Leonard Witt: $20 billion for Argentina, nothing for hungry NH infants

To The Daily Sun,

The Trump administration is using the nation’s and state’s pregnant women, infants and children as bargaining chips to end the government shutdown.

A Sandwich nurse who home visits pregnant women and families with infants, recently told a Google group, she sees “the growing fear and uncertainty many are facing about how they will provide food for their families,” adding, “parents are struggling to secure even the most basic needs, including formula and nutritious food for their infants and young children.”

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services warns, “WIC which provides healthy food and other help for Women, Infants and Children could run out of money in New Hampshire by Nov. 7.”

Donald Trump, who pledged America First, just bailed out Argentina with $20 billion of taxpayer money, in part to protect American billionaires who made bad investments there. Twenty billion dollars would keep WIC afloat nationally for about three years.

The shutdown mostly is a fight between Democrats and Republicans over protecting the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.) The GOP plan would hurt 20 million Americans. KFF, a health policy nonprofit, just reported that if the ACA tax credits expire, as it would in the GOP budget, monthly premiums could increase by 146% on average. The New York Times cited examples: one 61-year-old woman’s monthly premium would jump from $439 to $1,059, with an annual deductible of $7,100. Another couple would see their costs jump from $865 to $1,965 a month.

If readers care about working-class Americans, as Democrats do, preserving the ACA is a battle worth fighting. But even they could not anticipate pregnant women, infants and children being held hostage by Trump while he gives away our tax money to prop up foreign governments.

Leonard Witt

Sandwich