From Drudge...
PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
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.
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My thoughts.
Now think universal health care.
Delaying critical surgery for the dying is a benefit as it will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
Setting limits on tolerable costs associated with care of the elderly and encouraging fair & equitable life limits will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
Any money saved with increased family planning will be far outweighed by taxpayer funded abortions. I love these liberals.
NOT
The term "chucklehead" is rarely used, but I think it applies here....
S'OK...the further left they swing, the more they alienate the nation as a whole.
Did anyone see the article about Obama pushing space weapons disarmament? Hey...if we drop our guard and get hit...maybe they'll take out the Northeast corridor...fine by me...
It’s funny a few weeks ago I remember having this very conversation with one of my very conservative friends. He was telling me that his dad often says that those poor families that have 3 kids should have mandatory surgery to make it so they cannot have any more.
Now clearly that is extreme, but Justin my friend proceeded to lay out his case why the government should provide birth control. It honestly was something I never thought about before in great detail, though I’ve always been fine with things like condoms in schools and such. His point was that it would prevent explosions of population in the poorer communities the results of which would be saving the country on health care costs, education costs and on entitlement costs. I took it a step further saying we’d save long term on law enforcement costs, on criminal costs, and on incarceration costs. We would likely keep young women in school longer increasing the amount of educated people. It made sense though I pointed out that it would be met with a ton of skepticism I do not think it could get support.
Well today I get an email from my friend at it says “For the first time ever I agree with Nancy Pelosi on something.” He sent me the link from drudge and also added “I don't get the line where it says "seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury"
is this news? that people that have no money having dozens of kids is bad for the economy?”
Anyways from my post so far you can see I am for this idea. As we talked about it would cost the government very very little to provide birth control in at risk communities and the costs it could potentially take away from what we are already paying is huge. I don’t know any real numbers on this but say providing birth control costs 1 billion dollars in tax revenue for ten years, but saves 50billion in health care costs, 30 billion in education, and 20 billion in law enforcement + incarceration. Is that still a bad use of government funds?
Strange how a small conversation I had with a conservative friend of mine came full circle briefly after.
(01-26-2009 01:45 PM)converrl Wrote: [ -> ]The term "chucklehead" is rarely used, but I think it applies here....
S'OK...the further left they swing, the more they alienate the nation as a whole.
Did anyone see the article about Obama pushing space weapons disarmament? Hey...if we drop our guard and get hit...maybe they'll take out the Northeast corridor...fine by me...
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's something I think Republicans should really take to heart as encouragement for the next four or eight years, especially after this and a few other recent happenings. You've got a Democratic Congress, still increasing in unpopularity today, led not by some of the newer, fresher faces but by the old guard of idiots and truly dedicated libtards that I still can't believe have jobs (Reid especially, but Pelosi too, and others). Now, Obama is a relatively popular figure at the moment (second-highest initial approval since FDR, I believe) but things should normalize in a short time. Figures show definitively that voters are willing to give Obama an extended amount of patience with regards to the economy (in other words, they won't rush to judge when things don't turn around by day 12 or something) but these figures don't replicate with regards to Congress.
Here's what I'm getting at. My opinion is that barring some kind of monumental screwup on Obama's part, he's probably going to get re-elected ultimately, if nothing else thanks to his excellent ability at accruing small donations and superior campaign infrastructure just chomping at the bit to get things going again for 2012. But thanks to a natural balance of power being completely "un-normal" right now, I'd be willing to bet that Republicans can overtake at least one, if not both, chambers of the Congress. Maybe not in 2010, but in 2012, I bet things will be normalized. And if Republicans control some of Congress unlike right now, there's an obvious possibility of gridlock which should prevent a lot of liberal or left-wing agenda coming to fruition.
This is merely my opinion and I welcome criticism to it, but, I think if you all can hang in there for just a few years, things really could settle down. Cycle of power, cycle of power.
I wonder why Pelosi doesn't offer this same argument relative to illegal aliens. We can spend a little money now to secure the border to reduce costs to the states and federal government. Given her reasoning on contraception, it's hard to understand why she runs with the open borders crowd.
(01-26-2009 02:11 PM)dalbc Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder why Pelosi doesn't offer this same argument relative to illegal aliens. We can spend a little money now to secure the border to reduce costs to the states and federal government. Given her reasoning on contraception, it's hard to understand why she runs with the open borders crowd.
I think it is the same reason many hardcore conservatives are so anti the government giving out contraception and birth control... ideology. People are too ideologically driven these days and not nearly pragmatic enough in their thinking.
It makes sense to prevent illegal aliens from coming here. If you want to give opportunity you can always increase the number of LEGAL immigrants. It also makes sense to not be hung up on deportation and criminalizing those already here, it will cost a ton to enforce that anyways and it will detract from our ability to get them out in the open operating as every day aliens will do. This was one of the positions I applauded our last president for. He was not ideological on immigration, he took a pragmatic approach.
(Of course ultimately congress was ideological and nothing was accomplished)
Mark, if we simply stopped paying them to have babies, the birth rate would decrease -- DRAMATICALLY! Why spend the money?
Before he even gets started, I think he may have a hard time getting re-elected.
The national party will have to "entice" the new voters from 2008 back to the polls in 2012. Plenty of people voted this year to "change" and get a minority elected. How many bus trips to the courthouse will there be in 2012. Those voters will probably go back to their apathetic views because they have an "already done that" attitude about voting. It won't be new anymore.
And, the Republican party will show up at the polls.
(01-26-2009 02:48 PM)BearcatOtto Wrote: [ -> ]Before he even gets started, I think he may have a hard time getting re-elected.
The national party will have to "entice" the new voters from 2008 back to the polls in 2012. Plenty of people voted this year to "change" and get a minority elected. How many bus trips to the courthouse will there be in 2012. Those voters will probably go back to their apathetic views because they have an "already done that" attitude about voting. It won't be new anymore.
And, the Republican party will show up at the polls.
All true. Obama will certainly have to present some different angles than he did in 2008 in order to stay ahead of the pack. I'm actually writing a large paper regarding the Obama campaign's GOTV initiatives and their effectiveness, and my independent research is showing that while the campaign itself was very talented, the GOTV wasn't particularly successful - the real intangible was voter ID and enthusiasm. And certainly the GOP wasn't collectively enthused about John McCain until he picked Sarah Palin, so......
Anyway, another thing which should be considered is the strategy of the DNC under Chairman Kaine. He's apparently devised a plan to pull back from the 50-state strategy of Chairman Dean and revert to more traditional strategies of picking and choosing to fund candidates in the most prime or dependable districts & regions. The plan, I believe, also involves quite a bit more traditional fundraising directly for Obama's re-election than in 2008, which in my eyes signals a concern in party circles that Obama may not be able to retain many of the small donors which were such an integral part of his success.
(01-26-2009 01:47 PM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]It’s funny a few weeks ago I remember having this very conversation with one of my very conservative friends. He was telling me that his dad often says that those poor families that have 3 kids should have mandatory surgery to make it so they cannot have any more.
Socio-economic genocide shouldn't be supported by anyone in either party. What the country needs to do is generate more PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS. If we had the human resources we needed, this economy would grow and prosper, and we wouldn't have to entice the country of Mexico to come to the US to work for slave wages.
The more productive citizens we have, the more good ideas we come up with, and the more the economy can grow. Too many on the left side of the aisle look at the economy as a zero-sum game...it isn't...it is a growing pie..every time a new idea takes hold, value is
created where no value previously existed. Thus, the pie grows, and opportunity increases for everyone while the standard of living goes
UP.
But not the stagnation-infested old-guard left...they see economic growth as fueled by taxing the net producers...their solution to the crisis is to grab more of the money the private sector produces (in taxes) and spend it on projects that, more often than not, don't work.
The problem that needs to be solved here is the FAMILY UNIT and the WORK ETHIC, not the number of kids/household. I really don't want to emulate China...
That sentence you highlighted I thought was a crazy view. (BTW it's my buddy's dad that says it and i think he is being somewhat tounge and cheek but the point is there) My only point was that many of these people that have kids are people unprepared for parenthood and end up being having multiple kids by the end. They have not finished high school, much college. The uneducated disproportionately have kids earlier in life and are not as likely to obtain birth control.
I agree that the family unit and work ethic need to be solved and I also disagree with controlling the number you can have, but i think available birth control is a good thing
Not sure who I hate more...Pelosi or Darth Zimpher.