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Trump Makes Scrooge-Like Cuts to Funding for Low-Income Children and Infants

Nothing says "Make America Great Again" like slashing funds for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income families.

Below is what happened on Trump's 38th day in office. You can find out what damage was done every other day so far on the Saddest Calendar on the Internet.

President Trump has unveiled the White House's $1.1 trillion budget for fiscal year 2018, which will add $54 billion in military spending while simultaneously cutting funding to a handful of domestic programs—among them, the USDA's Women, Infants, and Children program. WIC, which was piloted as a supplemental food program back in 1972, provides federal grants to states to assist low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children who are at nutritional risk with supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education.

While the White House deemed some programs completely unnecessary and therefore undeserving of any federal funding, such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, WIC's budget was cut from FY 2016's $6.62 billion to $6.2 billion. Though the difference may appear slight, according to the USDA, in 2015, approximately 8 million women, infants, and children received WIC benefits each month. And, of the 8 million served, approximately 4.16 million were children, 1.94 million were infants, and 1.92 million were women. In the FY 2016 budget proposal, Obama's White House cited that the program was expected to serve 8.5 million mothers and young children each month.

And, more than anything, the cut is symbolic of the White House's steadfast drive to make life harder for people who are simply asking for means to survive. In the 2018 budget, the White House justifies their cuts by citing their dedication "to ensure that major regulatory reforms are finally achieved on behalf of the hardworking and forgotten men and women of America." Apparently, low-income families are not considered to be part of this demographic.

This morning, Bernie Sanders released a statement that condemns the 2018 budget, as just like all of the White House's other proposed directives and legislation, the cuts will once again hurt the most vulnerable.

"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when 43 million Americans are living in poverty and half of older Americans have no retirement savings, we should not slash programs that senior citizens, children and working people rely on in order to provide a massive increase in spending to the military industrial complex," Sanders said.