Making Policies for Children A Study of the Federal Process (1982) / Chapter Skim
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The Special Supplemental Food Progam for Women, Infants, and Children
The Special Supplemental Food Progam for Women, Infants, and Children
Pages 85-150
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From page 85... ...
It pursues the historical strands that led to the creation of WIC, from the New Deal to the Great Society programs of the 1960s. This chapter then focuses on WIC's direct antecedent, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which was initiated in 1968.
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From page 86... ...
The USDA also began to provide lunch milk to school children for a penny or free of charge in mid-1940 and expanded their distribution to 417,000 children in 18 months.3 The great expansion of federally supported school lunches did not occur until late 1940. In August of that year, the WPA and the Surplus Marketing Administration of the USDA issued a directive to all regional, state, and local personnel involved in federal food programs.
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From page 87... ...
The Bureau of Home Economics (later the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics) published over 50 pamphlets in the 1940s dealing specifically with school lunches.
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From page 88... ...
farm surplus during peacetime." A USDA memorandum stressed malnutrition as evidenced by the high rates of draft rejections. In sum, Wichard and the USDA had, by 1943, not only presented all the arguments that would be offered subsequently to support the program but had also identified in their choice of a child nutrition committee all the important elements of what came to be the political coalition for feeding children.7 The complex preparation for maintaining a lunch program developed out of a postwar planning commission on agriculture that met in July 1943.
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From page 89... ...
over administrative jurisdiction of the proposed School Lunch Program (SLP)
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From page 90... ...
The committee ignored his comment ana all other suggestions to modify or expand federal aid based on nutritional need beyond the lunch program. Such innovations from the depression era as food stamps and the school milk program were not revitalized.
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From page 91... ...
4 The School Lunch Act of 1946 set the basic terms under which the lunch program operated into the early 1960s. Funding for the first decade remained around $80 million per year.
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From page 92... ...
The result was a revival of the depression era school milk program, renamed the Special Milk Program, a $50-million "domestic disposal program" to ease dairy surplus by providing subsidized milk to school children in addition to lunch milk. When the SMP came up for a supplementary appropriation and renewal in January 1956, the USDA proposed a 20 percent increase in the appropriation and an expansion of the program into nonschool areas devoted to children.
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From page 93... ...
The lunch program purchased $750 million in agricultural products. One of every three school children ate SLP lunches.
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From page 94... ...
In public opinion polls, food stamp programs (and by inference other feeding programs) enjoyed much greater popular approbation than either cash subsidies for the poor or price supports for farmers (see Appendix A)
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From page 95... ...
In defense of this cut he added, "Why subsidize milk for wealthy Montgomery County school children"' He sought to restrict the SMP to needy children and schools without any lunch program. Aside from the losses to the dairy industry, the only problem the Bureau of the Budget foresaw was that schools with few needy children might drop the SMP if federal reimbursement were available only for the needy.
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From page 96... ...
Although direct distribution of commodities did precede and continue as a noninstitutional, in-kind nutritional aid to children and poor families in general, the FSP was the only federal program that provided noncommodity nutritional assistance to children outside an institutional context.25 In 1967, the year following passage of the Child Nutrition Act, Agriculture Secretary Freeman testified before the House Agriculture Committee for expansion of the FSP and extension of the SLP into preschool and nonschool child care institutions serving needy children. He spoke of the "dual objectives" of the programs: "(1)
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From page 97... ...
Finally, he proposed $15 million "supplementary commodity packages to improve the diets of 150,000 mothers, 100,000 infants, and 200,000 young children. n2 9 This final proposal became the centerpiece of the administration's response.30 Why the Supplemental Food Program (SFP)
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From page 98... ...
Physicians, nurses, or "other competent personnel" would prescribe nutritious food packages for pregnant women, infants, and preschool children who qualified for family food assistance. Initial plans called for an annual expenditure of $7.3 million to reach 250,000 people in fiscal 1969.
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From page 99... ...
He proposed expansion of the FSPs into every American county, consolidation of the USDA's food programs into a new Food and Nutrition Service, and a pilot voucher program within the SFP "to eliminate some of the logistical problems involved in providing the supplemental food packages by taking full advantage of the private food marketing system.
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From page 100... ...
These findings reinforced the resolve of Lyng and Food and Nutrition Service Director Edward Hekman to consolidate the SFP with food stamps or, at the very least, make it into a voucher program.4 2 Thus, between February and May 1970, the USDA announced the start of pilot food certificate programs in five different areas. It also commissioned a study of the pilot program by David Call of Cornell University's Graduate School of Nutrition.4 3 In April 1970 the USDA prohibited any expansion of supplemental food programs into counties in which the newer FSP operated.
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From page 101... ...
From the study the Food and Nutrition Service concluded that the pilot program "significantly influenced neither
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From page 102... ...
The Food and Nutrition Service expanded a few supplemental food programs and, employing a regulatory nuance, ceased to close programs in food stamp counties of key Southern states. A few foods previously removed from the packages were restored.
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From page 103... ...
HEW provided research funds to the Committee on Maternal Nutrition of the National Research Council's Food and Nutrition Board for a series of studies on prenatal nutrition. In 1970 the Food and Nutrition Board published a major report, Maternal Nutrition and the Course of Pregnancy, making seven major recommendations: (1)
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From page 104... ...
Humphrey's involvement as vice president in foreign food aid and his general humanitarian concerns for hungry children made him receptive to the proposed program, and he agreed to introduce it.s 2 During hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General Legislation on H.R. 14896, the child nutrition bill, Humphrey submitted an
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From page 105... ...
Several local administrators of supplemental food programs added ~ he i r car t to the WTC amendment. Thornton and Leonard displayed photographs and X rays dramatizing brain damage from severe infant malnutrition and showed a film about the infant nutrition program at St.
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From page 106... ...
The conference committee retained the program, and both chambers approved the amended child nutrition bill. WIC survived, but only as a two-year experimental program subject to a rigorous evaluation prior to any extension or expansion.58 In many respects the WIC legislation was unique among children's feeding programs.
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From page 107... ...
Veneman that the medical orientation and the need for medical evaluation were "far beyond the abilities or resources of the Department of Agriculture," he offered the WIC program to HEW as part of its maternal and child health programs.6 2 Although enthusiastic in their support of the WIC program, HEW concluded that no legal basis for the transfer existed, and the appropriate congressional committees were unwilling to provide one. Health personnel from HEW did offer to help the Food and Nutrition Service design the program and its evaluation.
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From page 108... ...
Hardman recounted the relationship of malnutrition to brain cell deficiency and the relative costs of preventive nutrition and hospital care. She quoted physicians attacking the USDA's reductions in supplemental food packages and limitations on food stamp allotments.
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From page 109... ...
The annualized expenditure would be $80 million by the end of fiscal 1974, and a $20 million program would be quadrupled in size .6 9 In June 1973, Pollack and Schwartz filed a class action suit on behalf of potential WIC beneficiaries in the District of Columbia federal court. Submitting affidavits from Humphrey and other members, they sought to prove that Congress intended to feed needy pregnant women and infants with the authorized funds, not to sponsor a small, complex medical experiment.
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From page 110... ...
He wrote Yeutter that "it is clear to us that Agruculture is not the appropriate administrator of this program -- and that the effort to administer here can only harm both the Department and the program." Yeutter responded that WIC was probably here to stay and that the Food and Nutrition Service should "make this program work as smoothly as possible." Although political considerations precluded him from saying so at the time, Yeutter supported WIC.7 2 Hekman recognized that the court decision had transformed WIC radically. From "a small pilot program designed only to provide medical evaluation of food intervention" to a feeding program, WIC would double in size between fiscal 1974 and fiscal 1975, if the court did not modify its injunction.
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From page 111... ...
WIC allowed 10 percent of the program costs for local administrative expenses. Finally, the Food and Nutrition Service contracted with Joseph Endozien of the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health for a detailed medical evaluation.7 4 By the close of fiscal 1974, WIC was operating at an annualized level approaching $100 million.
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From page 112... ...
Their problem was that Congress had mandated the maintenance of the SFP in any area that chose to retain it, despite the replacement of direct distribution programs with food stamps. Local SFP administrators were bringing pressure on the USDA through Congress to provide additional federal funds to support the increased delivery costs, once direct distribution programs ended.
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From page 113... ...
Moreover, it would take the USDA to a large extent out of the food assistance business -- something Secretary Butz ardently desired. There were, however, serious difficulties in any legislative realization of the proposal.79 A grand reorganization, such as block grants, risked opening the child nutrition programs to an equally grand expansion by congressional supporters.
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From page 114... ...
Both bills had been written in large part by the Food Research and Action Coalition. Since the Endozien evaluation had not been completed, advocates within and outside Congress relied on a program survey of WIC clinics by the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.
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From page 115... ...
WIC itself went unmentioned in his veto message. Within four days, Congress overrode the veto and the $250-million WIC program became law.B 3 The administration's whole approach to child nutrition programs was in shambles.
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From page 116... ...
When the five-quarter spread of WIC's funds became known, supporters complained to Congress and obtained a House resolution ordering the Food and Nutrition Service to spend $250 million in fiscal 1976. In Senate committees, McGovern and Kennedy attributed this impoundment to
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From page 117... ...
Gasch concurred and ordered the USDA to spend $562.5 million plus any carryover funds from fiscal 1974 and fiscal 1975 before September 1978. The judge further required the Food and Nutrition Service to submit quarterly reports to the bench and to the Food Research and Action Coalition detailing WIC's progress.
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From page 118... ...
lack of precise definitions of good health and adequate nutrition by which to measure deviations, (2) lack of precise determination of the types or quantities of nutrients necessary to improve nutrition status and assess the impact of supplemental foods, (3)
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From page 119... ...
The USDA was committed to the administration's grant proposal for child nutrition programs. Although privately Feltner discussed the possibility of incorporating WIC into food stamps, he made no public comment on specific programmatic changes for fear of undermining the administration's proposal.
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From page 120... ...
The study suggested that more stress be given to nutritional education as a necessary adjunct to food assistance in combating malnutrition. The researchers were very cautious in presenting their findings, but it was their conclusions, not their reservations, that received all the attentions 3 To supporters of WIC the study by the Center for Disease Control and the Endozien evaluation simply reinforced their convictions about the program's effectiveness.
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From page 121... ...
Bergland had separated the Food and Nutrition Service from its former place under the assistant secretary for marketing and consumer affairs. This move allowed the assistant secretary presiding over the Food and Nutrition Service to concentrate on food assistance and nutrition instead of on marketing soy beans or cotton.
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From page 122... ...
Prepared by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Bureau of Community Health Services, the memorandum stated that n in HEW's view, it is essential that the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children be administered directly by HEW.
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From page 123... ...
Advocates in the Children's Foundation and the Food Research and Action Center also opposed turning WIC over to HEW, since their brethren now occupied the chairs of authority at the USDA. Everyone involved in WIC, outside the Bureau of Community Health Services, was reluctant to see it assimilated into the health services leviathan at HEW.
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From page 124... ...
Since the USDA had turned completely about on WIC, there was little reason to continue entitlements to protect the program from administrative recalcitrance. Still, WIC's strongest supporters, the Children's Foundation and the Food Research and Action Coalition, convinced Senator Muriel Humphrey, Senator George McGovern, and Senator Robert Dole to preserve the entitlement language in the bill they introduced.
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From page 125... ...
Consequently, the House Appropriations Committee proposed to amend the WIC bill reported out of the Education and Labor Committee to disclaim specifically any entitlement provision. In the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Thomas Eagleton amended the Senate bill to reduce the fiscal 1979 authorization to $550 million and the entitlement provision to two years, fiscal 1979 and fiscal 1980.
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From page 126... ...
Though all agreed that low income was the surest criterion of medical need for nutritional aid, very few WIC advocates wanted to forsake the politically persuasive scientific data on its efficacy that the medical requirement yielded. Writing to Secretary Bergland, McGovern and Humphrey summed up the source of the program's appeal to policy makers: "We believe WIC is the best conceived of all the food delivery programs.
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From page 127... ...
Robert Greenstein, of Assistant Secretary Foreman's staff, prepared two letters for Bergland's signature, one for OMB Director James McIntyre and another for Domestic Affairs Advisor Stuart Eizenstat, recommending that the President sign the bill. Though following similar lines of argument, the letter to Eizenstat was more comprehensive and politically astute.
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From page 128... ...
Moreover, a veto would be challenged as the first order of business in the 96th Congress; it would poison the administration's efforts, as it had destroyed the Ford administration's efforts, to reduce costs in less effective child nutrition programs. "In Congress, even in the current political atmosphere, the WIC program is a 'motherhood and apple pie' issue .
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From page 129... ...
, 12; also see the summary of the floor debate in the Congressional Quarterly Almanac: 1946 (Washington, D.C., 1947) , 37-42, and Marvin Jones to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, May 2, 1944, "School Lunch Program: S29," Series 39.1, RG 51, NA.
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From page 130... ...
In the last memo the author wrote: "The primary reason the Government now holds or will acquire such surplus commodities is 'price support,' not 'welfare, health, or security."' ~9 Hearings before the Subcommittee on Dairy and Poultry of the House Committee on Agriculture, 86:1 (March 17, 1959)
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From page 131... ...
, 4-9, 10-21, 100-113. 3 ° Bureau of the Budget Memorandum, Director Zwick to the President through Joseph Califano, July 1, 1968, "Nutrition Programs -- Legislation," Series 61.1, RG 51,
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From page 132... ...
Hekman to Lyng, January 13, 1970, "Nutrition," ibid. 4 2 Food and Nutrition Service: Program Evaluation Status Report, no date, RG 462, NA; Lyng to Governor John Dempsey, June 26, 1970, Farm Program 8," RG 16, NA.
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From page 133... ...
4 ~ This political transformation of the Food and Nutrition Service can be traced through numerous correspondence between congressmen and the secretary's office in "Farm Program 8 [1971 and 1972]
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From page 134... ...
Seggel, Assistant Secretary for Health, to Clayton Yeutter, February 2, 1973, "Farm Program 8," RG 16, OS/DA; and Yeutter to Seggel, March 23, 1973, ibid. 64 December 22, 1972, "Legislation General," RG 462, Supplemental Food Division Records, USDA; cited hereafter as SFD/DA.
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From page 135... ...
B ~ Joseph C Endozien et al., Medical Evaluation of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
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From page 136... ...
Lieberman, Senate Committee on Appropriations Staff Member to Foreman, February 28, 1978, "Farm Program 7," RG 16, OS/DA. ~ 0 3 Foreman to Representative Bob Traxler, May 15, 1978, "Organization (FSQR)
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From page 137... ...
ibid.; Interview: USDA; Senators Hubert Humphrey and McGovern to Bergland, February 17, 1977, "Farm Program 7," RG 16, OS/DA; and Hearings before the Subcommittee on Nutrition of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, 9S:2 (April 6,110-12, 1978) , passim.
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From page 138... ...
. Appendix A GALLUP PUBLIC OPINION POLLS, 1935-1971 I
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From page 139... ...
YES NO 67% 33% 5/39 How given? Work relief 89% Cash relief 11% 5/34 Greatest FDR Worst FDR Accomplishments Accomplishments Relief/WPA 28% Relief/WPA 23% Banking reforms 21% Spending policy 16% CCC 11% Farm policy 12% SS 7% Foreign policy 6% Farm program 5% Labor policy 6% 7/39 Do you favor a law requiring able-bodied reliefers to work at any job?
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From page 140... ...
140 8/61 Increase community voice in relief regulations: 55% Continue federal control as is: 29% No opinion: 16% 8/61 Physically able must work somewhere in public park, etc. for relief.
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From page 141... ...
YES 81% NO 19% 10/39 Food stamps for relievers. Approve: 62% Disapprove: 26% No opinion: 12% Food stamps for families earning $20 per week or less?
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From page 142... ...
Eggs Approve Disapprove Neutral 25% 61% 4% No opinion 10% Potatoes 30% 58% 4% 8% Federal guarantee of price for farmers Approve: 49% Disapprove: 45% No opinion: 6% 7/53 7/53 Federal government should continue to buy and store farm products to keep farm income up? Should: 72% Should not: 20% No opinion: 8% Should the President be allowed to send surplus food to famine nations?
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From page 143... ...
143 Sell at reduced price to USSR? Good idea: 46% Poor idea: 44% Unsure: 10% 12/55 Idea of "soil bank," paying farmer not to grow?
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From page 144... ...
144 11/64 Amount of money spent in your area on welfare. Too much: Not enough: About right: No opinion: 20% 18% 33% 29% Guaranteed annual incom 9/65 5/6812/68 Favor 19% 36%32% Oppose 67% 58%62% No opinion 14% 6%6% Guaranteed work to each family wage earner of certain income.
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From page 145... ...
Cal o Cal Cal z U1 so o m .
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