<tt><tt>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. </tt></tt>
Sure looks to me like "stimulus" is a small part of what a $trillion-plus spending bill is about. For Barfo, this is anecdotal no doubt, but remember I wrote about how some people don't like people. Anyone want to try some fuzzy logic on me about why what she's saying makes sense?
Here's an idea...let people have babies, but trim education spending to the percentage it was back when kids were actually going to school and learning things, and make the teachers teach them. Trimming the per-student education budget could be one place to start. Not supporting illegal immigrants in CA may be another, but I guess that would only be a big lift in Pelosi's own state, so maybe that's frowned upon. What's the correlation of "states in terrible fiscal crisis" to "states with an inordinately large number of people being supported without paying taxes"? I don't pretend to know, but I don't hear, say, Kansas representatives talking about "terrible financial crisis". Just found this (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27104559). Didn't know it was that widespread, but it makes sense for the NE (b/c of banking profits low), Rust Belt (again, people on unemployment/welfare who aren't paying into the state tax coffers until they can get a job), the South (I have no idea) and the SW.
Interestingly, That map correlates pretty well with the red/blue map: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ That shows a pretty good correlation between democratic leaning states having budget shortages, and republican leaning states not having budget shortages.
Not really. Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky are generally Republican strongholds (Georgia was unusually close this last election). In other words, the majority of the conservative South (not including Florida, which has been a swing state for quite a while) has been facing budget shortfalls. Meanwhile, Washington and Oregon are not, and they're pretty heavily Democrat. That's far too much deviation to claim much of a correlation between state party identification and financial problems. In addition, if your underlying claim is that "red states manage money better," there are confounding factors, like that the top states that receive federal funding tend to be "red states" and the top states that provide the federal funding tend to be "blue states." It's easier not to run state budget shortfalls when you're happily accepting federal money, and vice versa. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html Of course, I'm sure there is truth to the idea that "blue states" tend to spend more on social programs (including funding less fortunate states, most of which are "red"), which makes budget shortfalls more likely. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is obviously pretty dependent on one's social/political philosophy.
In Freakanomics they show the relationship between legalized abortion and the reduction of crime. I'm sure getting birth control into the hands of many people will help. If two people have a stable relationship and want to bring a child into the world, I am all fine with that. I'm not cool with people who have more children than they can support (and thus have to rely on the government and be a burden to others). There are lots of people you look at and say "they shouldn't have a child". That includes just about anyone under the age of 20 these days. I understand personal choice...but if I was a dictator I'd take every 12-year old girl and make them get 10-year IUDs. Those people on the show "17 kids and counting"....don't get me started on them. Talk about overpopulating the Earth. Religious nuts.
I spend $900/month on daycare for my two kids. But I'm married and fully employed. If I'd gotten some girl knocked up when I was 16, you can be damned sure I wouldn't be paying that much for daycare. I'd probably be relying on the government to bail me out. My girlfriend would've dropped out. Neither of use would be productive taxpayers for another decade. The daycare (a small business that pays taxes) wouldn't have my business, because I probably wouldn't have kids now. So the government loses money in tax revenue from teen parents. It loses money in tax revenue it might've made later on from daycare providers providing for parents who waited until they were responsible. It loses money in rendering services to these screwed up kids (and the higher rates of abuse, drugs, etc in the offspring). It's not really hard to see how teen pregnancies damage state budgets. Programs that reduce teen pregnancy are therefore probably pretty good for those budgets.
It may be some relief to states years down the road. It's nothing to do with providing a stimulus to a flagging economy.
It doesn't take years to make a baby and put it on the public tab. Nine months is the figure usually quoted. barfo
The birth rate is already pretty low and declining. This does nothing about all the kids already born (the "ocean", ya know).
If you really think about it, if they want to improve the "economy"...numbers at least...in the short term then this is the last thing they'd do. More pregnant women and new mothers means less people seeking employment meaning that unemployment goes down a bit. Extra birth control also means there will be less of a need for certain types of medical care... I don't think it helps to over think this. I'm not sure you can say it will help the economy in the near future, but I think that it will help the society in general, which is why I support it, even if it isn't stated for those reasons.
Well, we could euthanize them, but I think that might not be widely popular. Think of the kids already born as a sunk cost. Nothing we can do about that now, but it doesn't mean we have to keep throwing money down the same rathole. And no, this won't solve all our problems in one fell swoop. If you have such a solution, let us know. barfo
And how does that help the economy? [Edit: Ah, I see, you said "numbers at least". Yes, it does improve the unemployment number, in a meaningless way. Doesn't improve the economy.] barfo
41% of the "red" states have budget "woes". 80% of the "blue" states have budget "woes" (according to the two links of the maps in the thread) You can say there is too much deviation to consider a correlation because you named a few states that didn't fit. But 41% to 80% is pretty significant. I'm not making any claims as to why it is this way, but it is interesting, nonetheless.
It wasn't a "few states"...it was the bulk of the South, which is the Republican party's strongest area. We'll have to agree to disagree on how statistically significant that is.
Absolutely. A 0.5 correlation isn't that impressive (1 being fully correlated and 0 being no correlation at all).
