Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., left, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-N.Y., at microphone, and Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, joined anti-hunger advocates at a press conference Tuesday to protest the House Republican plan to cut $39 billion from the food stamp program. Standing behind them, from left, are Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, chef Tom Colicchio, member of the Food Policy Action board, and Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

House Democrats and anti-hunger advocates on Tuesday said they need 20 Republican votes to defeat a bill that would cut $39 billion from food stamps over the next 10 years.

The bill — the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act — was developed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and is scheduled to go before the House Rules Committee today, with a vote expected Thursday. Cantor’s goal was to cut $40 billion over 10 years, but the Congressional Budget Office has scored the bill at $39 billion. Without cuts, the budget is expected to cost $760 billion.

At a news conference on the grounds of the Capitol, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she could not understand why the House is taking up a bill that “undermines” the nation’s concept of itself.

She noted that some people “pray on Sunday and prey on other people during the week,” but that she believes that there are Republicans “who follow their beliefs throughout the week” and will vote against the bill.

“We’re optimistic we can win this vote,” Pelosi said, adding that perhaps she is seeking divine intervention.

Asked whether it would be worth passing the bill so that the farm bill could go to conference, Pelosi said the Republicans “have other ways to get to conference.”

The farm-program-only farm bill can be used as a vehicle to start the conference, she noted.

“We need a farm bill. Farmers need a farm bill, consumers need a farm bill,” Pelosi said. All the House Democrats voted against the farm-program-only farm bill, and she said that bill “was not a good thing” but it is still “a path to conference.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a former chairman of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, said that “it would be immoral to ratify a $40 billion dollar cut.” Noting that 49 million Americans were in danger of hunger last year, DeLauro said, “We are talking about people who are living on the edge.”

Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, the ranking member of the House subcommittee in charge of food stamps — formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP — said “it is beyond me” why the Republicans want to “lower funding for what has become the first line of defense for hungry people.”

Fudge, who will manage the bill for the Democrats on the House floor, told The Hagstrom Report she is “very disturbed” that the Republicans are bringing up “something this important” without a single subcommittee or full House Agriculture Committee hearing on the measure. She said the decision to bring it up without a hearing “shows disdain for people in need and for me too.”

She added that, “as a person I like [Rep.] Steve King,” her subcommittee chairman, but wishes that he would hold a hearing.

Fudge said she had been told that House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., would manage the bill on the House floor. A Lucas spokeswoman later confirmed that Lucas would manage the bill on the floor even though Cantor developed it after a comprehensive farm bill failed, partly because tea party Republicans were dissatisfied with the committee bill’s $20.5 billion cut to food stamps over 10 years.

Fudge chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, whose foundation’s annual Washington conference is this weekend. But Fudge said her first priority will be the debate on the nutrition bill.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., noted that as a member of the House Rules Committee he thinks the process of developing the 109-page bill without a hearing “stinks.”

McGovern urged Republicans to remember former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and the late Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo., who fought against hunger.

“Please don’t do this,” McGovern said. “Don’t put church pantries into a deeper hole.”

McGovern added he hopes “there is time to convince the Republican leadership to pull this bill from the floor.”

Tom Colicchio, a New York chef active in the anti-hunger movement, said, “We need 20 House [Republican] members to do the right thing.”

David Beckmann, the Lutheran minister who heads Bread for the World, told The Hagstrom Report he has a list of eight Republicans who are going to vote against the bill, and that he is hoping others will follow.

Beckmann said the value of “all of the charitable feeding” in the country is $5 billion per year, which means that the $3.9 billion annual cut to food stamps would negate most of their work and send more people to the food banks.

Half the cuts would take food stamps away from people who live alone and have an annual income of only $2,500 per year, he noted.

Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group and head of Food Policy Action, a group formed to keep records of how legislators vote on agriculture issues, said his organization would score this bill. Cook said the vote is the most important vote on nutrition “in a generation,” and “will stand out as one that is critically important.”