Low-income mothers in North Carolina are going to have to find a new source of formula for their babies. The state has stopped issuing vouchers for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) thanks to the government shutdown. While 80 percent of North Carolina women on WIC have already gotten their October vouchers, around 50,000 have not. That includes women like Chelsea Combs and Shakila Lewis:
"I got no actual notification from anyone," the 21-year-old nursing student said in an interview. Combs has two cans of formula in the cupboard and had planned to pick up WIC vouchers for seven more cans next month. She said she and her husband, who works full time for a builder supply company, will eat more Ramen noodles or reach out to a private charity for help if the shutdown continues. [...]
Lewis, who is a nursing student and part-time home health care aide, said she thought it was ridiculous the government shutdown would actually take food from a baby. The program provides separate vouchers for healthy adult food and baby food.
"They could have took the vouchers away from us –- we can get the stuff we need," Lewis said. "At least leave the vouchers for the babies."
Local food banks are trying to fill the gap, but the state has high unemployment and a shredded safety net to begin with, so this is one more burden on an already strained system. Just as within these families, parents who work hard for not enough money while raising babies are now facing the added burden of seeking charity or sacrificing their own diets.
A sane or humane politician would look at this and be appalled. But that's not the Republican Party we have today. It's more than clear where these women and their babies rank on the Republican priority list—nowhere near war memorials, that's for sure.