October 7, 1975
Page 32015
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, we are considering today another in a long series of Presidential vetoes of domestic spending bills. As my colleagues know, this bill to continue and improve the school lunch program and other child nutrition programs has received very careful scrutiny by the Senate.
When H.R. 4222 first passed the Senate in July, I urged my colleagues to avoid liberalizing amendments so that we could keep this program's cost as close to the congressional budget figures as we possibly could. The Senate did just that, but the House conferees bargained for a bill that added another $130 million to the cost of the legislation. At this point, the Senate unanimously returned H.R. 4222 to conference by a vote of 76 to 0.
The Senate conferees fought hard to reduce the cost of the bill, and they succeeded in removing a $75 million provision to add further Federal subsidies for full-price school lunches. But the House side was insistent upon retaining the other provisions. Recognizing this fact, the Senate approved the bill before us today by an overwhelming margin.
Mr. President, of all the bills we have passed this year, Congress has paid more attention to the budgetary implications of this one than of any other. The President's veto is not just a veto of this bill; it is also a rejection of the Nation's priorities as expressed by elected representatives operating under a congressionally adopted set of budget guidelines.
Mr. President, I will vote to override. I ask unanimous consent that an editorial in today's Washington Post supporting the override be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE CHILD NUTRITION VETO
President Ford made an odd choice for a stand on fiscal responsibility when he vetoed the child nutrition bill the other day. The reason his choice was so curious is that this is a case in which liberals and conservatives attempted to show they could feed poor children without being extravagant. You will recall that in the Senate, this bill obtained a special symbolism in connection with the military appropriations bill. After Senate liberals took a chunk out of the $31 billion military money bill on fiscal grounds, Sen. George McGovern was among those Senate liberals who agreed that the child nutrition bill had to be trimmed in the same spirit of budgetary responsibility.
As a result, the bill that came out of conference the second time around was sufficiently lean to attract the support of such conservative Republican senators as Bob Dole of Kansas and Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine), who seems determined to build a record of budgetary responsibility, was also a supporter. The House passed the bill by 380 to 7 and the Senate by a voice vote that sounded overwhelming.
What appeared to have concerned the White House is that the bill permits school children from families 195 per cent above the poverty line to participate at a reduced price in the school lunch program, but that is still a family of four earning $9,770 a year, hardly a princely sum in any event. The administration's claim that the bill will cost an additional $1.2 billion is fanciful arithmetic. In the current fiscal year, the program will cost a little more than $200 million above the present cost of school lunch and child nutrition programs, and in fiscal 1977, the cost is expected to be at most $400 million above present costs. For those increases in cost, the country will gain the benefit of a program that will feed poor pregnant women and their infants nutritious food in the hope that the health of these children will not be permanently damaged by reason of their poverty. It will see to it that school children eat the kind of breakfast that may help them perform better in the classroom. In short, the feeding of hungry children is an investment in the future that we should be glad to make at reasonable coat. It is regrettable that Mr. Ford doesn't agree. His veto should be overridden.