Women and children (cut) first

Bush’s proposed 2008 spending on the Women, Infants and Children program (which provides food vouchers to low-income women and their children up to age 5) would leave roughly half a million people in the lurch. The price of food and milk has soared, but Bush’s budget isn’t keeping pace.

Doug Greenaway, executive director of the National WIC Association, which represents state and local agencies, said states probably would deter new applicants and cut new mothers, rather than pregnant women and children.
“Once the word gets out on the street that the program is in some kind of funding jeopardy, people will say, ‘Wow, there isn’t an opportunity for me to participate,’ ” Greenaway said. “It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Depressing.