[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 36 (Monday, February 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2227-H2228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PROTECT CHILD NUTRITION PROGRAMS

  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to come to the floor to talk 
about children. As you know, I used to chair the Select Committee on 
Children, Youth and Families, and I just returned from Denver where 
people are really very troubled by what is happening to children in 
this new talk about block granting school lunches, money for WIC, and 
money for non-school child care.
  I am very, very proud that in my State we have what is called the 
Colorado Children's Campaign. A year ago they started something that 
has been carried on here, this year, by people advocating for these 
programs.
  What they did was dress dolls and then tied a story of a real 
Colorado child around that doll's neck, to talk about how these 
programs really do affect children.
  For example, here is one that was made by a Coloradan. This young 
child's name is Wayne. He is 6 months old. He has a big sister. His 
mother does not want him. So therefore let me tell you what happened to 
Wayne. Wayne went to grandma. Grandma decided she did not want this 
little boy. He is now in foster care. This is a child who is going to 
be dependent upon nutrition services or he is going to not be well 
raised. I think that is very, very important.
  They also brought this little girl. This little girl's name is Susan. 
Her dad left her mom. Her mom went on welfare. Her mom got job 
training, finally found a job, and Susan is now in child care. But that 
child care center receives food from the U.S. Agriculture Department, 
and that is part of the food that we are talking about block granting.
  Now, many of my constituents were trying to move these around the 
Hill last week and felt very intimidated. People were telling them 
these dolls were not welcomed in committees, they were not welcomed in 
the Halls of Congress, because people wanted to be able to cut these 
programs and not realize what they were really doing.
  We talk about numbers, but behind every one of these numbers is a 
child who is not fortunate enough to be able to pick its parents. 
Therefore, they are in real trouble if this country backs down on the 
commitment we have made for the last 50 years to nutrition and making 
sure that every American child gets a good start.
  You know, James Baldwin said it better than any of us. He said these 
are all our children, and we will all either profit by or pay for 
whatever they become.
  I think that was the motto that started this whole area of child 
nutrition programs. We know Harry Truman started it in 1946 after they 
were horrified by the level of malnutrition they saw of young men 
applying to fight during World War II. So as a consequence, it has 
grown and grown.
  We now have some very disturbing statistics from the Department of 
Agriculture about what will happen if this Congress moves to implement 
the block grants that we are talking about. If we implement those block 
grants, we know that the WIC Program would immediately cut out 275,000 
recipients today. If you compared it to what is in the President's 
budget, it would be over 400,000 recipients. These are low-income women 
that are getting food to try and make sure that their child is born 
safely.
  Now, that is very important, because in my State of Colorado we have 
more babies born too small to be healthy this year than any other year 
since 1976. So our hope had been they would be expanding this program. 
We know that nutrition during pregnancy is a critical, critical 
problem, and if we do not feed them, then we end up with all sorts of 
developmental problems later on.
  If you look at the school lunch program, in my city of Denver there 
is about 70 percent of the kids, 70 percent of the kids in Denver, CO, 
qualifying for subsidized lunch programs. That is because so many of 
the middle class kids have left.
  Well, if this goes into effect, many children are going to be pushed 
out or there will be no national nutritional standards. Instead you are 
going to have 50 different States doing whatever 
 [[Page H2228]] they want to do, with no monitoring and being able to 
spend the money however they want.
  I think Americans have been proud of the school lunch program. It has 
been a program that works, it has been a program that has been 
efficient, it has had national standards, and we have seen the results 
through our military recruitment. I would hope this body reconsiders 
what happens and try to undo some of the damage we have seen by the 
block grants that are coming forward.


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