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WIC potato ban makes no sense

If you are a low-income woman planning to pay for all or part of your groceries with vouchers from the federal WIC program, feel free to load up the cart with any fruits and vegetables you like.

Except potatoes. They are banned under the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. Why??WIC clients might use them to make French fries.

That is why the WIC program has banned potatoes – because oils used to cook French fries may be unhealthy. Never mind the many benefits of potatoes, including nutrition, cost and versatility. The humble spud can be prepared in many healthy ways.

A bill in Congress includes a provision that would allow WIC clients to use vouchers to purchase potatoes.

Obviously, the measure should be enacted. Bureaucrats in charge of the modern Nanny State often decide to use government to inflict their philosophies about what is good and bad on the rest of us. Look at school lunch rules, which have resulted in higher expense for many schools, for example. Or think about vehicle safety requirements that limit our choices of cars and trucks.

The WIC potato ban is just one in a long list of half-baked mandates from Washington. Good riddance to it.

With all the worry over a “government shutdown” predominating news from Capitol Hill last week, one failure by Congress passed almost unnoticed.

Members of the Senate approved a bill last week demanding more transparency in government. It was a bipartisan measure, co-sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

A key to the bill was that it required federal agencies to have “a presumption of openness” when considering requests for information from the public.

It also reduced the number of exemptions federal bureaucrats can claim in refusing to release documents.

But leaders in the House of Representatives could not agree to language in the Senate bill before the House adjourned Friday.

Secrecy in government has increased during recent years. That makes it critical that Congress take up the bill again in January.

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