Donald M. Payne: “I ask my colleagues to vote against any language in the Agriculture appropriations bill that would seek to cut funding…”

“I ask my colleagues to vote against any language in the Agriculture appropriations bill that would seek to cut funding for the WIC program. As you know, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, WIC, makes it possible for vulnerable children to have a healthy start. The Republican cuts will deny many children a chance to receive nutritious food by cutting WIC funding from $6.73 billion this year to $6.05 billion in 2012. This cut is a cut of more than $650 million below the fiscal level of 2011. And this is much less than the continuing cost of the high-end Bush tax cuts, oil company tax breaks, and various other write-offs for well-to-do taxpayers or powerful corporations. If we allow these cuts to take place, approximately 200,000 to 300,000 women and children nationwide will lose WIC benefits next year. In fact, in the State of New Jersey, approximately 4,000 to 6,000 low-income families will be turned away by WIC. This is very alarming to me because these cuts will negatively impact a substantial number of low- income women and children in my district. As a former public school teacher in the inner city of Newark, New Jersey, I witnessed firsthand the effects of hunger and malnutrition on children trying to learn. When they came to school to take tests, they couldn't concentrate. They were unable to really focus on what they had before them. The reality is this: If a child is hungry, he simply cannot learn.…”