Republicans need to remove the term "pro-life" from their vocabularies because in the ranks of conservatism, there ain't no such thing. A new CNN story highlights that yet again, as families grapple with the possible loss of federal food assistance benefits, House Republicans are demanding budget cuts, and whenever a Republican says "budget cuts," you can tack on "targeting children and the poor" and you'll be right nine times out of 10.
This particular move is the sort of rote dickishness that makes House Republicans tick. Now that pandemic emergency aid programs have largely been wound down, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—otherwise known as WIC—is seeing a sharp spike in enrollments. There have been roughly 600,000 new enrollments in the past few months, which spurred the Biden administration to request an additional $1.4 billion for the program.
Enter House Republicans and new Speaker Mike Johnson, who are of the opinion that the government shouldn't be helping to feed babies. This isn't about "well, those babies need to learn to work" or some grand principle; Republicans want to see cuts, and when Republicans look for cuts, it's programs for the poor and for children that they look to slash first.
House Republicans, who are intent on slashing spending, have proposed reducing WIC funding to $5.5 billion, which would be $185 million less than last year’s level and $800 million less than the Senate’s appropriations bill would provide.
The House would also cut back the program’s enhanced fruits and vegetables benefit, which was initially authorized by the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and then renewed with bipartisan support in subsequent appropriations bills. Enrollees would receive between $11 and $15 a month to purchase fresh produce in fiscal year 2024, down from $25 to $49.
See, this is why "dickishness" appears to be the only appropriate term. There's no question that enrollment in the program is spiking. Republicans have also been positively frothy about inflation, which has noticeably bumped up food costs for American families. But the argument here is that children in food-insecure households don't deserve $25 to $49 a month in fresh produce; those families can surely make do with $11 to $15 a month.
You get one trip to the produce aisle per month, new moms. Enjoy.
What makes cuts like these so asinine is that—just like the House Republican demands to defund the IRS in order to limit the agency’s ability to collect taxes from wealthy cheats—cuts to food assistance, housing assistance, and similar programs cost Americans more in the long run than providing the aid to begin with. Boosting child nutrition means those children will have fewer health problems in the long term; fewer health problems means fewer medical bills later on. Unless the nation intends to let its sick children die in ditches—which, admittedly, is where conservatism has long been headed—then handing over $25 a month for some actual, nonprocessed food is a damn fine investment.
But no. No, that's not the Speaker Mike Johnson way. That's not the conservative way; if it were up to House Republicans, we'd erase all the food aid completely, then once a year or so, every politician would tweet a thoughts and prayers toward their victims before packing up for a long August break.
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