We know that all our moms deserve much more financial, emotional, and physical support. Children are blessings, who model for us what it means to follow Jesus and help all of us see Christ’s love for the world. 

Yet Congress is currently considering cutting the funding it provides for children and new parents. Cutting this funding would reduce assistance that helps children in families with low incomes get enough to eat, see a doctor when they are sick, and meet their basic needs and thrive. This assistance is essential for our children's health and wellbeing.  

Congress is proposing to:  

1. Debilitate the Medicaid program, which provides health coverage to 2 in 5 children and jeopardizing school-based health care services. Medicaid helps pay for medical services schools provide to ensure students with disabilities have access to the support they need. It also covers immunizations, health screenings, and other services schools provide to Medicaid-eligible children. And it helps many schools pay the salaries of nurses, counselors, and others who assist all students. Medicaid cuts could jeopardize schools’ ability to provide these services. Additionally, proposed work requirements would cause many parents to lose coverage. As health care costs rise, parents have less money for rent and food for the entire household, and risk incurring significant medical debt for any health care they receive.  
    
2. Restrict the Community Eligibility Provision, cutting 12 million children from free school meal programs. Currently, schools serving large numbers of children in low-income families can provide free school meals to all students instead of collecting and processing applications. This option, the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), cuts down on paperwork for families and schools and reduces the stigma children can feel about receiving free meals. Under a proposal to severely limit the option, 24,000 schools in every state, serving more than 12 million children, would no longer be able to use CEP. Many children would likely miss out on meals, and grocery bills would rise for families who don’t qualify or don’t realize they have to apply for free or reduced-price school meals. 
    
3. Gut the SNAP program, which serves 1 in 5 U.S. children.  Proposals that implement work requirements in SNAP ignore the fact that when implemented in certain states, work requirements were proven to be laden with red tape, taking away assistance from many people who are working or should be exempt and those who have been laid off and are looking for work—all while being shown to be ineffective at increasing employment. Another congressional proposal would require states to pay part of SNAP food benefit costs, which have been 100 percent federally funded for 50 years to ensure that people in all states get the food assistance they need. This protection, which particularly benefits children in poorer states, would disappear if costs are shifted to states and they cut benefits and eligibility because they can’t fully cover the new costs. 
    

Moms deserve to not have to worry about if they will be able to afford their child’s healthcare, or if they will be able to provide them with a filling meal. Yet in one of the richest countries in the world, our Congress is making these cuts to programs supporting children to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Tell Congress NO MORE sacrificing our moms and kids to line the pockets of the rich.