Jack Kingston: “we are not here to talk about the merits of WIC, we are not here to talk about feeding children. Indeed, this committee…”

“we are not here to talk about the merits of WIC, we are not here to talk about feeding children. Indeed, this committee has supported WIC to the tune of full funding last year, $3.7 billion. This committee has supported increasing WIC $36 million. This committee has supported increasing funding in the carryover up to $147 million. Also this committee, to make sure, has asked the USDA what their numbers are. I have the numbers here. They are open to anybody. The number of participants at the additional $36 million is 7.4 million. The number of participants at the $76 million is 7.4. In addition, we even had an April 11, 1997, memo from Mary Ann Keeffe, the Acting Undersecretary of Food and Consumer Services, that states that she believes the State projections of 7.4 million is optimistic, and that the USDA budget assumptions of 7.2 are more realistic. In either case, Mr. Chairman, we are covered without spending additional dollars. My question would be, to my friend across the aisle, would she support an amendment to make sure we are only feeding children and not bureaucrats, that stipulates that none of this money can be used for the bureaucracy? Because it is time we start talking a little bit about the WIC bureaucracy. It is 25 percent of the overhead, which means they will get $15 million of this vote today, $15 million goes to bureaucrats, not children.”