Planned $38-Million Cut Could Trigger Storm

When the first of this year’s spending bills moves to the House floor as early as this week, a tiny item--a $38-million reduction in President Clinton’s request for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program--could set off a political donnybrook.

The Republicans who control the House Appropriations Committee voted last week to halve Clinton’s proposed $76 million in extra spending to pay for nutritious food for poor pregnant women, new mothers and children up to 5 years of age.

Some Democrats, recognizing WIC as one of the most popular federal anti-poverty programs, have already begun to snipe at the Republican move, which came on a bill that would raise $8.4 billion in extra funds for programs ranging from flood relief to overseas peacekeeping missions.

“If I were advising Republicans, I would think this would not be a great place to pick a fight over $38 million in an $8.4-billion bill,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento). “It’s substantively wrong, and it’s politically unwise.”

Although the WIC appropriation has only just begun its course through the legislative maze, the program office that serves 318,000 women and children in Los Angeles and Orange counties is already preparing for the worst: the possibility that it would have to cut as many as 70,000 people from its rolls.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s office, however, insists that no one in the state will lose benefits because more than $100 million is available nationwide in unspent funds from previous years. And, in a real pinch, Wilson’s office says, WIC can draw funds from another Agriculture Department program to serve all those currently on the rolls.

At issue is whether WIC will get a supplemental funding boost in the current 1997 fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30.

With no additional funds, the Clinton administration says, 360,000 beneficiaries would have to be cut from WIC’s current nationwide enrollment of 7.4 million. The extra money is needed because program participation is running higher than expected when Congress included $3.8 billion for WIC last year in the regular Agriculture Department spending bill.

Critics of the Appropriations Committee’s decision to halve Clinton’s request have charged that about 180,000 women and children would lose the vouchers, which they use to buy milk, eggs, infant formula, iron-fortified cereals and other approved foods.

“It’s really devastating,” said Eloise Jenks, director of the WIC office that covers three-fifths of Los Angeles County and a small part of Orange County. “Our staff members are calling us and asking, ‘How can I take this 1-year-old off the rolls?’ ”

Phyllis Bramson-Paul, chief of the WIC program for California, is urging local WIC program managers to prepare early for potential cuts.

“Some have been stopping their outreach, not calling people back to review cases or even discontinuing some cases, as local agencies position themselves for what now looks somewhat likely if not definite,” she said.

Douglas A. Greenaway, executive director of the National Assn. of WIC Directors, said Minnesota was the first state to begin reducing its WIC rolls in anticipation of the cuts. California and seven other states plan to begin the cutting process Thursday.

Most of those being turned away now are recipients who, in the complex pecking order of the WIC program, are considered best able to cope without nutritional supplements.

They include children between the ages of 1 and 5 who are “at nutritional risk because of inadequate diet” but who do not have an identifiable nutrition-related medical problem.

In Los Angeles, Jenks said that in the worst case, her office would almost certainly have to reach beyond children and postpartum women to some pregnant women and infants from 6 to 12 months old.

In Congress, such talk is distinctly unsettling to Republicans, who are still smarting from the political sting they suffered over a proposal to reorganize and scale back the school lunch program in 1995.

“The last thing we want is Republicans being portrayed as anti-WIC,” said Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Elizabeth Morra. “We have always supported the program and will continue to support it. . . . We certainly don’t want to see pregnant women and children going hungry. We want to see everyone taken care of.”

In beating back committee Democrats’ proposal for full funding last Thursday, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, acknowledged the potential political peril of the Republicans’ move.

But he said Congress could not afford to “simply throw money at a program just because it has a nice name.”

A few committee Republicans were less than convinced by that argument.

“What’s the worst thing that happens here?” asked Rep. Michael P. Forbes (R-N.Y.), one of two Republicans who voted for Clinton’s full $76-million request. “We have too much money in the program, so we just have to apply it to the next year. Frankly, in Washington terms, quibbling over $38 million was kind of silly.”

Forbes said, however, that Republicans are ready for criticism from Democrats when the bill goes to the House floor and are better prepared to defend themselves this time than they were when their school-lunch proposal ran into lethal fire.

Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego), for instance, has charged that the White House based its $76-million request on outdated numbers that inflated the apparent need.

Cunningham and others also have pointed out that Congress has given the Agriculture secretary latitude to shift $33 million from a fund for rural development to the WIC program.

In addition, Republicans argue that for several years, the WIC program has carried a yearly surplus of $100 million to $125 million, enough to make up for any shortfall in the 1997 appropriation.

But Jenks, who is also president of the National Assn. of WIC Directors, said each year’s surplus was routinely circulated back into the program the following year. The calculation that shows WIC with a $76-million nationwide shortfall already counts on the carry-over funds from last year.

She also warned that the standard federal formula for disbursing supplemental WIC funds to the states could leave California with none of the $38 million in the Appropriations Committee bill.

The formula gives top priority to states that are serving a low proportion of their eligible populations.

California, Jenks said, serves a sufficiently high proportion that it might qualify for none of the $38 million.

Times staff writer Virginia Ellis in Sacramento contributed to this story.