[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H1958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         WOMEN, INFANTS, AND CHILDREN PROGRAM SHOULD NOT BE CUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, as I have been moving around in 
the last few days and I have looked to see that the Sun was shining, I 
was under the impression that we were embarking upon a new season, the 
beginning of spring, and that we would see fresh ideas, that we would 
see coming to life new feelings of inclusiveness. But then I had a rude 
awakening.
  I was awakened when the House Committee on Appropriations voted to 
cut the WIC Program, a program that is designed to benefit women, 
infants, and children; a program that is designed to provide nutrition, 
nutritional aid, to women, infants, and children; individuals who in 
many instances are disadvantaged, in many instances do not have the 
basic resources to meet the food requirements to grow up healthy, to 
have a healthy body, to have a healthy mind.
  Oftentimes they do not have the resources that will put them on an 
even playing field with all the other members of our society, and it is 
hard for me to imagine how one could cut or how a group could cut 
something as important, something as basic, something that is so 
greatly needed as a program to provide food for individuals in need.
  I would hope that as spring continues to emerge, that there might be 
a rebirth of ideas and there might be another way of looking at things; 
there might be another way of looking at the priorities of our Nation, 
the priorities that would say every person, no matter who he or she 
might be, would have an opportunity to grow up, to live in a country, 
to live in a society, the most technologically proficient Nation of the 
world, the wealthiest Nation of the world, which should be able to make 
sure that its neediest citizens are provided basic food.
  So I would urge that as we move ahead, that the Members of this body 
would look differently at this issue than we saw the Committee on 
Appropriations look, and that the Members of this body would recognize 
that unless all of us can be healthy, it really reduces the health of 
each one of us; that unless all of us who need food can be fed, it 
reduces the feeling of each one of us; and that unless America, this 
Nation, can demonstrate that it understands how to look after the needs 
of its old, the needs of its young, and the needs of those who 
oftentimes cannot care for themselves, then we would never experience 
the potential greatness that this Nation has, we will never become the 
America that we can be.

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