Tufts Democrats hosted their ninth annual Issues of the Future Conference in the Alumnae Lounge Friday evening, which focused this year on hunger in America and federal assistance programs.
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) delivered the event's keynote speech.
After some opening remarks from members of Tufts Democrats and event organizer Ethan Finkelstein, a sophomore, McGovern explained why he found hunger to be one of the most troubling issues in the country. Unlike with other societal problems like violence, he said, there are clear ways to end food insecurity.
"We have plenty of food," he said. "We certainly have the expertise and infrastructure to deliver food to people. We know the nutritionists. This is not a situation where we have massive droughts and people starve. We can solve this problem, and it really bothers me that in this country - the land of plentiful - there are so many people who are hungry."
McGovern warned that those who cite national debt as a reason for budget cuts in federal aid forget that the issue is not simple arithmetic, but involves deeper problems within local communities. When kids do not eat, they do not perform as well in school and become sick more often, he said.
Senior citizens, too, end up in emergency rooms more frequently when they take medicine on empty stomachs, according to McGovern.
"Cutting people off of food stamps - cutting people off of assistance where they have shelter - that doesn't alleviate the deficit or the debt," McGovern said. "It just makes another problem."
According to McGovern, the government has a moral obligation to protect those people suffering from hunger. While some people argue that the government should allow the nation's many charity groups to handle the problem on their own, McGovern said he feels that food banks and charities cannot support the growing demand for aid on their own.
The majority of people on assistance programs who are able to work, he said, are working, yet still struggle to meet their needs. He described the situations of a few homeless Massachusetts families that he met on a recent visit to a food bank.
"They earn just above the line, so they don't qualify for some of the state-subsidized programs - but they don't earn anywhere near enough to be able to pay rent," he said.
Despite the fact that these programs are some of the most efficient in the nation, there's a misperception in this country that people on federal assistance programs are often scammers, McGovern said.
"You read about some of these scams in the newspaper because the USDA is going after people who try to scam the system, which is a good thing," he said. "That doesn't mean everybody scams the system. It means they caught one person."
Moving forward, McGovern stressed the importance of allowing struggling people to share their stories with members of Congress, instead of only using facts and figures to make a point.
"When you bring a human being into the office and they tell that member of Congress their story, and they explain how difficult it is, ... it gets members of Congress to start thinking about this in a different way and it shames members of Congress who vote to cut these programs," McGovern said.
After a short break, Lindsey Webb, a soon-to-be graduate of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, restarted the conversation with a description of some of the student groups at the Friedman School that work to eliminate food insecurity, such as Jumbo's Kitchen and the Friedman Justice League. She added that she expects to see more cooperation between Friedman and undergraduate students in the coming years.
Former Dean of the Friedman School Irwin Rosenberg delivered the final remarks, discussing Tufts' legacy in fighting hunger. Jean Mayer, who would later become the president of the university, chaired the influential 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health, which generated about 800 policy recommendations. According to Rosenberg, about 75 percent of those recommendations were eventually enacted into law and policy and gave rise to programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
"It was hugely successful," Rosenberg said. "I think it's an example of how, if there's a way to get into the process, ... there can be some really important outcomes."
