Lois Capps: “I thank my colleague for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the Agriculture…”

“I thank my colleague for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the Agriculture appropriations bill. Instead of helping Americans hit hardest by the recent recession today, we are debating a Republican spending bill that guts critical nutrition programs which literally put food on the table so that millions of low-income women, children, and seniors don't go hungry. This bill hurts low-income seniors through cuts to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. It cuts The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which could cause our local food banks to close their doors. And it slashes the budget of the Women, Infants, and Children, WIC, program, the effects of which will leave hundreds of thousands of women and children without adequate nutrition. WIC not only keeps our low-income families from hunger, but by emphasizing adequate nutrition, the program reduces the incidence of low birth-weight babies, combats the childhood obesity epidemic, and promotes school readiness by giving children the nutritional building blocks their brains need to develop at a critical stage. Moreover, as it links these families to the local health infrastructure, it also increases child immunization rates. These benefits are not just to the child and the family. In fact, the program reduces overall health care costs. For every $1 invested in WIC, we save about $2 to $3 in health care costs just in the first 2 months of life. This is an incredible feat.…”