ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 3, 1995                   TAG: 9503030111
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STATES RIGHTS?

AS IF the nutritional requirements of nursing mothers and growing kids were a matter of states' rights, congressional Republicans propose killing the enormously successful Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). They want to send in its place lump sums, of much less money, to the states to do with as they please. They have similarly radical plans for school lunches.

Sorry, but this is one thing with which Newt Gingrich and his allies should not be allowed to play. Feeding children has little to do with devolving power to states; it's been a bipartisan, national priority since the Truman administration. It should remain a priority even in economically depressed states, and even during economic downturns when states may be pressed to reduce benefits as needs rise.

Some reforms, especially of school lunches, are needed. Many federal activities should be sent to the states. But wiping out WIC altogether, and replacing it with 50 separate bureaucracies, makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the food stamp program, which really is abused and remains ripe for overhaul, is untouched because it's a favorite of Republican farm-state lawmakers. What hypocrisy.

As if assuring that pregnant and breast-feeding women and infants get good nutrition, that children growing up in poverty get at least one good meal each day, that young students aren't fidgeting because they are hungry, amounts to anything but an extraordinarily wise investment for America.

The difference in costs to taxpayers between a healthy and a low-birthweight baby, for example, can be enormous. And as Richard Nixon, who expanded these programs, once noted: "A child ill fed is dulled in curiosity, lower in stamina, distracted from learning." 


 by CNB