David Obey: “2 years ago this Congress had a major fight because the majority wanted to cut school lunches. Last year the majority…”

“2 years ago this Congress had a major fight because the majority wanted to cut school lunches. Last year the majority tried to cut the WIC program, which is a nutrition program for infants and young mothers. In this bill they are again falling some $30 million short in the WIC Program of what would be required to maintain our existing case load. What happens in this bill is that the committee is attempting to bring the carryover funds down to around 3 percent or less. That creates a problem because this program needs a certain amount of carryover funds in order to pay the reimbursements that come in after the end of the fiscal year. OMB and USDA both estimate that without this amendment that I am offering tonight that we run the risk of seeing 55,000 women, children, and infants bounced out of the WIC Program. Basically what we do is to restore that funding and pay for it by reducing the increase in this bill, which the committee provided above the administration request for commissions for crop insurance. Before anybody has a heart attack and says, oh, do not hurt our farmers, I want to make quite clear, this amendment will in no way hurt farmers.”