Wisconsin potato farmers are baffled, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, that the federal government has singled out their crop as the one unacceptable fresh vegetable for low-income recipients on the WIC supplemental nutrition program.

People can use WIC benefits to buy fresh vegetables – except for potatoes. The state’s brochure spells that out clearly:

“ALLOWED: Any variety of whole or cut fresh fruit or vegetables except potatoes.”

Canned vegetables are fine, too – as long as they’re not potatoes. Bags of frozen vegetables? Fine, unless they’re potatoes. You can buy cans of mixed vegetables, so long as it's not that mix that includes little diced-up potatoes.

“This is a challenging issue for us because it sends a message to WIC households, and the children in those households, that fresh potatoes are a product they shouldn't buy,” a spokesman for the potato farmers told the newspaper.

Potatoes are singled out, the paper reports, because government experts decided that potatoes “were already widely consumed, often in the form of french fries, and that vouchers would be better used for other vegetables.” In other words, potatoes are nutritious, but Washington has decided you’ve reached your limit. Unless you shop in favored places: The paper also points out that people using WIC benefits can buy fresh potatoes at farmer’s markets, but buying the exact same fresh potatoes at a grocery store is prohibited.

Honest people can disagree about how big the government should be. But is it possible that the scope of government has far exceeded any limit of common sense when the federal government treats adult citizens as if they were three-year-olds needing to be instructed to try new vegetables?

And can we agree that the government is reaching far past its level of competence when it imagines that diced potatoes in canned vegetable mixes somehow count toward your french fry limit?

And has it become clear that whenever the federal government tries to give help, it ends up issuing orders?