Charles W. Stenholm: “it is a pleasure today to rise to mark the 25th anniversary of the WIC program, the women, infants and children. I am…”

“it is a pleasure today to rise to mark the 25th anniversary of the WIC program, the women, infants and children. I am proud to join my colleagues in support of this very valuable and extremely successful program. Several years ago when I served on the Committee on the Budget I had the opportunity to hear several CEOs of Fortune 500 companies testify in support of the WIC program. These executives talked about the difficulties they had in finding a qualified work force and the amount of money they had to spend to educate and retrain their employees. They told us that while improving our educational system was an important part of the solution, our educational system can only do so much if the child is not prepared to learn by the time they reach school age. These executives came to the conclusion that in order to find solutions to the problems they were facing and other problems facing society, we had to begin at the beginning and make sure children start out their lives with the nutrition they need to develop. That conclusion is what brought these CEOs to the Committee on the Budget, and it is what brings me to the floor today. We continue to learn more each day about the importance of the first 3 years of life in the development of the brain. Common sense tells us that ensuring that children have proper nutrition at this critical period in their lives will reap benefits for all of us as these children grow into adulthood.”