Monday, January 26, 2009

Why There's Still Hope For Republicans

Inevitably, when Democrats gain total control of government, they begin doing very stupid things. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi telling us that including money in Obama's federal stimulus spending bill for birth control is good for the economy is a perfect example of this. Pelosi had this exchange with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

What's next? Implementation of China's one child per family rule?

4 comments:

Neal Taflinger said...

I'm confused - wouldn't the right jump at the chance to cheaply prevent poor women from getting pregnant? Fewer poor kids = less spent on social services = happy Republicans.

Gary R. Welsh said...

If that were the case, Neal, there wouldn't be so many single-parent moms among the poor. Planned Parenthood has been providing those free services for decades. The rate of teen-age pregnancy has exploded during the period that it has funded these services.

Jason said...

Whether or not you believe in abortion is a completely separate issue from whether or not you believe the government should be paying for it, IMHO.

Kind of like how Catholics use the public policy/private belief thing, just in reverse for some...

M Theory said...

Gary, I think we should start paying people $100 to get "fixed". That way it is voluntary. The ignorant breeding masses are prolific. They use children as a welfare check. I'm sure when they need some crack (or whatever), they'll see $100 for a vasectomy as a quick easy fix. For the taxpayer, it is a cheap solution to the fact that statistically the vast majority have no business fathering children.

(I expect to get railed for this opinion)