My guess is that you're not a fan of the WIC program to begin with. Am I right?

That would be my guess too, but I wasn't sure, since I didn't know anything about the WIC program.

Actually I had a lot of doubt. How bad can a program be that, as far as I knew, gives money to help poor families buy food for babies? How far can you go wrong with that goal? I expected to find some unremarkable scandals about poor mothers buying vodka or Cheetos with their credits. Nothing too outrageous.

I could make some principled statement about how any meddling in the market by government leads to inefficiency and waste. That, by far, the biggest improvement in the lives of the poor is directly creditable to the fantastic and unprecedented creation of wealth in the marketplaces of the developed world. The UN tells us that "The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was met five years ahead of the 2015 deadline," largely because of increased participation of Chinese people in the global market.

I could whine that public programs are funded by taxes, which are undeniably coercive. That, much as we would like the resources of the wealthy to be used to relieve poverty, and rightly celebrate when the rich help the poor, it is simply not right to take money out of Donald Trump's pocket to aid the downtrodden. I probably wouldn't convince anybody.

I could worry that it is an affront to human dignity

• to require people to fill out forms to prove that they are needy

• to give them benefits via special coupons with special rules, to buy food items from an approved list in approved sizes ("Must buy the least expensive of the type of milk" ... "Not Allowed: ... milk with added calcium ... reduced fat (2%) milk" "You may not buy: cereal with added fruit or formula, organic, added DHA or other extra ingredients")

• to nag them that they must be "courteous to store cashiers"

• to threaten any enterprising self-starters among them in case they consider taking the fight against poverty into their own hands

• to instruct people to "report" on their neighbors

I might predict that rational human beings will respond to incentives created by this program by opening "WIC-only" stores, catering to customers who are unusually price-indifferent, and do well despite prices "13 percent to 16 percent higher" than those in competitive stores.

I could wonder what it might mean when three companies provide all WIC infant formula

• Mead Johnson (Enfamil and Gerber), owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY revenue US$19 billion)

• Ross Laboratories (Similac), owned by Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT revenue US$40 billion)

• Carnation (Good Start), owned by Nestlé (SIX: NESN revenue US$100 billion)

and wonder if their interests might somehow distort this program, bending it toward their own ends.

But let's ignore all that. Let's say those things don't happen, or they aren't that bad, or they are offset by the benefits of the program. Let's think of the children!

We will judge the Women, Infants and Children program by asking if it does what it was intended to do:

safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children

This is the language used in the creation document, the Child Nutrition Act of 1966.

The alert reader will notice that no time is wasted in getting to the "Special Milk Program Authorization." No doubt Big Dairy was on hand to consult on the practical details of providing "free" milk to school children.

For parents of newborns, WIC means free infant formula (not for resale). Apparently not only poor parents; according to an article in International Breastfeeding Journal, "Nearly half (47%) of all infants born annually in the United States participate in the WIC program, and this number continues to grow."

Free food for infants may not sound so bad until you recall that breastfeeding is one of the most important factors in infant nutrition. In recent years knowledge of the many advantages of breast milk has become widespread. But free formula seems to be more persuasive than public awareness efforts: "the data show that the breastfeeding rate at six months for WIC participants has consistently been only one third to one half the rate for non-WIC participants."

Why is formula such a big deal? "In the mid-1980s, infant formula accounted for nearly 40 percent of total WIC food costs." This is where BMS, Abbott, and Nestlé come in. To help make budget, the WIC masters created a perverse rebate system, with a faintly capitalistic idea of competition, in which the Big Three bid for WIC formula contracts state by state. (Please don't worry that manufacturers, who don't have to impress any finicky parents, only some bureaucrats, will cut corners on quality standards in order to be the low bidder. I am sure WIC thought of that and made sure it wouldn't happen somehow.) The result is a crazy system in which the majority of the price of a can of formula is the rebate, which adds up to a total kickback to the WIC budget of $1.88 billion in 2013.

I can't figure out how it all works, maybe it is not as sinister as it looks, but it looks stinkier than a diaperload of meconium.

The International Breastfeeding paper quotes an analysis showing that a "minimum of $3.6 billion would be saved if breastfeeding were increased from current levels... to those recommended by the U.S. Surgeon General... This figure is likely an underestimation of the averted health care costs because it represents cost savings from the treatment of only three childhood illnesses."

Not all my sources are current. I hope the situation has improved. I acknowledge that WIC generates some benefits, it's not all bad. Breast milk is better than formula, but formula is better than nothing (and nothing is better than vodka). I am sympathetic to anyone who would respond to this analysis saying "It's not perfect, but this is an important program and we should work to improve it." Child nutrition is important, but my goal was to evaluate the WIC program.

By promoting infant formula, the Women, Infants and Children program has caused considerable harm to infants in poor families. It has failed to "safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children." I'm not a fan.