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Senator PRYOR. When you are out in the field trying to determine the extent of fraud in many of these cases, are you, at the same time finding individuals you think ought to be on food stamps but who cannot meet the test of the food stamp requirement? Mr. RICHARDS. Yes.

Senator PRYOR. A large number of these cases?

Mr. RICHARDS. Excuse me. I misunderstood.

Senator PRYOR. Are you finding people who need to be eligible for the food stamp program but whom through certain requirements, do not qualify for these benefits?

Are you finding cases like this?

Mr. RICHARDS. No, sir. You mean that are not eligible, that are meeting all the criteria for eligibility and that I feel they should be eligible?

Senator PRYOR. I am really trying to find out how many of people you come in contact with who really ought to be receiving stamps but because of regulations cannot receive them. The paradox, of course, would be that there are many receiving food stamps who should not actually be receiving them. I am trying to draw that distinction.

Mr. GRAHAM. In response to that, our job is very narrow in one sense. We deal with the people who are receiving them. We don't do the certification work, and consequently we don't deal with this. We don't deal with outreach programs from that-and that kind of thing.

Our investigations are zeroed in on people who are participating or who have participated. So really I don't think we have a good feel for the question you are putting to us.

Senator PRYOR. Do you feel that the State of Texas is making progress in the field finding the fraud and coming to grips with it as to how to prosecute those fraudulent cases?

Mr. RICHARDS. Yes, sir, I do.

Senator PRYOR. Do you think this is true nationwide, or just in Texas?

Mr. RICHARDS. I doubt that it is true nationwide. However, I don't have facts to back that up.

Senator PRYOR. I think that is all the questions I have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

Do you know that the Senate Appropriations Committee was highly complimentary about your efforts in Texas?

Mr. RICHARDS. No.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have to send you a copy of that.

I thank you very much for your patience.

Keep up the good work.

Now we are pleased to have as our second panel, the Reverend Eugene Marino, Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Washington, representing the U.S. Catholic Conference; the Reverend John T. Walker, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, representing the Interfaith Conference; Mary Nelson, director, Luther Family Mission, Chicago, Ill., representing the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.; the Reverend Richard Wood, director, Illinois Consortium of Government Concerns, Springfield, Ill.

The committee welcomes each of you. We will listen to your testimony with great interest.

I imagine that you will want to proceed in the order listed on my schedule here. So, Reverend Marino, if you wish to proceed, you may.

If you have a prepared statement you would like to be printed in the record in its entirety, we will do that. Or you can summarize, or proceed as you see fit.

STATEMENT OF REV. EUGENE MARINO, AUXILIARY BISHOP, ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON, REPRESENTING THE U.S. CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

Reverend MARINO. Thank you.

I am Bishop Eugene Marino. I am Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. And I speak today on behalf of both the Archdiocese of Washington and also the U.S. Catholic Confer

ence.

The U.S. Catholic Conference is the national social action agency of the Roman Catholic Bishops. And I want to thank you for the invitation to speak today. I do have a statement I would ask you to place into the record.1

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be done.

Reverend MARINO. Mr. Chairman, if I may begin by citing the Bible, I would call your attention to that section in Holy Scripture in which it is stated that on the day of judgment, Our Lord will say to the just: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat," and the just will say: "When, Lord, when did we give you to eat?" And the Lord will say: "When you gave to the least of my bretheren; come you blessed of my Father, into eternal salvation.'

There is no doubt in my mind but that every person in this room firmly believes in the fundamental right of every human being to sufficient food to sustain life. Every citizen of the United States of America, the wealthiest Nation on the face of the Earth, has this basic right to a nutritionally adequate diet.

The food stamp program has become over the past decade the single most important form of Federal nutrition assistance for the poor and working poor families. It has marked a commitment on the part of this Nation to insure adequate nutrition for all our people. It is our strongest desire that this commitment not be diminished by current efforts to cut the Federal budget. Indeed, the need for full funding of the food stamp program is especially great during this time when so many American families are afflicted by unemployment and economic hardship.

While I speak for the entire U.S. Catholic Conference in defending the rights of the needy throughout America, allow me to draw attention specifically to my own locality. The Archdiocese of Washington includes the District of Columbia and five surrounding Maryland counties. This geographical area has a population of slightly over 2 million, of whom 1 out of every 13 receives food stamps. In the District of Columbia, one out of every seven persons receives food stamps.

Unfortunately, even with this effort, the existing food stamp program and the other food assistance programs, do not meet all the needs of the hungry. The churches and synagogues of all faiths

1 See p. 327 for the prepared statement of Reverend Marino.

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in this region have had to establish supplemental food programs in an attempt to assure that the people had enough food.

Most of the 129 Catholic parishes have food pantries or soup kitchens and in just about all cases, the food donations are depeted well before the next donation occurs. The archdiocese has opened centers where needy women are served breakfast and lunch, and at one center the number of people served has increased by 34 percent in the past year.

The archdiocese is not alone in its effort to alleviate hunger in Metropolitan Washington. We have worked closely with other faith communities in providing food through scores of food pantries, social service centers, soup kitchens, and hospitality houses.

In conjunction with the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and other community organizations, we actively supported the establishment of a food bank in Washington. It was established in January 1980, and has grown rapidly, to the extent that last month, over 100,000 pounds of food was distributed to areawide emergency meal and food providers who in turn distributed the food to needy individuals and families.

These efforts are to be applauded, and the Catholic Church will continue to promote individual, voluntary, and charitable acts to alleviate the problem of hunger.

Indeed, the extent of the demand placed on our own voluntary programs to feed the hungry only serves to emphasize that the congressional resolution to provide every person with a nutritionally adequate diet is far from being realized. My point here is to emphasize that even with the food stamp program as it exists today and supplemented by the churches and other charitable institutions, there are many human beings within earshot of our proceedings today who do not receive a nutritionally adequate diet and who go to bed with the pains and tears of hunger.

Seen in this context, the current proposals to cut existing Federal food programs by more than $4 billion are extremely disturbing. Indeed, we believe that such action would be an abdication of the Government's responsibility, a moral responsibility, to see that all of its citizens are adequately fed.

The proposed reductions in food and nutrition programs would force thousands of families to turn to the churches and nonprofit agencies for assistance. As I have indicated, these voluntary groups are already hard pressed to meet the needs of the poor. The flood of additional requests resulting from the budget cuts could simply not be met.

There has recently been much rhetoric regarding fraud and abuse of the food stamp program. We are in complete support of eradicating any fraud and abuse which deprives the needy. Last year, 15 measures were added to the Food Stamp Act, measures which Representative Foley called "the strongest antierror and antiabuse provisions ever incorporated in any income security bill." Let us continue to eliminate abuse but let us not use past myths and unfounded accusations to destroy a program upon which millions of Americans depend for their very life.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that this debate over food stamps, as well as the larger debate over the Federal budget, is not simply a debate about numbers and dollars and programs. It is

about human beings-their joys and their sorrows, their smiles and their tears.

It is about American families-about whether or not they will have enough food on the table, and whether or not their children will have a suitable diet to allow for full mental and physical development. It is, in short, a debate about human dignity.

Let me implore you to oppose cuts in food stamps, cuts which would sap the vitality of life from millions of Americans. Let the world look upon us as a nation of compassion for our poor with food as a human right available to all Americans. For no matter what the cost, it is far less than the cost of one American life. Can the wealthiest nation on the face of the Earth do any less for its own people?

Thank you for the opportunity to express our views.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Reverend Walker?

STATEMENT OF REV. JOHN T. WALKER, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF WASHINGTON, REPRESENTING THE INTERFAITH CONFER

ENCE, AS PRESENTED BY REV. LLOYD CASSON

Canon CASSON. Mr. Chairman, I am the Reverend Lloyd Casson, Canon of Washington Cathedral, and president of the Episcopal Urban Caucus, which is a national society of the Episcopal Church concerned with a ministry for the poor. I am also here today for Bishop Walker, an Episcopal Bishop of Washington.1

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry about the misidentification of you. Canon CASSON. He could not be here today.

Mr. Chairman, deeply rooted in the teachings of the religious traditions which are shared by perhaps most of the people in this room is the understanding that feeding the hungry is an issue of justice; that is, all people have the right to eat. And yet, millions of Americans live with hunger as their constant companion.

We understand that principle of universal right as it applies to other areas: to education, for example, when we mandate a universal free public school system. But we must not be less clear on its relevance to that most basic question of our survival: the right to food for all of our citizens.

The food stamp program comes closest to a public acknowledgement of the right to eat. And the Episcopal Church of which I am a part, Mr. Chairman, has affirmed, along with others-and we will continue to affirm-the strengthening of all such Federal food assistance programs which support that right.

Admittedly, as has been testified here earlier today, only the barest of subsistence needs are met by the food stamp program. And it is only one handle for addressing the problems of the poor: jobs, health care, decent housing, must also be principal concerns. Nonetheless, the food programs are a critical imperative to this Nation's health. And as you consider spending reductions and the programs which feed hungry people, be clear about one thing, the programs do work.

In a recent study conducted by the Field Foundation, which was alluded to earlier, it was demonstrated that as a direct result of these food programs, fewer today do suffer from outright starva

1See p. 329 for the prepared statement of Reverend Casson.

tion, and nutrition-related diseases. And since receiving WIC supplemental foods are healthier. Children receiving meals in school are learning better. It was not always so, as that study indicated. Indeed, I need only refer to that testimony which was given before this very body earlier in the 1960's.

In the diocese in which I serve, the city of Washington and the adjacent counties of Maryland, the conditions reflect that of most urban areas. Unemployment is rising. Infant mortality and morbidity is well above the national average. The cost of mere survival is climbing out of the reach of many citizens.

As a consequence, the need for services from both the public and private sector increases daily.

Bishop Marino has just referred to the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, a group of interfaith leaders who are concerned about the issue of economic justice in this community, who have joined with others to open a food bank to distribute food to those whose resources were exhausted.

As he indicated, in less than 9 months, over one-half million pounds of food have been distributed, and the demand continues to rise.

In this city, during the past few years, requests for meals at our soup kitchens and similar emergency meal sites have more than doubled. And nearby Montgomery County, one of the richest counties in the Nation, the local cluster of churches working together in the community has seen a 79-percent increase in applications for their emergency grants, especially for food, over the past 12 months. These grants are used almost exclusively to buy food and medicine. This same community ministry anticipates a similar rise in 1981.

These rising cries for help come before any of the projected budget cuts are implemented.

Times are already hard. And it is cruel to expect those at the lowest income levels to bear more than they have already. A call to tighten one's belt is an exercise in futility when directed to somebody who cannot afford a belt.

It has been suggested that fraud and abuse in such programs as food stamps waste an unacceptable amount of tax dollars. I agree. Errors do understandably occur.

The food stamp program is run by human beings for human beings, with all of the fallibility and sin which that implies. However, the statistics available do not appear to substantiate the claim of such a high deliberate fraud rate.

In the State of Maryland last year, for example, 141,000 households received food stamps. A total of 68 cases of suspected fraud were deemed worthy of full investigation, according to the Department of Human Resources in that State. These investigations led to one conviction for fraud in 1980. This appears hardly to be a clear indictment of the program and those which it serves.

I submit that the use of the poor in helping to monitor against fraud and abuse might be extremely effective. In any case, it is not appropriate to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are serious needs for this program. And cutbacks as proposed will have serious impact.

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