Miriam and Michael Kurland: Congress must fully fund WIC

If Congress fails to fully fund WIC, the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, by Jan. 19, states will need to reduce WIC participation by about 2 million young children and pregnant and postpartum adults nationwide by September, with harm falling disproportionately on Black and Hispanic families.

Without full funding, WIC would face a roughly $1 billion shortfall this year.

Extensive research has found WIC to be a cost-effective investment that strengthens both our local and national economy and improves the nutrition and health of hard-working low-income families — leading to healthier infants, more nutritious diets and better health care for children, and subsequently to higher academic achievement for students.

In a nation where the richest people and corporations pay relatively little of the taxes they should, and with the vast majority of hard-working people’s tax money going to the military-industrial complex, more and more people need the healthy foods that WIC allows them to purchase. It is a crime that members of Congress find it legitimate to spend trillions of dollars on weapons to kill instead of feeding our own people who are struggling to survive in this overgrown, expensive, hardship given system.

Miriam and Michael Kurland

Williamsburg