Speech #960230957

I think that it is important for us to keep in mind the basic purpose of this programto help feed the poor of this country. As a veteran of many of these food stamp reauthorizations I have seen this basic purpose become obscured as this program has become a vehicle for displaying our dissatisfaction with a number of Federal programs. This year. for instance. we have a provision that requires food stamp workers to act as Immigration and Naturalization Service agents and turn in suspected undocumented aliens. I find this provision to be duplicative since we already require all food stamp recipients to have social security numbers which can only be issued to citizens and legal residents. I also seriously doubt its usefulness. given the fact that INS cannot respond to the information that it already possesses. Even though undocumented aliens comprise only 0.5 percent of food stamp recipients. according to most studies. we are focusing on this small segment out of some feeling that we will accomplish some grand reduction in the abuse of this program. I opposed this provision in Agriculture Committee and would have attempted to have this provision stricken today were it not for the overriding need to pass this bill as quickly as possible. By placing a cap on this food stamp program authorization. we have sought to turn this program into a way to control the inflationary effect of Federal programs.