Plenty of money to give tax cuts to the rich. Not enough money to feed poor kids

The Republican’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” (BBB) is big, and it sure is beautiful, if you’re in the upper 1% income group and you don’t give a hoot about what happens to those less fortunate.

Today’s headline:

WIC food assistance program for moms and children could run out of funds if shutdown persists

Oct. 2, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT

By Aria Bendix

Because Wednesday marked the start of the 2026 fiscal year, the WIC program — which provides free, healthy food to low-income pregnant women, new moms and children under 5— was due for an influx of funding.

Instead came the government shutdown.

If it persists, access to the federal program, known in full as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, could be jeopardized. A USDA letter to WIC state agency directors on Wednesday confirmed that states would not receive their next quarterly allocation of funds during the shutdown.

According to the National WIC Association, a nonprofit advocacy organization that represents state and local WIC agencies, “devastating disruptions” may deny millions of moms and children access to nutritious foods if the government remains closed for longer than a week or two.

WIC — a program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture — serves roughly 6.8 million people. It receives funding from Congress, which the USDA then allocates to stateson a quarterly basis.

From there, states distribute it to WIC clinics, of which there are roughly 10,000 nationwide. The clinics distribute preloaded cards that members use to purchase program-approved healthy foods at participating grocery stores. New moms can also purchase infant formula and receive lactation counseling.

Barbie Anderson, a mother of three who is pregnant, said she has relied on WIC to purchase healthy food since her oldest child was born nine years ago. Her family lives paycheck to paycheck in Milaca, Minnesota, she added, and the program helps them afford fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk, peanut butter and yogurt. She has also used it for breastfeeding support, she said.

Under normal circumstances, Anderson said, her WIC card would be reloaded on Oct. 15. She’s unsure if that will happen now.

“All the food that we get from WIC goes to our kids. So you’re really harming the kids” if services pause, she said.

During the shutdown, states will have to rely on up to $150 million in contingency funds from the USDA to continue offering services, along with a small amount of rollover funding from the previous fiscal year in some cases, according to the National WIC Association.

The group warned that the funding could dry up in a week or two if the shutdown persists, depending on how states allocate it. 

A USDA spokesperson told NBC News that WIC’s continued operation will depend on “state choice and the length of a shutdown.”

It will be interesting to see which states choose to keep funding and which states choose to end funding.

And while you ponder that one, here’s the phony political statement from the federal agency, USDA:

“If Democrats do not fund the government, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) will run out of funding and States will have to make a choice,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Get it? The Republicans and their “Big Beautiful Bill” rushed to feed the rich, but decided not to feed the poor, so now it has fallen on the Democrats to “fund the government.”

However, some House Democrats say the federal government has the power to keep WIC afloat — if the USDA commits to replenishing state funds used during the shutdown after it ends. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., called on the USDA to do that.

The Democrats offer a solution that apparently the Republicans didn’t consider or didn’t want. We’ll see if the Republican-dominated Congress goes for it, or prefers to keep blaming the Dems for the BBB’s shortcomings.

The ability of WIC clinics to keep functioning will likely vary by state. Brandon Meline, director of maternal and child health at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, said he was told that Illinois (a blue state) clinics have sufficient money to last through the month.

We’ll leave you with these thoughts:

1. The debt ceiling is an artificial construct that lacks real fiscal significance, but it has genuine consequences. Unfortunately, it is children and mothers who suffer from the bad decisions made by Congress.
2. The federal government has sufficient funds to support those in need and can never run short of dollars.
3. Additional federal taxes are not necessary to fund programs like WIC (Women, Infants, and Children).
4. If Congress and the President chose to do so, they could finance all their initiatives without imposing any taxes or accumulating what is often referred to as “debt.”
5. Simply by voting, the funds would become instantly available.

Your Representatives and Senators will now enter their extreme bullshit stage, where each party blames the other for a useless, harmful program they both have created and supported in the past.

Today, the only honest person in Washington regarding the debt limit, ironically, is America’s biggest liar, Donald Trump. He wants to get rid of it.

But he isn’t pushing that idea too hard, lest his MAGA zombies actually do it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

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MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

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