<p>I am proud to have my tax dollars support WIC. WIC is an extremely successful federal nutrition program that has been responsible for reducing the incidence of low-birth weight babies, improving the cognitive development of young children, increasing the number of mothers who breast feed, and reducing infant mortality.</p>
<p>So, when I see someone using WIC (even if they are drinking Starbucks), I smile. So much better than seeing my tax dollars blowing up stuff in Iraq or Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Honestly, I just read through this thread and not to drudge it up, but the poor really don’t have a lavash lifestyle. So who cares if a person on assistance and drinking Starbucks. I buy Dunkin Donuts once in a blue moon for a treat and I reusae the cups with my own coffee when I go to work.
Count your blessings. Things are not always what the seem.</p>
<p>WIC is money well spent.</p>
<p>Sometimes it is hard to deny yourself little luxuries if you feel as if you’re never going to have a better life. Educated, middle class people can have more energy to scrimp and save because they know that they have the potential to have a better life and the scrimping will probably pay off. But if people are raised poor and have a poor education, and they are surrounded by other poor people who also keep getting dragged down by one thing or another–a medical bill, a sick kid forcing them to take a day off, another relative in need–then that pay day, when everything is okay and they’ll be safe, is unlikely to happen. In that case, it might seem less compelling to save that $4.00 for the future, since the future would appear to be just like the past.</p>
<p>Well put, Endicott! Poverty hurts, and if a $4 cup of coffee every once in a while makes it hurt a little less, who are we to judge?</p>