You have to give Republicans credit; they’re quickly figuring out how to play the media game in their role as the opposition party. They have their chastity belts all in a twist over the fact that the proposed stimulus bill contains funding for family planning services under Medicaid. Never mind that the Bush administration started making family planning waivers available to states several years ago. Never mind that states with Republican governors, including Minnesota, are currently operating family planning programs. Never mind that family planning funding saves money by enabling women (and men) to make deliberate decisions to bring a child into the world. Never mind that not one penny goes toward paying for abortions.
I’m all for bipartisanship, but not when it means rewarding the prudishness and hypocrisy of conservatives.
Cant tell you how many emails I have been getting about this…so irritating.
While I don’t really have a problem with the government funding family planning services it has fuck all to do with the economy. Why in the hell do they need to tack that onto the end of an economic stimulus package?
I think the opposition is not to the program itself, but rather to it’s “stimulative” (I am beginning to hate that word…) efficacy. My understanding is that the opponents of that inclusion to the bill feel strongly that that money could be used somewhere else with a greater “stimulative” (that word again) effect, and after all, that is the purpose of this particular bill.
Of course, there are Republicans and Democrats who would oppose that kind of program on its merits, and so then I could see your point. But having differences of opinion about what is going to help the economy is not “prudish”, it’s just different views of how the economy works best.
I see many similar battles in this bill, and they all have to do with Republicans believing that the best thing for the economy is tax cuts so that (hopefully) businesses will start hiring again, people will start buying again, and we can continue in our death-circle of living on credit and accumulating more personal and private debt every year as the residents of other counties save and continue to sell us stuff. The Democrats believe that the best thing for the economy is for government to take a big loan out from China and spend like drunken sailors. (What happens when China issues a margin call) to create jobs out of thin air that would need constant money from the private sector to maintain. (Yeah, building a bridge certainly employs people, but what happens when the bridge is done? Back to unemployment line.
Personally, I think we are screwed…