Carol Shea-Porter: “I thank you, Congresswoman Maloney, for the chance to speak about the damage that the Ryan budget would do to women and…”

“I thank you, Congresswoman Maloney, for the chance to speak about the damage that the Ryan budget would do to women and to families. There are a couple of points. The new Ryan budget and the cuts to discretionary programs and the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid guarantees would disproportionately affect the women and children who are already suffering this year because of the sequestration. The Ryan budget would dismantle the SNAP food program just like it does Medicare. About two-thirds of the SNAP benefits go to families with children. They rely on this. The Ryan budget would roll back affordable health care provisions, bringing back gender-rating and allowing preexisting conditions like pregnancy and domestic violence. Discretionary spending programs have already seen sequester cuts that will force women and families in need off of programs that help them. The Republican budget would further decimate these programs. The special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, the WIC program, is one of our most successful and essential nutrition programs. Sequester will drop about 600,000 women and children from this program. Under the Republican budget, even more babies and mothers would be kicked off. The new budget's enormous cuts would do even more than the sequester has done to destroy jobs and hurt our economic recovery.…”