Sen. Warren on budget cuts to baby food aid

Sen. Elizabeth Warren used a White House budget fight to argue that federal dollars are moving away from health and nutrition programs and toward a proposed $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. (whitehouse.gov) The White House released its fiscal year 2027 budget on April 3 and said it wants $1.5 trillion in total defense resources, including $1.1 trillion in base discretionary budget authority for the Pentagon and $350 billion through budget reconciliation. (whitehouse.gov) Warren’s criticism points to two domestic targets in that broader budget debate: National Institutes of Health funding and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC. The National Institutes of Health budget request for fiscal year 2027 is $41.5 billion, down $5.0 billion from the $46.5 billion enacted for fiscal year 2026. (nih.gov) WIC is the federal nutrition program that helps low-income pregnant people, new parents, infants, and young children buy specific foods, including infant formula, cereal, milk, and produce. Congressional Research Service said WIC is one of the largest discretionary accounts in the agriculture spending bill, and Congress increased WIC funding by $603 million in the fiscal year 2026 law enacted on November 12, 2025. (congress.gov) The current fight is not over whether WIC exists, but over how much food help families get through one part of the package: the cash value benefit for fruits and vegetables. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said on April 14 that the Trump fiscal year 2027 budget would cut that benefit by an estimated $1.4 billion for about 5.4 million parents and young children. (cbpp.org) Cancer research is part of the same argument because the National Institutes of Health is the country’s largest public biomedical research funder, and its budget supports grants to universities, hospitals, and research centers in every state. The agency’s budget office says the proposed 2027 request would also eliminate three of the 21 directly appropriated institutes and centers and move or merge others. (nih.gov, nih.gov) The White House says the budget is designed to “rebuild” the military and shrink what it calls “wasteful” domestic programs. Its topline fact sheet says the defense request would be a $445 billion increase, or 42%, over the 2026 total resource level. (whitehouse.gov) Congress does not have to accept the president’s request as written. The fiscal year 2026 agriculture law already rejected deeper WIC cuts by fully funding the program, and annual appropriations bills will decide how much of the 2027 proposal becomes law. (congress.gov, cbpp.org) That is the dispute Warren tapped into: a budget blueprint that pairs a record military request with lower proposed spending for medical research and nutrition aid, before Congress writes the final numbers. (whitehouse.gov, nih.gov, cbpp.org)