demonstrated only modest effects. However, given the disadvantages that 

many poor children face, even these modest improvements are meaningful. For example, a national randomized control trial of Head Start showed that Head Start 

cut the achievement gap nearly in half for pre-reading skills between Head Start 

children and the national average for all 3- and 4-year-olds. So Head Start helped 

low-income children make real strides in catching up academically to their more advantaged peers. 

Even more significant than short-term academic progress, Head Start has had 

meaningful impacts on children’s lives in the long term. Several studies have demonstrated Head Start’s long-lasting effects. These have included increased high 

school graduation rates, reduced crime, decreased grade retention and decreased 

special education placements. For example, one national study found that Head 

Start increased high school graduation rates by 7 percent for children in the program compared to their siblings not in the program but in other care, and decreased 

crime by 8.5 percent. 

Head Start is already an effective program, and incorporates most of the key features of high-quality early education programs proven to cut crime, such as appropriate class-size and teacher-student ratios, comprehensive and age-appropriate 

early learning standards, related services (including health referrals), and parent involvement and coaching. Further, under the recent Head Start reauthorization bill 

(enacted a year ago, but not yet fully funded), a portion of all increased investments 

in the program will be dedicated to quality improvements which would make the 

program even stronger, such as increased teacher qualifications so that more teachers have at least Bachelor’s Degrees, and enhanced curriculum standards. Currently, Head Start teachers are earning half of what public school teachers earn, 

so it’s hard to attract and retain more highly-qualified teachers; increased quality 

improvement funding, once it’s appropriated, will really help. 

Early Head Start was created in 1994, in response to research indicating the developmental importance of the first three years in a child’s life. Early Head Start 

serves both pregnant women and children ages birth to 3, providing guidance, information, parenting support, and direct services. Early Head Start provides services 

through center-based, home-based, and combination program options. 

As with Head Start, the research shows that Early Head Start is effective. The 

program was evaluated through a randomized study of over 3,000 families participating in 17 Early Head Start programs across the country. Three-year-olds who 

had participated in Early Head Start, compared to their peers who did not, had 

higher levels of cognitive and language development, better attention to play, and 

lower levels of aggressive behavior. Parents who participated in the program, compared with the control group, demonstrated more emotional supportiveness to their 

children, provided higher levels of language and learning stimulation, and read to 

their children more. The programs that showed the strongest positive effects were 

those that implemented all of the federal program performance standards early and 

those that combined home visiting and center-based services. 
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While Early Head Start has not been in existence long enough to track long-term 

outcomes, the implications are clear. The finding that participation in Early Head 

Start results in lower levels of aggressive behavior is especially significant; sixty 

percent of children with high levels of disruptive, aggressive behaviors in early 

childhood will manifest high levels of antisocial and delinquent behavior later in 

life. 

North Carolina’s Smart Start is a nationally-recognized initiative designed to both 

help working parents pay for early child care and improve the quality of care by 

providing educational opportunities, resources, and educational materials for teachers. Low-income children who were not enrolled in early childhood education centers 

with North Carolina’s Smart Start quality improvement assistance were twice as 

likely to have behavior problems such as aggressive acts and poor temper control, 

anxiety, and hyperactivity in kindergarten. 

Based on all this evidence of the impact of quality early childhood care and education for at-risk kids, I’m convinced that if we are willing to invest now, our communities will save money. But don’t just listen to me. 

An analysis by Arthur Rolnick of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis 

showed that the High/Scope Perry Preschool program provided an annual return on 

investment of 16 percent, after adjusting for inflation. That’s a lot better than anyone’s 401k performed last year. The high quality preschool program saved $16 for 

every dollar spent (including more than $11 in crime savings). If you invest $1,000 

in a program such as Perry Preschool, you get a return in benefits of about $19,000 

back in 20 years. These programs work. 

Regrettably, state and federal investments lag far behind the need. Only about 

half of eligible poor kids in this country are served by Head Start. Fewer than five 

in 100 of eligible infants and toddlers are in Early Head Start. And we don’t do 

much better with the Child Care and Development Block Grant program, helping 

only seven out of 100 kids in eligible low income families. I don’t have to tell you 

that funding has been stagnant over the past several years—last year, 150,000 

fewer kids received child care assistance than in 2000. The economic recession has 

further compounded the problem—more kids are eligible for these programs and in 

need of these services, but unable to access them, and states are cutting back their 

early care and education investments, due to their budget shortfalls. 

While we, as a nation, have just begun to recognize the crucial value of early care 

and education in generating long-term returns on investment, we seldom view early 

care and education as a strategy for short-term economic growth. However, in the 

short term, investing in the early-education sector will support jobs for thousands 

of low-income women and men, many of whom have their own children to support. 

There are over 2 million Americans working in the early education workforce. Early 

childhood care and education are strong job-creation vehicles with a demonstrated 

economic multiplier effect in the short term. In fact, for every two new jobs created 

in the childcare sector, an additional job is created in the rest of the economy. In 

addition, early care and education spending goes primarily toward wages. For example, at least 75% of Head Start funding is spent on staff compensation. Because the 

workforce is entirely within the U.S., and predominantly low-wage, those salaries 

will quickly be spent in the workers’ local economies. 

In addition, investing in early care and education also helps financially struggling 

young families who would either have to pay budget-busting amounts of tuition for 

childcare, quit their jobs, or leave their children in dangerous circumstances. People 

who lose their jobs often end child care arrangements, and need help to pay for child 

care lest they be stuck in a vicious cycle, unable to look for or accept a job because 

they don’t have the money they need to pay for child care. With 60% of women and 

90% of men with children under age 6 employed and an annual cost of $16,000 a 

year for full-time care for two young children, struggling families can’t afford this 

on their own. 

The House-passed version of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act, includes an investment of $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start, 

as well as $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which will 

create 60,000 jobs, allow over 110,000 more children to participate in Head Start, 

and provide child care assistance for 300,000 children. In the face of increasing unemployment and poverty rates, declining incomes, and the country experiencing an 

economic recession—and in light of the many short-term and long-term economic 

benefits, in addition to crime reduction benefits—we can’t afford not to invest more 

now in federal Head Start and child care programs. 

Therefore, on behalf of thousands of law enforcement leaders around the nation, 

I urge Congress to move to final passage that Head Start, Early Head Start and 

Child Care and Development Block Grant funding in the House-passed American 

Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I also urge this Committee to ensure that the fiscal 
45

year 2010 Budget Resolution expressly provides room for the increased investment 

of $10 billion for quality early care and education to which President Obama has 

made a strong commitment. 

If we invest now in these programs that work, my deputies and their successors 

will face fewer violent 18-yearolds and 27-year-old hardened criminals. 

CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT PREVENTION THROUGH HOME VISITING

Each year, an estimated 2.7 million children in America are abused or neglected, 

including 900,000 cases that were reported and able to be confirmed by overburdened state child protection systems. More than 1,400 children die from abuse or 

neglect each year, and over half of them were previously unknown to Child Protective Services. Children who survive abuse or neglect carry the emotional scars for 

life. The best available research indicates that, based on the confirmed cases of 

abuse and neglect in just one year, an additional 35,000 children will become violent 

criminals and 250 will become murderers as adults as a direct result of the abuse 

and neglect they endured. In other words, if we could somehow stop every instance 

of child abuse and neglect for one year, there would be 35,000 fewer violent criminals and 250 fewer murderers on our streets in later years. 

Fortunately, evidence-based, voluntary, home visiting programs can prevent child 

abuse and neglect and reduce later crime and violence. These programs help new 

parents learn skills to promote healthy child development and be better parents. For 

example, one program, the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), randomly assigned interested at-risk pregnant women to receive visits by nurses starting before the birth 

of a first child and continuing until the child was age two. Rigorous research, originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows the program cut abuse and neglect among at-risk kids in half. In addition, children of 

mothers who received the coaching had 60% fewer arrests by age 15 than the children of mothers who were not coached. The mothers’ arrests were cut by 60%, as 

well. The research is clear—these programs work. 

Prevent Child Abuse America estimates that child abuse and neglect cost Americans $94 billion a year. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis 

concluded that NFP produced an average of $5 in savings for every $1 invested, and 

produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family enrolled in 

the program. 

Every year, over 600,000 low-income women in the U.S. become mothers for the 

first time. This means that, in the United States, there are 1.5 million low-income 

women who are pregnant or have a child under the age of two. These are the women 

who are eligible for NFP at any given time. Yet, the program is only able to serve 

about 20,000 mothers annually, due to a lack of sufficient funding. 

Unlike in the early care and education area—for which Congress has created 

Head Start, Early Head Start, and Child Care funding streams—there is NO authorized federal funding stream dedicated to addressing the need for quality, voluntary home visitation around the nation. President Obama has pledged to fully 

meet this unmet need; we urge Congress to take immediate steps to address the 

substantial unmet need in this area, through the enactment, this year, of two complementary bills: 

• the bi-partisan Education Begins At Home Act—to expand and improve evidence-based home visiting through federal funding for competitive grants from 

states to local programs; and 

• the bi-partisan Healthy Children and Families Act—to provide high-quality 

nurse home visitation as a reimbursable health-related service option through Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. 

If we help strengthen at-risk families, and help parents to do the tough job of parenting a little better, that will make a world of difference in keeping little kids safe 

from harm in their own homes, and keeping all of us safe when those little kids 

grow up. 

AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR THE ‘‘PRIME TIME FOR JUVENILE CRIME’’

I learned, as an officer on the streets, that the hours after school can be the 

riskiest for our young people. In the hour after the school bell rings, violent juvenile 

crime soars and the prime time for juvenile crime begins. The peak hours for such 

crime are from 3:00 to 6:00 PM on school days. These are also the hours when children are most likely to become victims of crime, be in an automobile accident, 

smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs. 

Fortunately, after-school programs that connect children to caring adults and provide constructive activities during these critical hours are among our tools for preventing crime. For example, a study compared five housing projects without Boys 
46

& Girls Clubs to five receiving new clubs. At the beginning, drug activity and vandalism were the same. But by the time the study ended, the projects without the 

programs had 50 percent more vandalism and scored 37 percent worse on drug activity. 

More than 14 million children still lack adult supervision after school. President 

Obama has pledged to double funding for the 21st Century Community Learning 

Centers (21st CCLC) program—the federal government’s principal after-school program investment. We urge Congress and this Committee to ensure that is a priority 

in the 2010 budget. 

CONCLUSION

One element of all of the evidence-based, proven-effective crime-fighting approaches is crucial: HIGH QUALITY. You can only generate strong results through 

strong programs. As a long-time member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, I know that 

we do everything we can to support investments in programs that can reduce 

crime—and we do everything we can to make the programs of the highest quality, 

so they can get those crime-reduction results. And we’re always up for new allies 

to work with on Capitol Hill to make that happen. 

So: the needs are clear. The results of high quality programs are clear. Let’s work 

together to keep strengthening the quality of federal programs AND meeting more 

of the needs. Every day, we’re paying the far greater costs of our failure to have 

met these needs years ago; I see those failures in the criminal cases my office deals 

with, day after day, year after year. 

And I saw some of those failures last Friday, when I was a ‘‘Master of Ceremonies’’ for a beauty pageant at the state’s lockup for juvenile girls, ages 15-17. The 

seven girls in the pageant were in for charges ranging from armed robbery to drug 

offenses, and some were white and some were black. But some things almost all of 

them shared: a history of child abuse; a single-parent family; and a history of truancy. None of the girls had been in preschool. And here’s the pageant winner: she’s 

one of seven children of her mother (by multiple fathers); and her father, who has 

had children with multiple mothers, is now in jail. 

Kids don’t choose their parents. But we, as a nation, can choose to invest in what 

works to give those kids a chance in life. Otherwise, they’ll pay, and we’ll all pay. 

My more than three decades of experience in law enforcement tell me—and my 

4,500 colleagues nationwide concur—that we can’t afford NOT to make these crimefighting investments in kids NOW. 

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to 

testify. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Sheriff Lott. Now, to round out 

the testimony is someone with an overview based on years of experience. Douglas Besharov is now the senior scholar to the AEI on 

matters of welfare and is also a professor at the University of 

Maryland School of Public Policy. We welcome your testimony, and 

thank you very much for coming. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV, SENIOR SCHOLAR, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. BESHAROV. Thank you very much, Mr. Spratt, Congressman 

Ryan, and members of the Committee. I was going to say it is a 

pleasure or an honor to be here, but as I tried to figure out what 

I would say that would be helpful to your deliberations it was just 

very difficult. It is clear that more spending is coming, large 

amounts of more spending, and there is an argument about that. 

I don’t want to talk about how much more there should be or whatever. 

What I want to talk about is how I hope that Congress will think 

about that spending, and for that I don’t think it matters whether 

you are in the majority or the minority. So I am going to try to 

make four points in the time I have here today, and in doing so, 

I want to emphasize that I realize these decisions are coming very 

fast and probably faster than your staffs can keep up with. And in 
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fact my impression is a lot of these decisions are coming and being 

made in other places. But let me try it anyway. Four points I want 

to make. 

First, as every speaker here has emphasized, for an increasing 

number of Americans unemployment is up, poverty is up, incomes 

are down. That inevitably will mean an increase in spending on 

means tested programs. Whether it is food stamps or TANF or 

whatever, those programs are kind of cyclical. They are designed 

to increase when the economy goes south, and that is going to happen. Some of those programs are going to need additional cash just 

to meet their current eligibility rules. So that is going to happen, 

and that should be easily agreeable on all sides. 

But there is something else happening at the same time which 

is troubling to me as an outsider. And that is you can see on a 

number of programs a process of changing the eligibility rules and 

making more people eligible than the economic situation requires 

or suggests. Now, I think there is a reason for that, and I want to 

spend a minute on that, but I want to explain what I am talking 

about. Whether it is in TANF or WIC or some of the other programs, we are slowly raising the minimum income for eligibility. So 

it is not just that more people are eligible, people at higher incomes 

are becoming eligible for these programs or the small changes that 

are happening in the stimulus package and I am sure that will 

happen in other packages that move forward. In some programs 

that is appropriate and long overdue. In other programs I think it 

is inappropriate. 

TANF is a really good example I think of where we are in the 

process of unwinding welfare reform. But I want to explain why I 

think that is happening in case this train can slow down a little 

bit to do it the right way. 

What we heard today about the worsening condition for the lower 

and middle class is largely because the existing means tested safety net programs don’t reach to the economic situation we are facing 

today, and that is largely housing costs and the ability to pay for 

housing. So what we are seeing is food stamps are being used as 

a way to fill the gap of a housing market problem or a rental market problem. And we are justifying changes in food stamps and 

Medicaid, and so forth, because of this underlying problem in housing. Short term that might work, long term my feel is that we will 

have ratcheted up eligibility for these means tested programs and 

it will be extremely difficult for the Congress to turn that around 

in 2 years or 4 years if it chooses to do so. 

If I were being political, I would say you know this all happening 

now very fast, everybody wants it to happen. But this town and 

this country is really good at second-guessing what the politicians 

do 5 years later. 

My third point is that when you make these changes in programs, when you add new programs, do it in a way so that they 

can be undone or changed. The most striking thing about TARP is 

that we got $350 billion wrong. Thank goodness, I don’t know what 

will happen, the next $300 billion or whatever we are going to 

spend a little differently. When we change social programs, it becomes extremely difficult to go back and say, you know, we didn’t 

do that one right. Instead of using vouchers for food stamps let us 
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think about cash. A lot of people would like cash than food stamps. 

That is almost impossible to do because of the vested interest 

around this program. 

Now, I am in effect speaking generalities here, but I am saying 

in effect as you make these changes ask what the exit strategy is, 

if you want to have one. Now some places you may not want an 

exit strategy. It may be perfectly appropriate to see major and long 

lasting changes in eligibility. And I think we will see that happen. 

The last point that I want to make, and I tried to make this in 

the New York Times over the weekend, most of the Members of 

Congress I think would like to see changes in certain programs. 

They might like to see No Child Left Behind change in one particular way or another, maybe have higher risk responsibility for 

teachers or maybe have more accountability. Or they might—I 

would like to see Headstart change so that instead of those modest 

results we have much larger results. The way it works, as far as 

I can tell, to get those changes in programs the reformers have to 

put money on the table. What is happening in too many programs 

now is we are putting the money on the table without changing the 

programs. And I guess there will be more money coming down. But 

$4 billion for the childcare program, that could use a little bit of 

reform. $2 to $3 billion for Headstart is only the beginning, with 

no requirement that the program improve its performance. This it 

seems to me is something where both sides ought to be able to 

fashion these packages to do two things at once. More money is 

going to go in, and that is what elections are about, the majority 

is the majority. But the money ought to be spent more wisely than 

it is currently being spent. And I think the only issue with that is 

the speed at which all this is happening. And I am not standing 

here saying slow it down, it is all going to happen. But if you have 

a chance do ask the question, well, as we are putting an extra billion dollars in this program what is the reform agenda from the left 

and the right, not just from right, what is the reform agenda that 

people from not AEI, Brookings, from academe have said should be 

in these programs, and consider it before locking in higher levels 

of spending or we will never be able to buy our way out of weak 

programs. 

Notice I didn’t say defund the program. I said buy our way into 

better programs. And I hope that the Democratic majority will do 

that, if not this year, next year. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Douglas Besharov follows:]
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Chairman SPRATT. Thank you very much, Mr. Besharov. Now, I 

am going to yield my time to Jim McGovern and allow you to ask 

questions, and we will come back to Mr. Ryan, and then we will 

come back and Allyson Schwartz is going to yield her time to Rosa 

DeLauro. A lot of Rosa’s important position is the chairwoman of 

the Ag Subcommittee on Appropriations. Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 

your testimony. I appreciate it very much. I just want to point out 

a couple of things. 

We started at the beginning of this hearing with a chart showing 

that food stamp spending had increased. And Mr. Besharov, you 
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said, I just want to repeat it, it is increased because the need has 

increased, there are more people who need help. 

Mr. BESHAROV. Sure. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. And so it is not that people want to be reckless 

spenders who just kind of add more to the program for the sake 

of adding to a program; there are more people in this country who 

are hungry. It is that simple. And I would also add, and Dr. Frank 

pointed this out, that it is not just expanding the program. The 

dose may be inadequate. I mean the average food stamp benefit is 

about $3 a person per day. So even if housing costs were more reasonable, the fact is food costs have gone up for a whole bunch of 

reasons. Because of fuel, because of bad, you know, biofuels, corn 

ethanol stuff and droughts and everything together. The cost of 

milk has gone up, the cost of bread has gone up, the cost of eggs 

have gone up. And the need is not just amongst the poorest of the 

poor, the need is amongst a lot of working families. I mean you talk 

to people who run food banks, they are going to tell you the highest 

number of people who come in now are people who work for a living. And what we are doing here in the recovery and reinvestment 

package I should state is we are not kind of laying out long-term 

policies here. I mean this is a short-term emergency response to a 

real problem on a whole bunch of levels. We can argue whether it 

is the right response or not. But this is not a wholesale reform of 

any program. It is adding to an existing program basically to meet 

a need. 

I mean, from the way I look at it I would like to see us move 

to a policy where we don’t need food stamps anymore, we don’t 

need food banks anymore, you know, we don’t need all these programs to provide these safety nets for people just to have enough 

to eat. We don’t have to deal with any more stories like Dr. Frank 

talked about, you know, Joey coming in severely malnourished. I 

mean this is the United States of America. It is astounding to me 

that there were kids that show up to hospitals in the condition of 

Joey and that doesn’t provoke more outrage here in our government. 

And we are speaking of reform. Here is something that I think 

is a problem and I think we are going to have to deal with. We are 

trying to respond to an immediate emergency right now where 

there are a lot of people in this country who are hungry. But one 

of the problems that we have from a government perspective is 

that a lot of the programs and initiatives that respond to hunger 

or food insecurity, or whatever we want to call it, fall under the 

jurisdiction of multiple agencies and departments, even under multiple committees here in Congress. It is not one hunger committee. 

We do food stamps in the agriculture bill and the farm bill, you got 

the child nutrition reauthorization bill under Ed and Labor. I 

mean, there is all these different pieces. And what I am concerned 

about is that in the long term we don’t have a plan to end hunger. 

What is the plan to end hunger? How do we do this when we know 

we have got to make sure kids have enough to eat, we know we 

need the school lunch program and the breakfast program, we 

know we need to help our food banks, we know we need food 

stamps? 
65

It is a lot more than that. And I think there is a need in this 

government to have somebody empowered properly in the administration who has a responsibility to helping to coordinate a plan so 

that people know what the heck they are doing and so that we can 

judge whether or not we are making the progress that we also 

want to make, that every agency and every department and every 

program is actually working to its level best. 

And so as we—I mean, I would be curious to hear what people 

have to say about kind of a long-term strategy. I think we have the 

short-term emergency response that we are doing right now. But 

in the long term I think the goal needs to be to end hunger and 

end poverty, and hunger is the place to begin. How do you do it? 

How do we get the will to do it? I tell people all the time hunger 

is a political condition. We have all the tools, we know how to do 

it, this is not as difficult as solving peace in the Middle East, we 

know what we need to do. It is just we don’t have the political will 

to either provide the funding necessary to deal with the current 

problem and we don’t seem to have a long-term strategy. 

I don’t think anybody can tell me right now that this is what we 

need to do to end hunger. So I would be curious to hear your 

thoughts about how we take this to the next level. I think the goal 

should be let us end hunger in America. That should be a quixotic 

idea we should be able to do. How do we do that? What do we need 

to do that we are not doing to be able to kind of come up with that 

strategy? 

Mr. BESHAROV. Well, I feel really uncomfortable giving my opinion about what the politics of this to this group. But I think what 

just happened is if you put X billion dollars into the program without asking for the changes that you just described, and we could 

be more specific but it almost doesn’t matter, 2 years from now or 

4 years from now you are not going to have the—unless things get 

worse, you are not going to have the money to say here is how we 

are going to grease the skids for reform. 

I am not saying you shouldn’t have done it, but I am saying this 

is what is happening. 

In a different time, if you had put $5 billion on the table for food 

stamps and said, we are going to put this $5 billion on the table 

in return for reforms that we can all agree to—some of them being 

the ones you describe, and I will mention a few—it would have 

been much better. My fear is that this is just going to be like 

George W. Bush when he did prescription drugs; he put whatever 

hundreds of billions of dollars on the table without asking for any 

changes in Medicare, and he lost his leverage to do anything later. 

And what I am afraid the Democratic Congress is going to do is 

lose its leverage 2 years from now to do the programs that you 

want to do to end hunger. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I think there is a difference, and that is that 

there are people showing up in emergency rooms who are malnourished today. I mean, unlike the prescription drug plan—which, 

quite frankly, I didn’t think was a good idea, and there is still an 

opportunity to fix it—right now, we have an emergency situation. 

People are hungry. I mean, not only do we have kids, we have elderly people showing up at hospitals who are taking their medication on an empty stomach because they can’t afford the food. 
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The issue is this: We do know that there are a lot of people out 

there who are eligible for food stamps who are not enrolled. So 

there are people who need the benefit, who will benefit from this 

increase. If we are going to get to the issue of reform, it is not just 

about fixing food stamps or making food stamps better, it is a holistic approach. I think that there needs to be a hunger czar or there 

needs to be somebody in the administration like a Rahm Emanuel, 

who will be for ending hunger, someone who will knock heads together, who has the support of the President of the United States 

to actually hold agencies and departments accountable, to coordinate a holistic strategy, because we don’t have that strategy. We 

don’t have the strategy to end poverty in this country. And you 

need a plan. You need to know where you are going. And I am just 

curious how we get there. 

Dr. Frank. 

Dr. FRANK. Well, this is outside my area of expertise, but there 

is one smallest thing I can talk to you about from clinical experience, and another that I think Ms. Parrott can help you with in 

more detail. 

The smallest thing is, depending on school entry age, everybody 

ages out of WIC at five. And they may not get milk again for a year 

if they age out on September 2nd and they start school—if they 

turn five on September 2nd and can’t get into kindergarten because 

you have to be five on September 1st. So that is a simple thing in 

a lack of continuity in a program. 

The other thing is the tremendous administrative burdens and 

burdens on applicants that comes from this terror that some child 

somewhere is going to get a muffin and a glass of milk that maybe 

their mother could have afforded that day. And I don’t quite understand why that is such a big panic, but I understand that it is. For 

example, in Philadelphia, they have this great universal school 

meal program that doesn’t bother to certify people individually. 

Now people say, you must certify people individually; that’s going 

to cost them $800,000 a year. What a waste of money of a school 

department. And we don’t have a one-stop shopping system, so you 

have to keep reapplying, re-upping, redocumenting every X many 

months. And it is burdensome for families. It is also very burdensome for the people trying to work with them, as we sit there and 

say, okay, now, let’s see, is this the time you have to reapply for 

your food stamps, your health insurance, your WIC? So somehow, 

overnight, they probably went from being desperately poor to being 

millionaires. So that is sort of just a from-the-trenches’ view, but 

I wanted to just put those two things out there. 

I am sure Sharon can explain it better. 

Ms. PARROTT. Thank you. 

I think this is a case where we have to walk and chew gum at 

the same time. We have to respond to this emergency, this crisis, 

where we have programs in place that can deliver efficient and effective aid to people who are really struggling. And I have to say, 

I take some issue with Mr. Besharov’s sort of assumption that the 

provisions in the package expand eligibility when, in fact, if one 

looks at the food stamp changes, for example, they don’t expand eligibility, they are providing increased benefits during this very difficult time. 
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So I think we have to sort of sort out what the package does and 

what it doesn’t do and note that what we can do right now is respond to a real crisis that people are facing. But that isn’t all we 

need to do. And that is why I appreciate your question about, so 

how do we think about moving forward in the longer run? And 

there I would just say a couple of things. 

First of all, I think it is pretty clear that we do need a multipronged approach that thinks about people over the course of their 

lifetime. So as Sheriff Lott talked about, there are things we can 

do, invest in kids so that they are less likely to be poor as adults. 

And that is adequate nutrition. It is quality early education. It is 

K-12 that works. It is a college support system so that low-income 

kids can go to college. We know that particularly minority low-income kids are much less likely to go to college if they have to take 

out substantial loans than other students. So there is sort of a prevention in investing in kids so that they are more productive as 

adults and less likely to need help as adults. 

There is a piece of this that is about supporting low-income 

working families. That is actually a piece that we have done better 

at in the last two decades. If you look historically at our safety net, 

you will see that, compared to 20 years ago, we have more supports 

in place for working families. It is not to say it is enough. It is not 

to say there aren’t holes, one of the biggest of which is help for 

child care expenses that are very high; they tend to come in the 

lifetime of a parent when they are fairly young, and they earn less. 

And unlike college, where people sort of save for a long time, if 

they have resources, to go to college, people when they are 14 don’t 

start saving to put their kid in high-quality education at a young 

age. So there is a supporting work piece that is incredibly important, but it is an area where we have done better. 

And then there is, I think they are often much more difficult to 

talk about, but incredibly important, particularly when we talk 

about the children at the edge, the children that are having the 

most difficult times, that really don’t have enough to eat, and those 

are the very poorest kids, the kids below half the poverty line, the 

kids where very often multiple things are going on in that family 

that lead to significant disadvantages. Often we have parents with 

disabilities. We have children with disabilities that limit parents’ 

abilities to work. We have people who are out of work sometimes 

for a short period of time, sometimes for a longer period of time. 

And it is that part of the safety net that has gotten weaker over 

the last couple of decades. We lift a smaller share of kids out of 

deep poverty than we used to. 

Now, does that mean that we should get rid of welfare reform 

and we shouldn’t be about work? Absolutely not. But it does mean 

that we have to recognize that we have a group of families that are 

quite poor, where parents have significant disadvantages. And 

those kids and those families grow up without things that all of us 

would want for our own kids. 

And so we have to think about how we have a safety net that 

is very focused on work, that is very focused on personal responsibility, but also provides that critical safety net so kids aren’t growing up in deep poverty. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I appreciate those comments. 
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I just want to say, finally, I want to make sure my colleagues get 

a chance to read this report that I insert into the record, ‘‘The Economic Cost of Domestic Hunger.’’ There is a cost to not doing something on this. Kids who don’t eat, who are hungry, can’t learn in 

school. Kids who don’t eat, who don’t get enough food, get sick. And 

there is a tremendous cost that we are paying. So when people talk 

about, well, we have got this big debt and this big deficit, understand that not doing enough to combat hunger adds to that debt 

significantly. 

And I will just say that, you know, we have spent hundreds of 

billions of dollars on a war in Iraq that is not even paid for; it has 

gone on a credit card. And there has been very little outrage over 

that. I mean, no accountability and no offsets for that money. It 

seems to me that, in the short term, investing a little bit more in 

helping to try to address this problem and getting it right, investing in our kids, in particular, will ensure that they have a better 

future and this country has a better future. And I hope that we are 

turning the page. 

And I do hope that we are going to have a long-term strategy. 

That is my hope; there is a long-term strategy, not only to end hunger but also in the process to reform these programs to make them 

work better and hopefully at some point get them to where there 

is no need for these programs anymore. 

I thank you all. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. Hensarling. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for calling this very important hearing. Particularly in challenging economic times in our Nation’s history, it is 

very important that Members of Congress go back and thoroughly 

inspect just how supportive the social safety net is in America. I 

certainly appreciate the passion that the gentleman from Massachusetts brings to this issue as well. 

As we debate what we as a Congress need to do going forward 

though, I do think it is important that we have the facts on the 

table. 

Welfare is important. Welfare checks are important. I believe 

paychecks are more important. But as I understand it from figures 

I received from OMB, in this decade alone, food stamp spending 

has increased 120.9 percent, an average annual rate of increase of 

about 9.3 percent. Inflation over that same time period has grown 

less than 3 percent. 

We know that what is common, which is now called SNAP—

which most people still understand is food stamps—is an entitlement and has risen at a multiple above inflation. That is not to say 

that we shouldn’t do more, but I think it is important to get those 

facts on the table. 

Ms. Parrott, I think I have heard you say that you would not be 

in favor of rolling back the welfare reforms that took place in the 

TANF program. Did I understand you correctly? 

Ms. PARROTT. What I said, to be clear, is that it does not mean 

that welfare reform should not be work-focused. That doesn’t mean 

that I think that every element of the 1996 welfare law or the 2006 

Deficit Reduction Act are good policy. I think the notion that wel-
69

fare reform should be work-focused, however, is something that is 

broadly, on a bipartisan basis and across States, something that 

people support. 

Mr. HENSARLING. There are numerous press reports out today 

concerning the omnibus spending bill that some refer to as a stimulus bill. I hope we have an opportunity to read it. The latest press 

reports say that it weighs in at roughly 1,400 pages. 

There are reports that—and if you look at the model of the 

House bill and the Senate bill—we will punish States who have 

successful welfare reforms. We will reward States that have unsuccessful welfare reforms. And as I look back at the history of TANF, 

what I saw is that child poverty dropped by 1.6 million fewer children than before TANF. Employment of young mothers doubled. 

Employment of mothers who had never married was up by 50 percent. Employment of single mothers who dropped out of high school 

was up by two-thirds. We had unprecedented declines in poverty in 

children of single moms from 50.3 percent to 41 percent prior to the 

economic recession. 

So, again, we don’t know what is in the bill, but if press reports 

are true, would you be concerned about rolling back those aspects 

of welfare reform and TANF? 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, I would be happy to explain the provision as 

I understand it. This provision was in both the House and Senate 

bills. It was in those bills at the mark up, so these provisions have 

been around and available for inspection for some time. And the 

provisions between the House and Senate were very, very similar. 

So I think we have a fair degree of knowledge about what the final 

package is likely to look like. It does not roll back welfare reform. 

I think that is something that some people, some outside analysts 

are waiving around to sort of incite sort of an old-style welfare debate. 

Let me tell you what it does do. What it does do is to say to 

States, if because of this recession you have rising numbers of people in need and you provide support and basic assistance to more 

people—because in this environment we have more people and 

more kids living not just in poverty but in deep poverty—if you provide help to more people, the Federal Government will help pay 

some, but not all, of those costs. And the help is——

Mr. HENSARLING. Forgive me. I am going to have to interrupt, 

my time is running out. 

Another point I would like to make, I believe you advocated passage of the so-called stimulus bill. I am curious if you had studied 

the stimulus bills that were passed in Japan in the 1990s that created the largest amount of per capita debt in the world and 

brought their per capita income from 2nd in the world to 10th in 

the world and increased child poverty. Have you had an opportunity to look at that similar legislation? 

Ms. PARROTT. What I do know is that many people think that 

what happened in Japan—on which I am not an expert—is that 

there was a need to address both the spending issues and the financial crisis at the same time. I believe people are trying to use 

those lessons in crafting a multifaceted approach. 

But I think it is very important to be clear that a temporary increase in spending is not driving our long-term deficit picture. No-
70

body has written more than the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities about the long-term deficit problems and the need to bring 

revenues and spending into line over the long term so that we don’t 

have a crushing amount of debt that our economy can’t handle. 

But this package is temporary. And the increase in the long-term 

deficit is not even rounding error in that long-term deficit picture. 

This committee knows better than anyone that that long-term picture is going to have to be addressed, and very difficult priority decisions lay before us. But this temporary spending measure isn’t 

really about that long-term deficit problem. 

Mr. HENSARLING. I appreciate the sentiment. I hope it proves to 

be, in some respects, a temporary problem for a temporary emergency. My experience in Washington is that most temporary programs end up being permanent programs. 

But according to the Government Accountability Office, we are 

on the verge of being the first generation in America’s history to 

leave the next generation with a lower standard of living. And I 

hope that as we look at this legislation and see items like $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts; $200 million for office 

furniture for the Public Health Service; $1 billion for the follow up 

to the Census; that if we are really passionate about increasing 

child nutrition programs, maybe, instead of passing on debt to the 

very same children we are attempting to feed today, maybe we can 

make the tough decisions in the budget about what is a true 

prioritization. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SPRATT. What we are going to do is recognize next 

Rosa DeLauro because of her chairmanship of the Ag Subcommittee on Appropriations and her long-time interest in support 

of these programs. 

Ms. DeLauro. 

Ms. DELAURO. I want to thank the Chairman, and I want to 

thank the panel very much for their commentary. 

I would just make one comment to my colleague, Mr. Hensarling, 

that had we been concerned about the debt that our kids were 

going to pay, we would have several years ago done something 

about the high rate of tax cuts that we provided to the wealthiest 

people in this Nation, and we would have done something about 

the rate of spending that we did with regard to the Iraq War and 

thought more about it. 

Let me just mention to you, because I think this is important for 

you to know with regard to Texas, 2.4 million people in Texas use 

food stamps to buy food every month; 10 percent of the people in 

Texas. During the recent rough economy, the food stamp program 

participation—participation increases in this program because people are in greater need. And in your State, in 2000, an average of 

1.3 million Texans received food stamps each month. That number 

rose steadily to 2.4 million in 2007; 82 percent increase. You take 

a look at any of the numbers that talk about, you talk about what 

is getting calculated in food stamps is that those numbers increase 

in participation because the need has increased. 

It is also important to note—and sometimes people forget this—

when we deal with programs such as this, that the reason why we 

have a school lunch program in this country today is because when 
71

they were recruiting for World War II, they found that the recruits 

were malnourished. So out of a defense industry, we decided to put 

forward a program that said, let’s try to do something about making sure that you have—that nutrition is important for what we to. 

I think Dr. Frank’s comments with regard to what happens to 

children who are malnourished—and it is happening over and over 

again—are telling. We know the data. We can understand it. We 

can take the reports. We can put them on the shelves. And then 

we can do nothing about it. Well, that, in my view, is negligence 

of the highest order. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. DELAURO. Yes. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. HENSARLING. I thank you, since the comments were directed 

at me. 

Number one, I think, as the gentlelady has been a member of 

this committee, she has seen the statistics that when we have 

brought about tax relief during the last recession, that we actually 

grew into positive GDP, and tax revenues increased. 

Second of all, I appreciate the gentlelady enlightening me about 

the Texas statistics. As a Texan, I can tell you, my constituents 

need more paychecks than they need welfare checks. And there is 

nothing——

Ms. DELAURO. These are not welfare checks. And I take back my 

time. These are not welfare checks. It is kind of nice for all of you 

to continue to talk about them as welfare checks. These are people 

who are working. They are people who are paying taxes, and, quite 

frankly, they are mostly working people today who are in this difficulty for a whole lot of reasons which I am not going to get into 

of the economics of a past administration. 

I would just say to one of the panelists, Mr. Besharov, this morning, my view—and we have a child tax credit, a piece in this stimulus package where the eligibility is $3,000. I listen to you, and I 

say, I wanted it to go to zero. If I understood you correctly, that 

we should have gone to zero in order to make those folks at the 

lower income be able to take advantage of this program, and quite 

frankly, at the moment, the threshold for the child tax credit is 

about $12,000. That means anyone who makes below $12,000 is not 

eligible for a child tax credit. In the House, our bill was passed, 

and we wanted to take it to zero, but we weren’t able to get there. 

For a whole lot of political reasons, we weren’t able to get there. 

If we had been able to get there, almost 3 million more children 

would have been eligible for that child tax credit. 

And what happens with that child tax credit, which is one of the 

things that is—about paychecks and getting people money who 

are—and these are people who are working. This is from the first 

dollar earned. This is no welfare check the way we like to characterize this thing. By lowering the eligibility to $3,000, we are going 

to give families an additional, almost 16 million children, their 

families an additional $1,432, and 5.5 million newly eligible children will be eligible. 

That is the kind of effort that we are making in this stimulus 

package. That is reform of the system in order to deal with—and 

Mark Zandi has said, you want to make this piece the most stimulative that you can. And Mark Zandi was not the economic advisor 
72

to Barack Obama, but he was the economic advisor to John 

McCain. And it is listed here—and I do have a question for you, 

Dr. Frank, if my colleagues will indulge me here. He has Mark 

Zandi, Moodys.com, $1 in food stamps generates $1.73 in increased 

economic activity. At 73 percent, a return on investment guaranteed to be higher than will be received on any other stimulus investment. 

And he moves forward from that in talking about refundable tax 

credits and what kind of an effect they will have in order to get 

to people who need it the most, who are going to spend it and begin 

to turn this economy around. 

My question to Dr. Frank, and I thank you for being here, again, 

I thank all of you. And Dr. Frank, you were with us when we did 

the Children’s Summit in 2007, and grateful for your testimony at 

that time. 

The statistics are not 2008. What is happening in 2008 among 

children? And this is after the recession has begun. What does it 

show? What is likely to happen to the rates of hunger and malnutrition among children without this increase in the food stamp 

benefits? 

And if I could just say this, I think it is a mistake for some of 

us to buy into this politically correct commentary of ‘‘food insecure.’’ 

It is hunger. People are going hungry in this country. And we talk 

about the food supply that we have and that we have the safest 

food supply—well, that can be brought into question—but we 

produce a lot of food in this Nation, and kids and families are going 

hungry. That is an immediacy that we have to focus on and get 

something done and turn it around before we focus in on some 

other areas. 

Dr. Frank. 

Dr. FRANK. I don’t think we have decent national data. I can only 

tell you what I told you in the testimony, that our program is a 

sentinel program. If you want to know, is bird flu arriving, you 

don’t go door to door and knock and say, is anybody in the house 

coughing? You sit in an emergency room and you count the number 

of additional people who come in coughing, and then you figure out 

if they have bird flu. That is what a sentinel program does, and 

that is what we do for under-nutrition in very young children. 

And again, we can tell you that the food insecurity rate in the 

first 6 months of 2008—we haven’t analyzed the second yet, we are 

working on it—was up about 34 to 38 percent compared to last 

year in our five sites. It is not national data. And then I can only 

tell you from the clinical trenches that the refer rate is up. And I 

was talking to my colleague from Minnesota, who was tearing her 

hair out about the kids she was seeing way up with rickets. 

So, at the moment, I think we only have intimations. I am not 

the person that can do the calculations that says, for every child 

that goes into poverty, surely hunger will go up. But at the moment, I have a worm’s eye view. I am sure maybe somebody else 

might have a better view, maybe Dr. Besharov or Ms. Parrott. 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, I think the problem is that the data is 

lagged. The one data source that isn’t lagged—well, there are a 

couple, and one is food stamp caseloads. And in my testimony, you 

will see that there is a chart that shows just how well food stamps, 
73

unemployment and poverty track each other over a very long period of time. So the fact that we have significant sharp rises in the 

food stamp program is, I think, virtually sort of a slam—i mean, 

it is sort of irrefutable evidence that we have rising hardship and 

rising poverty. And certainly unemployment rates, the number of 

people unemployed, the drop in the overall employment, and the 

loss of 3.6 million jobs says to us that we know that poverty is rising. 

The one thing I want to say is that I think there are parts of this 

stimulus package that are really effective at pushing against what 

I call that rising tide of poverty. And the Child Tax Credit, the 

Earned Income Tax Credit provisions, the refundable part of the 

Making More Pay Credit, just those three together we estimate will 

protect about a million kids from poverty. 

So, do I think we are going to see rising poverty when we get 

the official Census data? Yes, I do. But I also think that, when you 

take the tax provisions, the food stamp provisions, the unemployment provisions, and you put them together, I think it represents 

a serious significant effort to shore up the safety net in the short 

run while we are in this very difficult time. 

Ms. DELAURO. Long time, my time has expired. I have a final 

comment to make, and I beg the indulgence. 

Chairman SPRATT. Would the gentlelady suspend just for an announcement to members of the committee? 

This is a reminder that there is a congressional tribute, bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, which begins, I believe, at 

11:30. Those who would like to go to that should be on notice that 

it is about to occur. I am going to stay here for as long as members 

would like to put questions to our witness panel, but I just wanted 

to remind you of this event which is coming up. 

Ms. DELAURO. I would just say, what we did in the farm bill was, 

quite frankly, extraordinary, I think, given what people faced. And 

no one on this committee on either side of the aisle or the Wall 

Street folks who complain about the bonuses that are cut back, 

what we tried to do in the farm bill was to say to folks, for 30 

years, the minimum benefit was at $10, for 30 years. We raised it 

to slightly under $14. Since 1996, the standard deduction from the 

current level was $134. There is no cost-of-living increase. Folks 

didn’t get a cost-of-living increase. It went to $144. And we began 

to index some of the assets to inflation, which everyone who works, 

who sits in this body understands to a fair degree the cost of living, 

and that didn’t happen. That is what happened in the farm bill. 

And when you talk to folks who get food stamps, yes, at the beginning of the month, they buy milk, they buy fruit, they buy vegetables. And at the end of the month, there is nothing left. And 

when your kid is hungry, you buy soda because it fills their bellies. 

And you eat french fries, and it fills their bellies, and it causes serious health problems. 

When we begin to take a look at what the issues are and what 

we need to focus on, then maybe we will begin to start to address 

the challenges these people are facing and make sure that government is playing the kind of role that it should and exercising moral 

responsibility in these areas. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
74

I thank my colleagues. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Ms. DeLauro. 

Mr. Nunes. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to commend the gentlelady from Connecticut for her passion for this issue of feeding the hungry. 

However, I do want to point out that there is a lot of discussion 

about the stimulus package and what it is going to do to fight poverty and hunger. But some of us, at least myself and I think many 

of the Republicans, have yet to see the stimulus package. I don’t 

know if anybody on the witness stand has seen the stimulus package yet, but I think it would be a little premature to try to explain 

what is in the bill when we haven’t seen it. 

Mr. Besharov, you have criticized the food subsidy program. I 

have a very large agriculture district, about 300 different crops in 

California. And you have really criticized the school lunch program 

as it relates to its contribution to obesity in young children. And 

so would I would be interested to know, because I have worked on 

this issue in the past about trying to include more fruits and vegetables into the school lunch program, specifically what suggestions 

do you make that this committee could look at in the future as to 

improving the program? 

Mr. BESHAROV. Well, thank you very much. 

I think this goes to the entire question of whether food programs 

in general can be reformed. Some people in the food industries 

think that it is only because of food stamps and school lunch programs and so forth that people eat food. I don’t think if we got the 

balance right in aid to low-income families, food consumption 

wouldn’t go down that much. There is evidence that food stamps 

increase food consumption by about 20 percent. My own feeling 

about that is that, for most people, that is a 20 percent that they 

could do without, that I could do without. So I don’t think the fear 

on the part of agricultural interests that if food stamps were cash, 

their interests would suffer. 

When we teach about this in about 90 percent of the policy 

schools in this country, we say food stamps are stamps or credit 

cards instead of cash in a welfare payment or in a tax benefit because the politics on the Hill wouldn’t allow us to increase tax 

write-offs or credits or so forth. So we deal with the reality—I am 

sorry to be so blunt about this—we deal with the reality that this 

thing seems to have to be separate in a credit card or in a coupon 

instead of being money. With that fact comes tremendous added 

friction in how the poor eat. If they are WIC, if they are trying to 

get WIC, they are taken advantage of by WIC providers. In the 

school lunch program, you get these tremendous inefficiencies as 

schools try to make due under Federal rules. So across all of these 

programs, making aid more like cash would be better for the program. It might be worse for the politics, I understand that. 

So now I will try to answer your question in a way that I think 

you want to hear. 

When Mr. McGovern said he would love to see more coordination, 

I was saying, boy, do I agree. We have a WIC program that was 

planned before food stamps were wildly expanded. If you look at 

those two programs, there is no particular reason why they 
75

shouldn’t be much closer together, if not run the same way. We undercut the counseling that goes on within the food stamp program. 

We don’t have sufficient nutrition counseling in the WIC program. 

The Congress felt it could change the welfare program—and here 

I disagree with Sharon. Welfare reform essentially got unraveled in 

the stimulus bill. There was no hesitancy to change TANF, but 

there was no change to many of these other programs where the 

vested interest still reigned supreme. You could have fixed a little 

bit this connection between food stamps and WIC, the school lunch 

program, the school breakfast program. There is a list of reforms 

from the left as well as the right; they could have been inserted 

just as easily as the TANF changes were inserted in the stimulus 

package. They weren’t. I understand the politics of that. 

Why I am sad—I am not complaining. I am just bemoaning the 

opportunity that was lot lost. The chances of getting congressional 

committees 2 years from now to say, I give up my jurisdiction, let 

one committee take care of this, the chances of moving food programs out of agriculture into some kind of anti-poverty agency 

went down considerably with the increased expenditures that the 

Congress has authorized. So that is sad. I am not angry. It is sad, 

because it is an opportunity lost to reform these programs at a 

time when it would have been possible to do it with small changes. 

I hope that is an answer to your question. 

Dr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, am I permitted to make a comment? 

Mr. NUNES. I think my time is up, Mr. Chairman, so I yield back. 

Chairman SPRATT. Dr. Frank, go ahead. 

Dr. FRANK. Working among the poor, food is the only fungible 

part of their budget, which is why people become purely dependent 

on food stamps for their food budget because every other penny has 

to go to utilities, housing and getting to work. So I would be perturbed—I think people would eat even worse and their children 

would eat even worse if food stamps were not designated for food. 

So I find that very concerning. 

I also have seen many people who are above the cut-off for food 

stamps, which is 135 percent of poverty, who are high nutritional 

risk. And so I would be very sad, also, if all those children lost access to WIC. 

Finally, if these things all interdigitate, I mean, we found that 

energy problems, housing problems, and food insecurity, you could 

make an index out of them, and you can see a dose response when 

they are all three together on child well-being. So just as a clinician, I would say I was a little perturbed. 

We also have data, by the way, about TANF, from way back 

when, when it was starting, the families who were sanctioned off 

TANF—and in Massachusetts, we have this family cap thingy—

that you could find more hospitalizations, more food insecurity in 

their kids. So I don’t think that that was a victimless crime, so to 

speak. I mean, that is not the right thing to call it. But from a little 

child’s point of view, I am not sure it was a great success, at least 

for the ones that I take care of and the ones that I research. 

Chairman SPRATT. Mr. Blumenauer. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Just reflecting for a moment on the most recent comments and thinking about Ms. DeLauro talking about 

struggling to raise the minimum benefit from $10 to $14 a month. 
76

And I am struck by, maybe what we want to talk about reform, we 

split this out, as you refer, from rolling it into the agriculture and 

nutrition. Because I am struck at the difference in terms of paperwork, income limits. I mean, we could not even, with the President 

supporting us, we couldn’t lower the maximum payment to farmers 

to a quarter million dollars. We couldn’t do that. And we are still 

paying some subsidies to dead farmers. That kind of rankles people. 

You talk about the spectrum from right to left, there is a spectrum to try and reform the agricultural program so that we are not 

lavishing it, for example, on some of the richest people in America, 

like the sugar producers, and then everybody in America pays so 

that they are on the gravy train, which virtually every independent 

observer agrees is wrong. 

We have got this bizarre disconnect when it comes to one end of 

production where we are not very hard core about restricting who 

gets it, how lavish it is, modest reforms in things like crop insurance, where we don’t have to fight through that all over. But it 

strikes me that there is a stunning different standard. Richest 

farmers, not the average farmer, richest farmers, agribusiness, 

very high limits, not much in the way of paperwork, and we really 

focus on poor people who need it. We have a different standard, different screen. And because they are mushed together, it appears 

that the most vulnerable lose. 

And I am wondering if any of you would elaborate on the notion 

of splitting it out, concentrating on nutrition, not tripping over ourselves with subsidies for cotton farmers that grow cotton in the 

desert, and whether it is going to be a million dollars or a quarter 

million or a half million—and focus in on what would happen if we 

split this, focused, and maybe have some uniform standards about 

who benefits and what our expectations are. 

Dr. Frank. 

Dr. FRANK. I think that is outside my area of expertise. 

Mr. BESHAROV. There is an argument in the academic world 

about whether the agriculture lobby needs the food stamp program 

to pass or whether the food stamp program needs the agriculture 

bill to pass. I have looked at this literature. It is very interesting 

literature. It is, who has got the balance of power in this argument? You are asking me that question. 

My impression is that the ag interests need the urban Democrats 

more than the other way around, but that doesn’t seem to be the 

conventional wisdom on the Hill. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Ms. Parrott. 

Ms. PARROTT. I guess I would limit my comments to the substance of a program, and I will let you all sort out jurisdiction 

among congressional committees. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I want to be clear, I am not talking about jurisdiction. I am talking about standards that we use to appraise, 

in terms of paperwork, in terms of eligibility, in terms of concern. 

Are we as concerned about these poor children as we are rich sugar 

farmers? 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, I think that there are a number of improvements that were made in the farm bill and that were made in the 

previous farm bill that went part of the way to trying to make the 
77

program more accessible particularly to working families, trying to 

reduce some of those paperwork hurdles, trying to make it so that 

people aren’t constantly having to take off work to come into the 

food stamp office. And those, I think, were extremely important 

parts of an overall attempt to say, when people are eligible for the 

food stamp program, we really want to help them because it is good 

for their kids, because it helps them stay in work, because people 

will be healthier. And so I think those were important strides. Do 

we have further to go? Absolutely. And I think part of it is about 

the Federal rules and part of it is about States looking at their programming and asking the hard question: What is the next step I 

can go where I can maintain program effectiveness and accuracy 

but where I have a welcome mat for people who really need help? 

And I think the last two farm bills have been really important in 

trying to ease some of those paperwork burdens. 

We know from a lot of research in the health care——

Mr. BLUMENAUER. My time has expired. And I want to have respect for my other colleagues. I appreciate that. I think this is 

something, though, that we need to look at. 

And doctor, I think your point about who needs whom the most, 

at some point splitting this out, letting it be judged on its own merits is important because it seems to me this Congress and prior 

Congresses have not cared as much about poor children as they do 

rich sugar farmers. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SPRATT. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you very much. 

And thank you for your testimony. 

As we are talking about the farm bill, initially I have to say, as 

a new Member of Congress and that vote was brought to the floor, 

I had to look to my district, in which I have three urban communities in which one out of three children go to bed hungry. And so 

that was a major factor in my decision to vote for that bill in spite 

of my reservations on other pieces of it. 

And just anecdotally, to talk about the importance of school 

lunch programs, I have a large high school that I went to visit, and 

they were telling me that they provide breakfast and lunch. Towards the end of the week, not too many young people show up for 

breakfast, but at the beginning of the week, on a Monday, the line 

is out the door because these children have gone hungry through 

the weekend. And also in that same community, a remarkable dining center run by a local church in which many working poor come 

because it is one place that they can get the food that they and 

their family need. 

But looking ahead to how we can change this—and we have 

talked about it a bit—though you all may differ vehemently with 

each other on specific programs or methods, you have all acknowledged in some form in your written testimony that the Federal 

Government does have a role to play in addressing the well-being 

of low-income children. 

Under current law, many Federal benefit programs, including 

SNAP, food stamps, penalize low-income families who attempt to 

put aside even small amounts for a rainy day by reducing their 

benefits. This disincentivizes saving, keeps low-income families per-
78

manently stuck in poverty and leaves them extremely vulnerable 

to payday lenders in a cycle of ever-deepening debt. 

As we look ahead, in your view, would removing some of these 

barriers to saving, thereby giving low-income families the ability to 

save small amounts when they are able, help improve the outcomes 

of these at-risk families and at-risk children? And I don’t know if 

it is beyond some of your ken, but I am just curious as to what 

your thinking might be. 

Ms. PARROTT. I can start. I think that asset limits can discourage 

savings. I think they also can keep people who really need help in 

a temporary emergency off the program, force them to just save 

what are usually pretty modest amounts of savings, which then 

means that they have less of a cushion for other emergencies that 

arise. 

I think we also have a problem, particularly with respect to retirement savings, where we don’t want people to be forced to cash 

out what are often extremely modest amounts of money that they 

have put away for retirement because somebody lost a job, and 

they need to go onto the food stamp program. And I think we have 

made some progress in some of those areas with respect to retirement accounts. 

So I think asset limits are an important area to look at. I think 

there has been some progress in some programs. For kids in particular, it is not universal, but most States don’t have asset limits 

in Medicaid and CHIP, which means that health care coverage isn’t 

hinging on whether that family has $2,200 in savings and that is 

too much. But certainly in the food stamp program and some of the 

other programs targeted, there are asset limit issues. 

I think there is the incentive not to save. I actually think the bigger problem is that people need temporary help, and the program 

shuts them out because of modest savings. 

Mr. BESHAROV. This is an issue that was of great interest during 

the first Bush administration and their efforts. And I think many 

people feel that it would be good if people who receive welfare benefits or food stamps or whatever were not penalized for saving 

money while they were on benefits. It is a tricky thing to do, in 

part because it is so easy to abuse. 

So, in principle, I think many people think it is something to do. 

In practice, it needs time for someone to think the process, the 

rules, the percentages. It would be really nice to get—Sharon, I 

don’t know the answer. Are all States now where their asset limits 

lined up between TANF and food stamps? I don’t think so. 

Ms. PARROTT. Not all, but I think most. 

Mr. BESHAROV. We can’t even get—actually, I think it is in the 

thirties. I think it is most people. But we can’t even get the rules 

about how much your car is worth sort of lined up. 

But there is a little bit of head banging that could be done about 

this. And that is one of those small reforms that I hope next time 

you do one of these bills, stick a little bit of that stuff in. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Ms. Tsongas. 

Mr. Scott of Virginia. 

Mr. SCOTT. Dr. Frank, low birth weight is highly correlated with 

learning disabilities and mental health problems. Can you tell me 
79

the effect that malnutrition during pregnancy has on low birth 

weight? 

Dr. FRANK. Yes. One of the most important determinants of low 

birth weight is the mother’s nutritional status when she enters 

pregnancy and the amount of weight she gains during pregnancy. 

And if you study any other insult to birth weight, like cigarettes, 

if you don’t control for those two factors, nobody believes a word 

you say, and rightly, because that is the most potent determinant. 

So you are right, there are huge social, personal learning every 

kind of cause for low birth weight. And if you can decrease the 

rates of low birth weight, you will decrease not only that, but you 

will decrease dead babies. You will decrease infant mortality. 

Mr. SCOTT. The March of Dimes emphasizes the importance of 

preconception nutrition. Did I understand you to say that was important, too? 

Dr. FRANK. Absolutely. In fact, one of the problems of our system 

is we don’t believe in taking care of women who aren’t pregnant, 

especially young women. So they can’t really afford folate, it is one 

of the more expensive foods—or certainly not pills—so that they 

enter pregnancy both macro—sometimes macro, certainly micronutrient deficient, and the effect of folate is before you even know 

you’re pregnant. So that is where we get all kinds of troubles. 

Mr. SCOTT. And what portion of a person’s brain growth takes 

place before birth? 

Dr. FRANK. That is interesting. A lot. I can tell you that twothirds of it happens, from birth to—in the first year of life, twothirds of the adult size is achieved. But all your brain growth happens before growth. I mean, there is no brain unless, you know, 

starting——

Mr. SCOTT. So, by the first year of life, you said two-thirds——

Dr. FRANK. Of the adult size is there. The newborn brain doubles 

2.5 times in size. I am not an OB, so I apologize for not answering 

that. 

Mr. SCOTT. And if you are malnourished during that period of 

time, what happens to your intellectual capacity? 

Dr. FRANK. There are lasting deficits. And interesting again, it 

is not just IQ, but in things like ability to pay attention. So even 

if it is only 5 or 10 points in IQ, what really knocks these kids 

down later is called executive functions and attention regulation. 

Mr. SCOTT. And is there a correlation between hungry children 

and their ability to pay attention in school, behavior, drop out? Are 

they correlated? 

Dr. FRANK. There is a short term and a long term. Anybody who 

has had to miss meals knows that when you are not getting enough 

to eat or you are on the food stamp challenge, you feel ugh. You 

have headaches. You can’t concentrate, you are irritable. And hungry kids fight more and are more disruptive in class. Also, kids who 

have been hungry as young children are more vulnerable to the 

disruptive behavioral effects of short-term hunger as older children. 

That has been shown. 

So, again, if you want kids to be ready to learn, they need to be 

well nourished from conception onward. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 
80

And Mr. Lott, from a law enforcement perspective, is it true that 

there is a correlation between child abuse and future crime? 

Mr. LOTT. Yes. 

Mr. SCOTT. And is that why the Nurse-Family Partnership is so 

effective? 

Mr. LOTT. Very much so. 

Mr. SCOTT. People wonder how you can afford programs like the 

Nurse-Family Partnership. What are the long-term costs of that 

program? 

Mr. LOTT. I am not aware. 

Mr. SCOTT. In long term, does it save more money than you 

spend? 

Mr. LOTT. Yes. Just to follow up a little bit. If we can invest a 

little bit in these kids, it is going to save in the long run. Head 

Start is $8,000 per kid. To incarcerate a child in prison is $55,000 

a year. 

Mr. SCOTT. And you mention after-school programs in your testimony because the 3 to 6 p.m. time period is a high-crime time period. And if you funded after-school programs, you could reduce the 

incidence of crime? 

Mr. LOTT. Yes. If you keep them busy doing something positive, 

the gangs are going to leave them alone. They are not going to go 

to gangs and commit crimes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now, if you invested in all of that in prevention, is 

there any question that if you had a substantial budget, that you 

could, in fact, reduce crime significantly? 

Mr. LOTT. Yes, we could. 

Mr. SCOTT. Top 10 States in African-American incarceration is 

4,000 per 100,000. So 100,000, the population would be spending 

about $100 million in incarceration. Is there any question in your 

mind that if you used a significant portion of that on prevention 

programs, that you could eliminate a lot of that incarceration? 

Mr. LOTT. Yes, we could. The money up front will save us in the 

long run. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. Schrader. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In Oregon, my business community is very invested, very excited 

about our Oregon pre-K Head Start program and has gotten a lot 

of the results I think that Sheriff Lott has talked about in their 

programs. 

There seems to be a lot of controversy—well, I guess if I was to 

summarize—I would like the panel to comment on, there is probably three levels of benefits that one ascribes to Head Start preK programs. One is—maybe some of the short-term benefits—

school readiness, ready to learn, nutritionally competent so you can 

pay attention has been alluded to. That seems, in my opinion—and 

please correct me—to have pretty much universal agreement; everyone seems to think that that is probably true. Things get a little 

sketchy, I guess, as I understand the studies after that, questions 

about special education, how long the results last, is there catch up 

and that sort of thing. Although hearing today, again, the sheriff 

talk about recidivism, juvenile crime, I would think that more peo-
81

ple would tend to agree that these early education programs do 

help. And there are studies, I know, that show—in Oregon, we did 

a study that the cost of educating that student goes down dramatically if you actually get to them early, there’s less of these special 

ed programs. 

The one that I would also like to get a comment, it is kind of a 

broad question, is on the long-term effects. Very few longitudinal 

studies have been done. And I guess I would like comments on—

Mr. Besharov, too—particularly about what sort of criteria—I get 

the sense you are not against any of these programs, you would 

just like to make sure they are targeted to the right people; they 

are measuring the right outcomes and getting the right results. So 

I would be curious about the short, medium and long-term effects, 

of what general agreement there is among the panel or not, and 

recommendations. 

Dr. FRANK. There are definitely what are called sleeper effects, 

which means that you see it early, and then you don’t see it for 

a while, and then suddenly you see it again later. 

The other thing is that nutrition, Head Start, enrichment is not 

an immunization. And what you really need is a continuum from 

early Head Start and birth, with continued support for children up 

to school age. Also, I forgot to mention, in terms of the economic 

stuff, that my colleagues have done something with the Pew Trust 

that I would like to enter into the record, called Partnership for 

Americans Economic Success. And based on the results of learning 

difficulties and so forth in kids who are poorly fed, they have been 

able to calculate lifetime savings instead. And that is just feeding. 

That is not even early childhood. 

I think, again, that also things seem to be synergistic. There is 

certainly data that nutrition plus early education has a more powerful effect on later development than either alone. 

Mr. BESHAROV. If I were just to respond to your question, I would 

start with a well-run analogy, which is the Postal Service versus 

FedEx. Most of the studies that show long-term positive impacts on 

children for early intervention are essentially run by the private 

sector; small, very intense, very high-quality programs. When we 

try to measure the same impacts from Head Start in publicly run 

programs, we don’t get nearly the results. 

I think Mr. Lott was correct, modest is about a generous way to 

describe what happens what a Head Start child learns after a year. 

And this is why this debate has gotten so complex and sort of controversial. Many people—myself—believe that the idea behind programs like Head Start are incontrovertible. Of course it matters 

how children are raised, and of course it matters—and the government should intervene if the parents aren’t doing a good enough 

job—and by the way, the key factor here is the parents more than 

anything else. But I think a fair reading of the quality of the average Head Start program—and there are some very good ones—is 

it is far lower than we would like, far lower. And again, it is a situation where it is a vested interest that is protected by the Congress, not subject to the same kind of accountability as your average kindergarten class. Now, I am not saying No Child Left Behind 

is a perfect bill. It has got loads of problems, and I am not sure 

I would have voted for it, but it is the case that it establishes some 
82

accountability for what kids learn or don’t learn. In Head Start, we 

have sort of ignored the fact that this is the only chance so many 

disadvantaged children have for a better shot in life. And we have 

been hesitant to say we expect more from the program. 

Now, under the Clinton administration, the Congress was a little 

bit more supportive of requiring improvements from Head Start. I 

think the Congress didn’t trust the beneficiary Bush administration. Maybe under the Obama administration—and President 

Obama has, in some places, said the right things about improving 

programs like Head Start, at least named Head Start as a program 

that needs improvement. But it is a fallacy—excuse me for taking 

so long—it is a fallacy to say that FedEx works and therefore the 

U.S. Postal System ought to be expanded. FedEx works, and therefore the U.S. Postal System ought to be improved so it works half 

as well as FedEx. 

Dr. FRANK. And to extend the analogy, you get what you pay for. 

And many Head Start teachers are terribly paid. There is huge 

turnover. And so, just like it costs more to send something FedEx 

than by the Postal Service, I think it is a very clear analogy: You 

get what you pay for. And there is no argument that there needs 

to be upgrades into the training and support and so on and pay of 

teachers in Head Start, for example. 

Mr. BESHAROV. I thought for a while we were going to be in total 

agreement. Head Start costs more than any other form of care in 

this country, including care that upper middle class children receive. Maybe there is a need for more money for staff, but the most 

important thing is to use that money more wisely. 

Dr. FRANK. As a physician, what is very important is that you 

look at the whole child, and the nurse and the nutritionist and the 

social worker I think are huge. Also, in terms of what causes kids 

to fail in school, it is not whether or not they know three letters 

or four letters at the end of—that is even in question as to whether 

that is the developmentally appropriate rubric, but whether they 

know how to sit, how to listen, how to not beat up on other children, all sorts of things, how to know their colors. I can’t tell 

you——

Mr. BESHAROV. I know we have gone back and forth. I will make 

you a deal. You can have another 20 percent in Head Start if you 

put some rules about Head Start——

Mr. SCHRADER. My time has expired. I just wanted to hear quickly from the sheriff if that was possible. 

Mr. LOTT. A modest improvement is better than no improvement 

at all. And part of the reauthorization bill is to improve the quality 

of the program. I know for a fact, watching kids, not only are they 

learning ABCs in Head Start and early Head Start, but learning 

social skills, how to stay in class, how to listen. And if we can keep 

that child in class and continue going to school, they are not going 

to drop out, and they are not going to get in crime. If they are out 

of school, and they drop out, I guarantee you most of them are 

going to end up in crime. So paying that little up front is going to 

save us a lot in the long run. 

But the quality of Head Start is improving. But again, a modest 

improvement is better than nothing at all. And if we cut it out, we 

don’t have anything. 
83

Chairman SPRATT. Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I think this is a very impressive panel. I guess I want to 

start out with Mr. Besharov. 

You have made some very kind of provocative statements, and 

some of which I agree. You talked about the funding for some of 

the nutrition programs like WIC, for example. And I do think it is 

important to make sure, for example, that more fresh fruits and 

vegetables are available under this program rather than just providing a subsidy for our dairy farmers with cheese and so forth. It 

is a program that doesn’t necessarily support nursing moms. So it 

is really, you know, what happens when you are a lactating mom, 

you need more fruits and vegetables than fat and cheese. So I just 

wanted to make that particular comment. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Even though you are from Wisconsin. 

Ms. MOORE. Even though I am from Wisconsin, I am for 

breastfeeding. 

I also wanted to just comment on something like the Head Start 

program. You know, the alternative for many families who are trying to get one of those Head Start slots is just staying at home with 

maybe an elderly grandmother on the days she is not at dialysis 

treatment. So Head Start has been extremely important. 

And I think you should have listened to what the doctor said. 

Head Start is only good if there is a maintenance of effort involved. 

Any kind of educational program, the benefits of it, there will be 

some slippage if there is not maintenance of effort. 

I have a question for you, Ms. Parrott, with respect to the welfare program. I am from Wisconsin, Frankenstein’s laboratory for 

welfare reform. And you made a very interesting statement to our 

colleague, who is not here, that it ought to continue to be workbased. I want to ask you just very quickly; of the numbers of children who are served under TANF, how many of them are under 12 

years old? 

Ms. PARROTT. The vast majority. I don’t know the capacity. 

Ms. MOORE. But something astronomical, like 80, 85 percent. So 

these are kids who can’t even read a newspaper, so how are they 

going to work? 

So in terms of a safety net being a work-based program, we know 

that economies are cyclical. So the point at which Mr. Hensarling 

talked about having lifted folk out of poverty in 1996 when we 

ended welfare as we knew it, we were riding on the Clinton good 

economy. 

So can you compare the numbers of kids who are in poverty now 

as opposed to those who were in poverty when we started the welfare program? 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, child poverty did fall—I didn’t bring all the 

data with me, and I don’t keep them in my head—but certainly 

child poverty fell, and child poverty fell pretty significantly. It is 

pretty clear from the research that the attempts by some to ascribe 

all of that to the wonders of welfare reform are vastly overstated. 

Welfare reform did help move some people into work, and that did 

reduce poverty. But we significantly strengthened work support in 

the 1990s. We expanded child care assistance. We expanded health 
84

care coverage to children in low-income working families, and we 

did very significant expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit. 

The work supports, the strong economy and, to some extent, the 

work-based supports in welfare reform kind of created a threelegged stool that helped move more people to work and helped reduce poverty. But I will say that amidst that good news—and that 

is good news—but in the midst of that good news, there are some 

disturbing trends with respect to the ability of our safety net to respond to the needs of the very poorest kids. And that actually grew 

weaker in the wake of welfare reform. 

Ms. MOORE. That is very important. So can you just—what numbers of children are we seeing in poverty right now. 

Ms. PARROTT. About 17 percent or 13 million kids are in poverty. 

We did start to see an increase in child poverty in 2005. 

Ms. MOORE. And hunger as well. 

Ms. PARROTT. I mean, in 2007 as well, I am sorry. 

Ms. MOORE. And hunger. 

Dr. FRANK. The most severe hunger. 

Ms. PARROTT. Yes. That we did see some increase in the latest 

data on childhood hunger. I think all of that data is obviously very 

outdated. 

Ms. MOORE. Okay. I have 2 seconds left so one quick question. 

And that is that you said that we needed some kind of safety net, 

particularly now with the kind of economic cyclical event that we 

are experiencing now. And we have no effective delivery system for 

the poorest kids now that we don’t have AFDC and that we have 

time limits. Is there something that you could suggest to this committee for delivering services, assuming that this recession may 

deepen, to those families and to those children? 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, I think that the reality is we are going to 

need to rely on the State delivery system because that is the system that is giving kids food stamps and giving them health care. 

They have the capacity and they have the resources to provide 

basic assistance to more families when more families fall into deep 

poverty. I think it is a real test of welfare reform and State TANF 

programs as to whether those programs will respond to the rising 

number of kids in poverty and deep poverty. We see that in some 

States caseloads are responding and more kids are getting help. 

And in other States in very difficult economic situations that isn’t 

happening. And so I think this is an open question as to how well 

TANF will respond to rising deep poverty in the recession. 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you so much, and I yield back. 

Chairman SPRATT. Mrs. Lummis. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My questions are for Dr. Besharov. Have I pronounced that correctly? 

Mr. BESHAROV. You sure have. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, sir. You speak in much of your literature about the need to reform Federal safety net programs to 

avoid fostering a culture of dependency on government services, the 

massive expansion in safety net spending included. And the 

versions of the stimulus bill that we have seen so far include food 

stamps, Medicaid, TANF, and they are mostly absent meaningful 

reform in this direction. 
85

Are you concerned that these massive, no-strings-attached spending increases could further facilitate the creep of the culture of dependency into the middle class? 

Mr. BESHAROV. I am not sure middle class because I am not sure 

what the middle class is. But it surely is the case that for the lower 

middle class we are creating a set of rules that generate if not dependent behavior, then dependency on the government. I will give 

you one example which I found quite striking. 

Maybe 40 to 60 percent of the pregnant women who go on WIC 

go on WIC because their income went down because they left their 

jobs to have a baby. They are otherwise from middle class families, 

and because of WIC’s relatively generous benefits those women go 

on WIC. 

Now, my colleagues here on the panel will say that is all right 

because that is needed. Here is what happens. When you all are 

trying to get money to expand WIC for the truly needy, when the 

Congress is trying to get money to expand nutrition counseling for 

WIC recipients, that money that is going to more middle class families doesn’t disappear, it is counted against WIC, it is part of the 

WIC spending. 

So Larry Summers said about a stimulus bill, if I remember correctly, temporary, targeted and timely, his three Ts. Targeted is 

tremendously important in the stimulus bill, not just because we 

want to increase economic activity, but because in the long run 

mistargeting these benefits will create expectancies that will continue in the future. That is why I am afraid that these programs 

will create a different level of dependency. 

Sharon was talking about the TANF provisions. In the stimulus 

bill is a provision that gives the States 80 percent of the cost of 

anybody they add to the welfare rolls, 80, which is about almost 

every State reimbursement rate. That is a giant incentive for the 

States to put people on welfare, a giant incentive. And the States 

will do it whether they have an increase in poverty or not. They 

will move people from other programs and put them on TANF to 

claim a benefit. 

So there is no doubt in my mind that TANF caseloads will go up 

regardless of the economic situation in the State, and to me the 

only question is whether this provision will disappear in 2 years or 

whether it will be with us forever. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, one more question 

for Dr. Besharov. I can tell you in my home State of Wyoming that 

WIC is a wonderful program and so I am focused on trying to make 

it healthy, keep it healthy, and keep it focused on those who need 

it the most. Can you give us your thoughts about what the most 

ripe areas for reform are? 

Mr. BESHAROV. Two. First, if you go to a WIC office and you ask 

the people who provide nutrition counseling, what do you counsel 

the people who come in for WIC. It is to not eat many of the things 

that are in the WIC package, which is don’t eat so many eggs, don’t 

eat so much cheese, and so forth. So the move to broaden or improve or vegetize the WIC package is tremendously important. 

Congresswoman Moore talked about breast feeding. The research 

says, notice I am not saying because I don’t understand the process 

too well, but the research says that WIC discourages breast feed-
86

ing. And from everything we know it is very important that all 

women who can, who can, should breast feed. 

I am sorry. I am sorry. You know, the research is research. I 

know this is Capitol Hill where you can ignore research, but the 

research is widely written about, and it is a problem because the 

incentive package works that way. 

I said I didn’t know. I was trying to be very honest about it, Ms. 

McCollum. I am just saying what I read in the literature written 

by academics, not from the left or the right, but serious academics 

that are worried about it. Ms. Moore was worried about it. It is a 

serious problem in the program, and I just really would like a little 

bit more respect on that. 

Chairman SPRATT. Let us give Dr. Frank—I think Dr. Frank 

probably——

Dr. FRANK. Go ahead. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. No, the Chair controls the time. 

Chairman SPRATT. I want to give Dr. Frank an opportunity to respond to that statement. 

Dr. FRANK. WIC has had a breast feeding push recently. And if 

you look at people who had not have breast fed, you know, epidemiologic criteria has been quite effective. 

The second thing about the package is in fact there is a much 

more revised package that is right now being rolled out now. The 

problem is it is not funded adequately because it had to be revenue 

neutral or whatever neutral, something neutral, to provide the 

amount of fruits and vegetables that the IOM recommended. And 

that is one of the things the people are pushing for in the child nutrition reauthorization; is, yes, there is new research and, yes, 

there are no ideas. WIC has evolved, a lot has science has evolved, 

and it is always somewhat behind. Just like the food pyramid is 

always behind science, it is just always behind science. But it is 

certainly moving in the direction that Mr. Besharov has outlined. 

So I think it is misleading to rely on old data and old facts. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Could the gentlelady yield for one second. 

Dr. FRANK. Am I gentlelady? 

Chairman SPRATT. I next recognize Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I will be brief, but I would encourage 

the doctor to go to some WIC centers. I have been in a lot of WIC 

centers lately. There is charts up for breast feeding. The formula 

is not even on the shelf so that if somebody is asking for formula 

there is somebody who takes a few minutes and sits down and 

talks to them and does this. The food schedule has changed. So 

you, with the best of intentions, I think had some misinformation 

about what reflects the accuracy of the program right now. So I 

would encourage you to get out and visit some WIC centers. They 

would love to have you there. 

Mr. Chair, is this my time now? 

Chairman SPRATT. This is your time. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know the data 

shows a really shameful picture here in the United States. The future of America, 73 million children, 73 million children, where we 

are the richest country in the world, 18 million of them live in poverty. And the recovery package that is before the Congress right 

now is to create an opportunity for those 3 million children unfor-
87

tunately who might be falling into poverty, the same children who 

are going to build our bridges, be our doctors and teach our grandchildren in the future. We need to give them every tool in the tool 

box to succeed, and that is what the recovery package is attempting to do. 

But what does poverty mean? We have all talked about it. And 

Dr. Frank, you did a great job. It means a child going to bed at 

night with pains in their stomach, waking up in the morning thinking about what is down in the kitchen for breakfast. It is a child 

and a parent wondering where they are going to sleep that night, 

if a family member will take them in. Or maybe they are still in 

their home and they are afraid the sheriff is going to come knock 

on their door for foreclosure. It is a child or a parent knowing that 

the child is sick, that their ear hurts, that they should go see a doctor now, but waiting until that eardrum ruptures because they 

don’t have health care. 

So if our children are a strategic resource, if we aren’t even going 

to talk about our moral responsibility to one another as human 

beings, our children are a strategic resource, it is essential for the 

future of this economy, for the development of this country and for 

our democracy, to let these children out of poverty. 

So I want to focus a little bit on the testimony of Dr. Frank and 

the sheriff here. 

We know that early experiences in nutrition in the first 3 years 

of life are literally shaping the architecture of the brain. I love that 

coined, ‘‘shaping the architecture of the brain.’’ How much does investing in young children’s health and nutrition reduce the cost of 

remedial learning, social difficulties, and health care? And if we are 

only beginning to study that to really understand it, what should 

this Congress be doing, what should this Budget Committee be 

doing to address what we now know scientifically is so important 

in the first 3 years of life in order to reduce costs later for this 

country, to reduce social problems later that the sheriff pointed 

out? What is our responsibility to invest in the most precious resource in this country, our children? 

Mr. LOTT. If we don’t feed our kids and give them an opportunity 

to succeed in school then I am going to have to deal with them 

later. And the cost of me dealing with them in crime is a lot more 

than it is investing in them at an early age. I think it is our responsibility to make sure that they have that opportunity to eat 

and to succeed in school. 

One thing the economy has done the way it is now has made job 

security for law enforcement. As the economy goes down crime is 

going up. And not only today is it impacting us but it is going to 

impact us years from now because these kids that we are not taking care of today are going to be our teenagers who are out here 

robbing and stealing and murdering people. So we are going to 

have to deal with them long term if we don’t develop programs that 

is going to help them to succeed in life and in—in school and in 

life. It is either pay now or we are going to have to pay a lot later 

on. 

Dr. FRANK. As I said, I am not an economist, but my colleague—

both the Brandeis report that Representative McGovern cited and 

my colleague Dr. John Cook have done a calculation that if food in-
88

security—this study that says food insecurity doubles the likelihood 

of a child needing special ed. So you wouldn’t be able to abolish all 

need for special ed if you solved food insecurity. But if you take—

he calculated that you would—and assuming that not every kid 

who is food insecure is going to need special ed, thank goodness, 

assuming 100 percent receipt of the maximum food stamp benefit 

which other people get reduces food insecurity by 25 percent, you 

would be able to save about $1,250 per child annually, and that is 

a lot of children. 

So again I don’t make these calculations, it is not my skill. But 

certainly other people have thought it through. And I think that in 

human terms it is incalculable. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I have two things to submit for the 

record. One is from Art Rolnick, who is at the Federal Reserve of 

the Bank of Minneapolis, on early childhood development. And it 

has a long-term study in it. We don’t have very many. It has the 

Perry, which some people refer to as an old study because it is a 

30-year study but it tracks kids for about 25 years. That is why it 

is old. And some information from Nobel laureate on early development. 

Chairman SPRATT. Without objection. 

[The policy study, ‘‘Early Intervention on a Large Scale,’’ may be 

accessed at the following Internet address:]

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications—papers/studies/earlychild/early—

intervention.cfm

[Information from Nobel laureate follows:]
89
90
91
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Mr. MCGOVERN. Will the gentlelady yield me 5 seconds? 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. That would be up to the Chair. I am new on the 

committee, and I respect the Chair. If I have 5 seconds, I will yield 

it. 

Chairman SPRATT. Without objection, these are made part of the 

record. 

Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I just wanted to—earlier today, earlier there 

was a reference made to WIC as being somehow this middle class/

middle income program. I just wanted the record to reflect that in 

2006 among WIC participants reporting some income, the average 

annualized family income was $15,577. I don’t think that is a middle class or middle income program, and I just thought it was important to make that clear for the record. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you. 

Mr. Yarmuth. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thanks to the witnesses. I would like to make a couple comments about some of the 

things that have been said and then I do have one question to ask. 

I want to address this question or issue of dependency. And you 

know we deal in words and sometimes words take on political consequences, and I know a lot of people like to refer to these programs as welfare programs, and so forth. And I have been in Congress for just a little over 2 years and before that I was with the 

private sector for 30 years and I ran businesses and have been involved in a lot of different organizations. And the other way to look 

at it, a different perspective on these programs that support working families, low-income families, is that this really is an employer 

subsidy. And we have—until we get to the point in this country 

where we are willing to demand that businesses pay a living wage 

and we allow them to hire people and pay them at rates which do 

not sustain families, then the programs we devise are not only defensible from a moral standpoint and a human standpoint, but also 

from the standpoint that we are actually subsidizing these employers. We are giving them a fungible work force that they can use 

at their convenience. And so we can’t lose sight of that. 

The second thing is a little bit off topic, but Mr. Hensarling took 

a pot shot at the arts when he criticized the stimulative, or I guess 

he implied that there was no stimulative effect of, economic stimulative effect of the arts. And that may be true in his district. But 

in Louisville, Kentucky I will tell you that the arts are an incredibly important part of our community. We just had a run of Wicked 

in our community that grossed $1,300,000 a week for 4 weeks, 

brought people from across the region into the community. They 

stayed in hotels, they ate in our restaurants. I think there are figures that sustain the fact that the arts are one of the greatest multipliers in economic activity and millions of people literally 

throughout the country are employed there. So if you are going to 

stimulate the economy it is kind of hard to ignore the arts because 

they do play such an important role. Not to ignore the fact that 

they help sustain a certain level of civility in society. 

So all that being said, and I will get off my soapbox there, one 

of the things that really concerns me, and I am so happy to be on 
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the Budget Committee, and we have alluded to this question in 

many different ways, the ability to, or the necessity to talk about 

the long-term costs and the long-term savings of these investments 

that we make in children. And it disturbs me that we deal with 

these PAYGO rules within a 5-year budget window and we are developing budgets over a year-to-year basis, which in my way of 

thinking discourages the type of long-range analysis of these types 

of benefits. 

Now, I am just curious, I will throw it open, as to what do you 

think this is a problem as well that our budgeting process and our 

thought processes is—in some way doesn’t take into account what 

we have to take into account if we are going to make practical decisions or bad investments. 

Ms. PARROTT. Well, I can start. I think that there is no question 

that not all spending is the same and not all tax cuts are the same 

and that when we evaluate policies we have to evaluate them on 

a cost/benefit analysis. And we have to be serious about that. And 

we have to be serious about making priorities because we don’t 

have unlimited resources. 

Now, I don’t think that means that we need to change the scoring rules and that we don’t need to have PAYGO. What I do think 

it means though is that we need to be serious about priority setting. And when we have investments that we know have enormous 

payoffs for our economy, for the lives of individual children, and we 

know that they have payoffs, then we need to know what they cost, 

we need to understand their benefits, and we need to be willing to 

come up with the resources to pay for them. 

And so I think that there are limits in our ways of budgeting and 

our budgeting rules as to how much we can really change the rules 

to capture that in dollars and in a PAYGO sense, but I think that 

that is somewhat beside the point. The real point is what do we 

as a nation need to do to make sure that we are giving our kids 

the best possible start so that we have the best possible workforce 

and a society that we can be proud of, what is that cost and what 

is the best way to raise those resources to do that? And I think that 

it is somewhat cliche to say in the richest country in the history 

of the world even with our current economic problems we can afford to do things that are important. But I think it is not the case 

that we can’t afford to do things like invest in early childhood education, we just have to make it a priority, and we have to make 

it a priority and be willing to pay for it. 

Dr. FRANK. From my perspective children are always dependent. 

There is no such thing as a child who isn’t dependent. 

Mr. LOTT. Economists I think have told us that these are high 

quality care programs for at-risk kids that save $16 for every dollar 

spent and $11 in crime savings, that is $16 come from not being 

on welfare, crime savings paying for them in prison. And I know 

this is probably a bad thing to say in a budget meeting, but instead 

of looking at money these are people’s lives. These are kids that are 

people who are living their lives in prison, and these are victims 

that we could save from becoming a victim, maybe saving somebody’s life by investing in this child and keep them from killing 

somebody later on where we lost not only that victim, but we have 

lost that person now for the rest of their life in prison. 
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Mr. BESHAROV. I am just going to echo what Sharon suggested. 

It is a Pandora’s box because then you get into an argument about 

if I build that bridge or if I buy that tank you know what is the 

long-term payoff, so it does not help me balance the budget. 

And while I have the microphone I will say I agree with you completely about what happens with the employers of low wage workers. And that is another reason why we have to get these incentives right, because that is clearly the case, that certain employers 

take advantage of the fact that we as a government are providing 

subsidies for workers and then therefore not paying them what 

they ought to be paid, their market value. 

Chairman SPRATT. Mr. Yarmuth. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you. My time is up. 

Chairman SPRATT. Thank you. At this point I would like to ask 

unanimous consent that members who did not have the opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses have at least a week, 7 

days to submit questions for the record. 

If there are no further questions let me thank our witnesses once 

again. As I said, we had got the bookends right here of this discussion and we have had a healthy vigorous discussion today, and it 

leaves us with a lot of grist for our mill as we look upon the prospects of drawing up a budget resolution which we can pass. 

Mr. McGovern, would you like to say anything? 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and members of the committee for participating in this hearing. And again 

I will end as I began, saying that hunger is a political condition. 

We have the tools to end it. We need to develop a plan and we need 

to end it. This is a moral question. And I appreciate the testimony 

of all the panelists. Thank you. 

Dr. FRANK. Thank you for the opportunity. 

Chairman SPRATT. Ms. DeLauro. 

Ms. DELAURO. I want to say thank you to you, Mr. Chairman, 

and thank the panelists. And I think one of the points was revamping what the nutrition programs look like. We are going to have 

that opportunity with the child and nutrition bill when it comes up 

for reauthorization. 

I would also say that in the farm bill we appropriated $1.2 billion 

for the food and vegetable program to move through our schools. 

I think we have to look at what our children are eating and make 

the appropriate changes in what is nutrition and what isn’t. And 

we have to not underfund the program. We have to give it the resources it needs so that it is successful. 

Chairman SPRATT. In all fairness, Mrs. Lummis. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to 

thank the witnesses. I want to echo the remarks of the previous 

speaker. It is also good for sustaining family farms and ranches to 

have good quality produce, fruits and vegetables available for the 

health and benefit of the people in this country, wealthy and poor, 

and sustains a very vital component of this Nation’s backbone. 

So thank you again very much for this hearing, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SPRATT. Once again thank you, and we look forward 

to working with you on the problems which we discussed today. 

Thank you very much for your input. 

[Question for the record submitted by Ms. Kaptur follow:]
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QUESTION FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED BY HON. MARCY KAPTUR, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Many families can’t make their mortgage payments or pay other bills because of 

the economy. Some school food service people are saying that families can’t even afford to pay even the reduced price for school lunches. Should we be considering increasing the income eligibility standard for free school lunches?

[Responses from Ms. Parrot to questions submitted:]

RESPONSE FROM MS. PARROT TO QUESTION POSED BY CONGRESSWOMAN KAPTUR

‘‘Many families can’t make their mortgage payments or pay other bills because of 

the economy. Some school food service people are saying that families can’t even afford to pay even the reduced price for school lunches. Should we be considering increasing the income eligibility standard for free school lunches?’’

CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES RESPONSE

The first step we need to take is to make sure that all the low-income children 

who are already eligible for free or reduced price meals are enrolled. By law, all children whose families receive SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits are eligible for free 

school meals and must be automatically enrolled though a process known as ‘‘direct 

certification. But a recent USDA report on state performance with regard to direct 

certification found that many children are being missed in this process. In Ohio, for 

example, 65 percent of the children who could be automatically enrolled for free 

school meals are missing out on this important simplification. Some of those children do eventually complete a regular school meal application, wasting parents’ 

time and creating unnecessary paperwork for school staff. Worse, some children are 

never enrolled and miss out altogether on free meals. In twelve states, more than 

25 percent of children who could have been automatically enrolled for free school 

meals were not enrolled at all. 

Two policy changes would improve and expand direct certification so that more 

eligible low-income children could be automatically enrolled for free school meals. 

First, Congress could expand the list of programs that school districts may use as 

a basis for direct certification. For example, Congress could allow states to use family income information from the Medicaid program to determine eligibility for school 

meals. Second, Congress could provide incentives to states that conduct exceptionally effective direct certification or show significant improvement. 

Another step Congress could take to assess the merits of increasing the income 

eligibility standard for free school meals would be to fund the pilot and evaluation 

of such a change that was authorized in the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. Before investing substantial resources in a nationwide change, it 

would be wise to find out how much of a barrier the 40 cents for a reduced price 

lunch and 30 cents for a reduced price breakfast pose and what the effects of eliminating those charges would be on children’s eating patterns and nutritional intake. 

Any effects of increasing the income eligibility standard for free school meals 

would also need to be weighed against the benefits of other important investments 

that could reduce food insecurity amongst low-income children. We believe that 

other investments for low-income families with children are a higher priority. For 

example, funding is insufficient to provide all eligible low-income families with housing assistance or child care subsidies. Making substantial investments in these 

areas might do more to alleviate poverty, and thus food insecurity, for families with 

children who now qualify for reduced price meals than eliminating the cost of school 

meals.

RESPONSES FROM MS. PARROT TO QUESTIONS POSED BY CONGRESSMAN LANGEVIN

Q: While programs like the Rhode Island Food Bank rely on a mix of funding 

streams to support their efforts, it is clear that government investment will be crucial to the continued success of these programs. Given this fact: What are the most 

effective programmatic investments to address hunger and poverty contained in the 

economic stimulus package, particularly in terms of their ability to stabilize families 

and promote economic activity?

A: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act recognizes that one of the best 

ways to boost consumer demand and preserve jobs is to put money in the hands of 

low- and moderate-income families, since they’re the ones most likely to spend it. 

Funds will stimulate the economy only if they’re spent rather than saved. 

We examined the likely impact on poverty of three tax provisions in the law: the 

Making Work Pay credit, the EITC expansions, and the expansion of the refundable 
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1These figures compare the cost of the Child Tax Credit to the cost if the threshold returned to $12,550 as it was scheduled to do under the law prior to the enactment of the ARRA. 

portion of the Child Tax Credit. Taken together, we estimate that these three policies will protect 2.3 million people—including 1 million children—from poverty. 

Other provisions, such as the temporary increase in SNAP benefits, increased TANF 

funding for states that provide aid to more families, and the unemployment insurance provisions, also will help reduce the extent and depth of poverty during the 

downturn. 

Below is a list of some of the key provisions which we believe are highly stimulative and which will help to respond to rising poverty and hunger: • President Obama’s new ‘‘Making Work Pay Tax Credit,’’ a refundable credit worth up to $400 per worker earning between $1 and $95,000 (and up to $800 per 

working couple making between $1 and $190,000). • A major expansion of the Child Tax Credit to working-poor families with in- comes as low as $3,000, which will provide the families of nearly 16 million lowincome children with $15 billion in added income over two years.1

• Two expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit that will provide 7 million low-income families with an additional $4.7 billion over two years. • The act also expands the Hope tax credit, which helps defray college expenses, 

so that almost 4 million college students from families too poor to owe income tax 

will be able to qualify for a partial credit. This measure will provide $3.7 billion in 

financial aid to low-income students. • The law gives states financial incentives to extend jobless benefits to many lowincome and female workers who don’t qualify for them because of outdated state eligibility rules. • It also includes a one-time payment of $250 to 56 million Social Security recipi- ents and other retirees, veterans, and people with disabilities; as well as $4 billion 

to help renovate public housing developments, several billion dollars to support 

state welfare reform efforts, and $1.5 billion forhomelessness prevention.

Q: What programs not contained within the stimulus bill should this committee 

consider for future budgetary priorities in addressing hunger and poverty?

A: All of the provisions which are described above are temporary. The Budget 

Committee may wish to consider making some of the provisions of the stimulus—

such as the expansion in the Child Tax Credit—a part of permanent law. Of course, 

any permanent expansions in mandatory programs or tax provisions are subject to 

pay-as-you-go rules and should, indeed, be paid for.

Q: While the Food Bank and its member agencies are at capacity, the federal nutrition programs are underutilized in Rhode Island. In particular, the latest USDA 

report (Food and Nutrition Service, October 2008) ranks Rhode Island has having 

one of the lowest participation rates in the country in the Food Stamp Program, now 

known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Increased effort 

to enroll people in SNAP would translate into more people receiving the food resources they need for their families, and less pressure on the emergency food safety 

net, which is already stretched to the limit. I am, therefore, interested in determining: How can provisions for increased SNAP benefits in the stimulus best be utilized by states like Rhode that have such a low participation rate?

A: The SNAP provisions of the stimulus bill are largely mandatory and will be 

provided to all households who are enrolled in SNAP. We estimate that over the 

next five years, $52 million in increased benefits will go to the 91,000 people on 

SNAP in Rhode Island. Of course, if Rhode Island was able to enroll more eligible 

people into the program, more low-income Rhode Islanders would benefit from the 

package.

Q: Are there additional budgetary considerations that this committee can make 

to properly address this problem?

A: We share your view that improving access to the SNAP program for eligible 

people is an important goal. To their credit, USDA has been working with states 

over the last 8 years to improve outreach and access. Many of these efforts have 

been focused on identifying and enrolling households that have not historically participated in SNAP. 

It is also important, however, for states to ensure that eligible families and individuals remain enrolled in SNAP after an initial application is approved. States 

must renew SNAP household eligibility at least once per year (although in most 

states they review eligibility for many households ever six months.) It is likely that 

some share of eligible households lose their SNAP benefits during this review because they are not able to complete the review process. This could be because they 
97

do not understand the questions on lengthy forms, they are unable to reach a caseworker on the phone or they cannot take time off work to go into the human service 

office for a face-to-face interview. More work is needed to investigate how to facilitate on-going SNAP enrollment among eligible households. Finding ways to retain 

eligible people would likely improve food security among needy households and 

would increase state administrative efficiency because many households reapply for 

benefits shortly after they fall off the program. The Committee could help to highlight this issue and encourage the Appropriators to provide funding to research how 

states could improve retention.

[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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