[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WE NEED TO KEEP THE WIC PROGRAM

  (Mrs. SCHROEDER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, just when I think I understand how 
broad-based this war on children is, I continually find it is even 
broader than I knew.
  Yes, this war on children, the first war they have really started to 
pay the rich their tax break, I find unconscionable.
  But this weekend I was shocked because there was a whole aspect I 
never even thought of. As I was visiting an emergency ward to see 
preemie babies in dire need of help--and had their mothers been fed 
through the WIC Program, this would not have happened and would have 
saved us mega bucks--some of the nurses came forward and said, ``Let me 
tell you what they are going to do to us if this bill passes.'' These 
nurses, these wonderful people, had adopted babies that have been 
abandoned at that hospital. They had adopted some with severe 
disabilities, some with HIV. They had filled out these kinds of forms 
to prove medically and every other way that those children were really 
in need. And they were getting SSI payments to help them.
  Nurses do not get paid much. They have now adopted those children. 
They are trying to build families for these children, and we are going 
to take away the SSI payment. Boy, is that heartless.

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