THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230330
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Celebrating 50 days in power, House Republicans marked the moment Wednesday with a campaign-style rally and legislation taking the first small slice out of domestic spending.
``There's still a ton of work'' to do on the ``Contract With America,'' said Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The GOP began pushing a plan in a key congressional committee to abolish the national school lunch and breakfast programs, ignoring Democrats who said the bill would take food from mothers and children.
The legislation, part of the GOP effort to reform the nation's welfare system and undo 60 years of social policy, would disband several childhood nutrition and day-care programs and return the money to the states in three block grants.
The plan would end a poor child's guarantee to a free or reduced-price school lunch or breakfast and gives the states control over the supplemental feeding program, known as WIC, for pregnant and breast-feeding women, infants and children. National nutrition standards for both programs would be tossed out.
The White House attacked the blueprint as the House Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee opened debate, saying it would cut $5 billion to $7 billion from child nutrition programs and $2.5 billion from day-care services to poor families over five years.
Fourteen million low-income children now receive a free or reduced-price lunch, and 4.9 million of them get breakfast at school. More than 6 million mothers and children supplement their diets with WIC.
President Clinton said the school meals program should be preserved.
``Here's a program that isn't broke, that's done a world of good for millions and millions of children of all races and backgrounds all across our country, and I think it would be a terrible mistake to put an end to it, to gut it, to undermine it,'' Clinton said.
Tempers rose on Capitol Hill as lawmakers took up the bill.
``You ought to be embarrassed at what you're doing to the children in this nation,'' thundered Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.
Democrats charged that the legislation could starve hundreds of thousands of children, imperil the health of their mothers, and let pedophiles and child molesters off the hook by repealing 13 separate child-abuse prevention and adoption programs and sending the money to the states.
Democrats also complained that the measure was being rammed through the committee to meet Gingrich's 100-day deadline for his ``Contract With America.''
But Republicans, in the majority in the House for the first time in 40 years, insisted that the current system does more harm than good and that it was their turn to try something different.
Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pa., the committee's chairman, called the bill ``real change'' and said it would improve the school lunch program by cutting out layers of regulations and paperwork. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Scorecard for Contract with America
Keeping track of the Contract
For complete information, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: WELFARE SOCIAL SERVICES SCHOOL LUNCH NUTRITION
PROGRAM by CNB