GREENFIELD — For Congressman James McGovern, widespread food insecurity among the poorest members of society isn’t a matter of having enough money, or enough food.
It’s a matter of convincing the nation’s leadership to take action to help those people get access to those resources — something that’s not happening, he told a group of about 75 at Greenfield Community College on Wednesday night.
McGovern, D-Worcester, was the featured speaker at a forum on issues surrounding hunger, hosted by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts’ Task Force to End Hunger in Western Massachusetts. The task force was launched in January to tackle issues surrounding hunger and poverty.
McGovern told attendees that he considers the country’s current political atmosphere and gridlock in Washington the main reason why hunger and food insecurity has become such a problem in the United States today.
“Hunger is a political condition,” McGovern said. “We have the resources, we have the infrastructure, we have the food, everything to end hunger in this country except the political will. That’s what makes this issue so maddening.”
McGovern said the narratives during debates on Capitol Hill are not grounded in reality, with some of his colleagues making scapegoats of the poorest members of society by characterizing them as lazy and unwilling to work.
“The reality is the majority of people on (the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) are children. Of those who can work, the majority work,” he said. “Wouldn’t you think the discussion should be about how to make sure work pays enough so that people don’t have to rely on government assistance to put food on the table? But people don’t want to go there.”
McGovern told attendees, many of whom were local officials, members of social service agencies or local food producers, that their work is crucial for families who must find other places to get support amid cuts and inaction in Congress. He pointed to efforts to dial back summer feeding and school lunch programs and making SNAP a block grant program, opening the money up to the discretion of the governors who receive it.
“They don’t even have to spend it on hunger if they don’t want to,” he said. “We’re trying to fight that.”
McGovern decried congressional efforts to deny waivers to states whose exemptions for cutting “able-bodied” people “without dependents” off from SNAP — a provision of the federal Welfare Reform Act suspended during the 2008 financial crisis that took effect again earlier this year in many states, including Massachusetts.
He also called for ending stigmatization and belittlement of the poor. “All of us are a job or a medical emergency away from a catastrophe where we end up with nothing. People need help — now.”
During a question-and-answer session, McGovern said he hopes to begin bringing together officials high in the federal government to develop a national plan to end hunger, and to expand rather than contract food assistance programs and benefits to match the rising cost of living.
“When you talk about expanding the federal poverty guidelines, the resistance is that it’ll cost us money, and it will in the short term,” he said. “But in the long term, it’ll save us money.”
McGovern said he would like to take a crack at revising the Welfare Reform Act to include more access to job-training programs so that people who transition from welfare to work do not remain hungry.
McGovern is recognized as a prominent and active advocate for the poor and hungry , making fighting hunger a cornerstone of his political efforts in Congress and recently being recognized for his work in that field by the James Beard Foundation. He makes speeches each week on the House floor about different aspects of hunger.