Congress’ failure to include extra aid money for low-income moms and babies in last week’s spending bill sets up a potential showdown early next year.
At stake: whether the government will have to begin turning away large numbers of mothers and their children from the program, known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, breaking with decades of precedent.
Unlike other federal nutrition programs, WIC funding has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support, with Republicans and Democrats committed to ensuring every eligible mother and baby who applies for the program can receive benefits. That consensus is now fraying, with House Republicans pushing to pare back WIC spending this year, arguing tough cuts are needed across the government amid the nation’s mounting debt.
The result, advocates and state-based WIC administrators fear, is that they may have to begin putting people on waitlists to receive aid like breastfeeding support, […]
If the budget needs to be pared I get it; however, what you will note is that it is domestic programs supporting the population which are front and center in the discussion for trimming. The war budget is not even mentioned, as if it doesn’t exist. This while you will soon see congress debate billions upon billions of “emergency” bi-partisan military aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. This is how empire works.