House GOP Approps Committee has moved to cut 5.3 Million kids and their breastfeeding Moms from WIC or reduce the benefits of the WIC program for all qualifying children and their Moms. That’s the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) which targets the specific nutritional needs of prenatal and postpartum mothers and their children up to age 5. Congress has full-funded WIC every year since 1997. If the decision holds, it would be the first time the health of babies was sacrificed for so-called fiscal “responsibility.”
The estimated return on investments in WIC is that for every $1 spent in the program, the investment saves $4 in aftercare costs involving longer hospital stays and weak or sick babies. This comes at a time when the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is resulting in thousands of women having babies they weren’t prepared to support. MY RURAL AMERICA opposes these Republican cuts since Rural America’s women and their kids will be hit especially hard because the poverty rate is highest in rural areas, and the distance to travel for natal care and hospital delivery can easily be as much as 80 miles.
Author Catherine Rampell says it best, “Republicans portray their spending cuts as fiscally responsible. In reality, they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”