Good News, Everyone: WIC Now Includes Even More Actual Food

It can sometimes feel like conservatives are winning the battle on social welfare programs by renaming them “entitlements” and making it seem like those who aren’t members of a yacht club are greedy for not wanting their children to starve to death.

But today we have actual good news! Honest! The USDA has gone through with a long-overdue revamp of the WIC program, allowing fresh, frozen, or canned fruits and vegetables (available on an interim basis since 2007), adding yogurt as a milk substitute, and expanding whole grain options. No word yet on whether they’ll soon start allowing the lobster, filet mignon, and cigarette purchases your one conservative uncle always swears he’s seen people buying with WIC during your annual Thanksgiving political referendum.

Speaking of your drunken, idiotic uncle, if he says something about those poors clearly being lazy because so many of them and their kids are obese, you can tell him this:

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already cited recent changes in the WIC program as a contributing factor in the decline of obesity rates among low-income preschool children in many states, the department said.”

Bam.

By the way, the entire WIC program costs $7 billion annually, which sounds like a lot until you consider that a single F-22 fighter jet cost $350 million before it was discontinued. Still, how long do you think it’ll take before a Republican state legislator publicly claims that people on WIC haven’t “earned” the right to eat broccoli and that we “can’t afford this kind of frivolous spending?” I think Vegas has the over-under at five days, so get your bets in now.