The King County Exec’s office doesn’t mince words — nor should it — in this press release about what the shutdown is doing to nutrition programs in the county.
Advance layoff notices were sent this morning to 82 King County employees who provide essential nutrition services for Women, Infants and Children, as a consequence of the continuing federal shutdown.
“This self-inflicted, manufactured crisis will interrupt essential nutrition services for
38,000 pregnant women, new mothers, and young children in King County,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine. “They are literally taking food from the mouths of babies.”
As a result of the shutdown, USDA funding in King County and Washington state for the Women, Infants and Children program, known as WIC, will expire on October 31st. The loss of funding will have a total economic impact of up to $30 million dollars a year, including $23 million that goes directly for food for families.
WIC is a federally-funded nutrition program that helps 38,000 women and children in King County eat well, learn about nutrition and stay healthy. The program provides vouchers for nutritious foods and infant formula, health screenings, nutrition and health education, and breastfeeding support. WIC services are provided through Public Health – Seattle & King County clinics and nine community partners, including community health centers, Swedish Medical Center, Neighborhood House and Open Arms.
I can’t even imagine that Republicans think this is OK. And yet they do. They think it’s fine and dandy to starve children because they don’t want their constituents to be able to afford health care.
These sort of cuts are going on everywhere, but since this press release is King County, let’s think of Dave Reichert. He represents some of those children, and their mothers, who won’t have enough to eat. Some of those 38,000 women and children are his constituents and his neighbors in King County.
He says he would vote for a clean CR. And good on him for that. But as far as I can see, he hasn’t done anything to push that vote to the floor. He’s still saying the Democrats are the problem instead of his GOP colleagues having a temper tantrum, so he still thinks shutting down the government is a legit tactic to get legislative concessions, hungry babies be damned. He hasn’t called for a vote, at least publicly. I don’t think he has signed on to the discharge petition that would bring the vote to the floor (I couldn’t find a list of who has). He voted against the Democrats’ parliamentary maneuver to have the vote. It’s more important to him to show some sort of unity with the people holding the government hostage than to feed his neighbors.
WIC babies are immoral because their mothers are poor. Besides, poor mothers can get milk and cheese by raising goats, and can earn cash by renting the goats’ “services” to Mr. Cynical. So they don’t need WIC, which is just featherbedding for farmers.
@1
That’s the Seattle Times solution. Want to know what’s in your food, grow it. Don’t have milk, get a cow. Don’t have meat, raise rabbits.
“This self-inflicted, manufactured crisis”
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha China, Russia, even the damn Taliban, and most of the rest of the world are laughing at our DEBT right now. Or have all you liberals missed that!
17 trillion and counting not to mention the 30 trillion in unfunded liabilities we OWE. If interest rates double on the debt, the government will be shut down permanently.
Get a clue libs, you can’t even afford to bury the military dead right now.
And you want to roll out the unaffordable care act (which by the way has quadrupled in cost since Owebamma’s first claims.
All on top of endless debt. Good Luck!
I sure wish some Democrat would announce she/he was looking to run against that cowardly sheriff so that I could unload some cash.
@2 “Don’t have meat, raise rabbits.”
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
@3 They’re laughing, but not at our debt. Republicans just gave them the best argument against democracy they could possibly have.
By the way, you don’t know squat about how other cultures look at debt. Take the Taliban, for example. They’re all Muslims, and in their religion, reneging on debt is a great sin. They simply wouldn’t understand the attitude of some Republicans that defaulting is no big deal. Put it this way, there are very few deadbeats in Pakistan, at least not live ones.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Muslim. So I’m not necessarily against reneging on the portion of our debt that was run up by Republicans and is owed to Republicans. I’m willing to go halfway with Republicans — I’d consider reneging on their share of the debt, if that’s what they really want to do.
@4 I bought $13,000 of stock today.
Strange how conservatives never complained about the debt when they had control of the checkbook.
Why should republicans care about WIC? It’s just going to “takers” that vote democratic. Republicans are self reliant and that’s their myth and they are going to stick to it.
@3 provide some factual data towards your claims. $350 billion annualy to create homeland security, $100b plus annually to fund two wars, $50b annually to fund Medicare part D, for a total of $500 billion to spend but no tax revenue ever implemented to fund it under Monkey Bush and Republicans. Do you want to talk about debt? How about raising taxes? The rich can afford it including me. Instead the monkey cuts taxes further creating more deficit. Thy second grade math.
And listening to the right wing talk media, they are in a bubble, the president’s approval is going down, nobody of importance is being hurt by the government “slim down”, the default would be no big deal if the democrats would just let some people get paid, all the media that is not fox or conservative talk is just lying. It’s like the rightwing thinking they were going to win the election.
We need to bring back some form of the Fairness Doctrine where pubic airwaves have to be used for the truth.
“As our new NBC/WSJ poll makes clear, the government shutdown has been a disaster for the Republican Party.”
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....stand?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The clown who dropped a loaded handgun on a concrete floor at a public hearing on ex-police chief Mark Kessler’s firing can serve as an analogy for the whole GOP: These guys aren’t just shooting themselves in the foot, they’re blowing their own balls off. Of course, that was to be expected; just give them the opportunity and these morons will do it. Obama has played these stupes like a violin. Yes, it’s cynical politics, but what else can you do with a herd of self-destructive cockroaches?
@3 No. They’re laughing at us because a bunch of self-proclaimed “patriots” with expensive suits and blow-dried hair have paralyzed our government, pissed on the Constitution they were sworn to uphold and protect, and threaten far more damage to our nation than all the bomb-planting, plane-hijacking, Allah-be-praised screaming fanatics ever could.
And you’re an idiot and a God-damned liar.
“Clean CR” is probably teabag-speak for an agreement that turns things back on long enough to prevent most of the retail chains from going broke this Christmas in return for taking a meataxe to Social Security.
I remember not long after the WIC program started, John Carlson referred to it as “taxpayer-funded baby showers for deadbeats” or something to that effect. I believe Carlson eventually changed his tune about that, but the rest of the GOP peanut gallery has continued the war chant about “rewarding irresponsibility” for so long that I’ve heard it parroted by some of my otherwise reliably progressive acquaintances. The flaw in the thinking here is that it’s about the kids, not their parents, and that it’s pretty well established that children who are born to unhealthy mothers and/or don’t get proper nutrition as infants don’t do as well later in life. Then they become the next generation’s problem.
@15 The brain-damaged ones grow up to be Tea Party Republicans.
Now that the Rethugs have effectively accepted Obama’s terms of unconditional surrender — they get to keep their emperor (see below) — the stock market is rebounding nicely. I’ve bought $24,000 of stock, and made $8,000, in the last two days. I always knew they would come around. I just wish the market had gone down a little more before they did.
http://media.photobucket.com/u.....condary%5D
A while back, a stupid troll calling himself “Ten Years After” scoffed when I said it’s easy to make 8% a year in the stock market. (The 8% figure is an investment performance target used by many pension funds.) My raw returns for 2013 to date (i.e., not annualized) are 20.4%. And I didn’t even work at it. A monkey could have made 8% this year — he’d get half of that just from the dividends. Btw, whatever happened to “Ten Years After”? Was he captured and repatriated to the zoo?