Hillary Clinton Exposes GOP For Baby Formula Shortage Hypocrisy

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As the well-documented, widespread baby formula shortage continues to affect parents around the United States, 192 Republican members of Congress voted on Wednesday against a bill to provide $28 million in emergency funding for the FDA to help deal with the situation. Hillary Clinton ripped those voting against the measure for opposing something poised to tangibly help American parents in serious need.

“Ask your Republican member why they voted no on helping to end the baby formula shortage, which is hurting already-born babies. Better yet, remember their hypocrisy in November,” Clinton said. According to a press release from the House Appropriations Committee, the approved money “provides FDA with the resources to prevent fraudulent products from being placed on shelves and to help acquire better data on the infant formula marketplace. This bill also funds the balance of necessary FDA activities, strengthens the workforce focused on formula issues, and increases FDA inspection staff.” Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated Wednesday that his chamber would seek to approve measures to address the shortage — seemingly including this funding — through unanimous consent, although any Senator could derail that process.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who’s in the third-ranking party leadership position among House Republicans, has seized on the baby formula shortage, claiming just this past Monday that “Nancy Pelosi still has NO plan to address Biden’s baby formula shortage.” The emergency funding for the FDA was introduced on Tuesday, and it would obviously seem like a stretch to imagine the funding legislation was entirely formulated between Stefanik’s late Monday afternoon tweet and the following workday. Stefanik voted against the funding. On Monday, Stefanik also said: “I’ve been calling on the Biden admin to address America’s baby formula shortage since February. They did NOTHING.” That’s not true. After the emergence of the shortage, the Biden team has been “working with other infant formula manufacturers to increase production, expediting the import of infant formula from abroad, and calling on both online and in store retailers to establish purchasing limits to prevent the possibility of hoarding,” officials said.

And the measures were seemingly making an impact — the White House said on May 12 there’d been more baby formula produced in the preceding four weeks than in the four weeks before a major recall that’s driven the crisis. And then there’s the push to restrict access to formula for babies from outside the country under the responsibility of federal authorities. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted: “The Biden administration is sending pallets of baby formula to the border for illegal aliens, while American mothers are crying in the grocery store searching for it. We should Protect America First!” Focusing on fighting against the legally required care of babies for whom the federal government has responsibility instead of prioritizing other efforts to fight the shortage is just dastardly. On Wednesday, most House Republicans eventually voted for a separate measure removing hurdles for WIC beneficiaries to purchase baby formula in certain circumstances.