The following article focuses on the die hard blue dogs that stood up to Obama's and their leadership's spendulus plan. Notice that NC's own Heath Shuler is amoung the brave. Too bad he won't wait and challenge Kay Hagan in six years in the Democratic Primary.
Democrat Blue Dogs Fewer in Number, But Stronger in Bite
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:21 PM
By: John Mercurio
Who are the real Blue Dogs?
The question irks leaders of the fiscally conservative coalition of House Democrats, which made solid gains in 2008 and now includes 49 members. Every one of them is sincerely committed to reducing the federal deficit, they say. Of the 49, however, only six of them voted against President Obama’s $789 billion economic stimulus package despite their stated, laser-like focus on balancing the budget.
Obama’s plan, by his own acknowledgment, will increase the deficit in the short term by roughly $200 billion. (Another five Blue Dogs who had opposed Obama’s original plan switched to “yes” votes on the final version).
Obama is working to court Blue Dogs. The president invited them to the White House on Feb. 10 and focused their hour-long meeting on curbing federal spending rather than boosting the deficit. “We feel like he is committed to fiscal responsibility,” Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), one of the Blue Dogs who switched to ultimately support the president’s plan, told reporters after the meeting.
Blue Dogs claim Obama’s recent promise to cut the deficit in half by 2012 is a result of their efforts. “This week alone, President Obama is doing more to address the serious long-term fiscal problems facing our country than former President Bush and his congressional allies did during his entire 8-year tenure in office,” said Blue Dog Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.).
Still, some Blue Dogs say their relations with House Democratic leaders frayed during the stimulus negotiations, mostly because many Blue Dog demands were ignored. “I got in terrible trouble with our leadership because they don't care what's in the bill; they just want it to pass and they want it to be unanimous,” Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a Blue Dog with particularly tense ties to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told a Nashville radio station in early February. “We're just told how to vote. We're treated like mushrooms most of the time.”
So, will the Blue Dogs cling to their traditional colors, or will they be swallowed up by red ink? The answer to that question could depend largely on how aggressively these six “real” Blue Dogs push back against their party’s leaders.
Here’s a look at the “real” Blue Dogs of Capitol Hill:
Bobby Bright (Ala.): Bright, a farmer and former mayor of Montgomery, Ala., voted against both versions of the bill, saying there was too much spending and not enough stimulus in the bill. He complained that his party’s congressional leaders “rushed” the bill through Congress “with little debate or opportunity to offer meaningful changes.” And as a result, he said, his constituents overwhelmingly oppose it. Bright said his constituents “have little faith” that the bill “will be worth its tremendous” price tag. “I share their concerns,” he added. John McCain carried Bright’s district by 27 points last November, roughly the same margin as George W. Bush scored in 2000 and 2004, according to vote totals compiled by Swing State Project.
Parker Griffith (Ala.): Griffith, a former state senator from northern Alabama, said his vote was a “difficult but very thoughtful decision.” He said he had been willing to support a bill that included tax cuts, job creation and infrastructure projects. “But as the package went through the legislative process, it soon became apparent that this would be a spending bill without the necessary provisions to jump start our economy,” he said. McCain carried Griffith’s district by 23 points, roughly the same as Bush’s performance in 2000 and 2004, according to Swing State Project.
Walter Minnick (Idaho): Minnick, a local businessman from western Idaho, voted against the plan because, he said, it can’t work until the country’s banking and financial industries are back on their feet. As an example, he cited funds in the plan devoted to infrastructure projects. Without access to loans from cash-strapped banks, he said, contractors can’t obtain lines of credit to buy equipment they need to begin work on projects. Minnick, who offered a scaled-down $200 billion stimulus as an alternative, said he didn’t mind being one of only 11 Democrats to vote against the plan. “My job is to represent Idaho and to do what's best for this country, and that's more important than party lines,” he told local reporters. McCain carried Minnick’s district by 22 points, but that marks a sharp decline for the GOP ticket over the past eight years. In 2000, Bush carried the district by 40 points.
Collin Peterson (Minn.): Peterson, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said he could support spending for infrastructure improvements, but not for tax cuts that only add to the federal deficit. “I just could not get there – I could not borrow money to give people tax cuts," he told local supporters in Bemidji, Minn., a few days after the vote. “We have a $2.2 trillion backlog in infrastructure. If they had put that $800 billion into infrastructure, into unemployment insurance, gave people health care who lost their jobs, and into food stamps, I would have borrowed the money and done that.” McCain carried Peterson’s district by just 3 points. Bush carried the district by double digits in both 2000 and 2004.
Heath Shuler (N.C.): Shuler, a former Washington Redskins quarterback, who’s eying a possible challenge to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in 2010, criticized his party’s leaders for failing to work across the aisle on the stimulus bill. "In order for us to get the confidence of America, it has to be done in a bipartisan way," he told Salon. "We have to have everyone – Democrats and Republicans standing on the stage with the administration – saying, ‘We got something done that was efficient, stimulating and timely.'” (To this, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman had a ready response: “Let me get this straight - this is coming from a guy who threw more than twice as many interceptions than touchdowns?” quipped Reid spokesman Jim Manley). McCain won Shuler’s district by 5 points, a sharp decline for Republicans since 2000. At that time, Bush beat Gore there by 18 points.
Gene Taylor (Miss.): Taylor, dean of the Blue Dog caucus and arguably the most conservative member of the House Democratic caucus, said he simply couldn’t support a stimulus bill that spiked the deficit. “We will have to borrow every penny of the $789 billion,” he fumed after the House vote. “Our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay it all back with interest.” As Taylor noted, “$789 billion is an enormous amount – As much debt as the nation borrowed in our first 203 years, from the revolutionary war to the beginning of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency in 1978.” McCain trounced Obama in Taylor’s district, winning by 36 points. That margin is roughly unchanged from the past two presidential elections
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Message on Marriage to President Obama
The following message to Pres. Obama is a little long but very worthwhile to read and even more worthwhile to implement. As an educator I have seen first hand the disparity between students coming from broken homes and those coming from homes where both biological parents are still together making their marriages work. The increases in illigetimacy rates are alarming. I believe educators can have tremendous affect on students. That being said, their first teachers should be their biological parents and their classroom should be a home where marriage is honored. A stable home life will have far better results than anything any teacher could say or do.
Reducing Poverty by Revitalizing Marriage in Low-Income Communities: A Memo to President-elect Obama
by Robert E. Rector
Special Report #45
[C]hildren living with single mothers are five times more likely to be poor than children in two-parent households. Children in single-parent homes are also more likely to drop out of school and become teen parents, even when income is factored out. And the evidence suggests that on average, children who live with their biological mother and father do better than those who live in stepfamilies or with cohabiting partners.... In light of these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who choose it and that discourage unintended births outside of marriage are sensible goals to pursue.
--Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope[1]
President-elect Obama, the collapse of marriage is the most important social problem facing the nation. When the War on Poverty began in the 1960s, 7 percent of U.S. children were born outside of marriage. Today, the number is 38 percent. Among blacks, it is 69 percent. You are in a unique position to reverse this alarming trend.
The decline of marriage is a major cause of child poverty. Roughly two-thirds of poor children live in single-parent homes. Marital collapse is also a major contributor to welfare dependence: Each year, government spends over $250 billion for means-tested welfare benefits for single parents.
When compared to similar children raised by two married biological parents, children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to fail in school, abuse drugs or alcohol, commit crimes, become pregnant as teens, and suffer from emotional and behavioral problems. Such children are also more likely to end up on welfare or in jails when they become adults.
Revitalized marriage can have a powerful impact in reducing poverty in low-income communities. For example, if poor women who have children out of wedlock were married to the actual fathers of their children, nearly two-thirds would be lifted out of poverty immediately.[2] Because the decline in marriage is linked to many other social problems, an increase in healthy marriage would to lead to a long-term drop in those problems as well.
Given these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who are interested and discourage births outside of marriage are indeed sensible. But the first step in developing such policies must be to look beyond the many misperceptions that cloud the issue. Effective policy must be based on facts.
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is not the same problem as teen pregnancy. Although 38 percent of children are born outside of marriage, only about one in seven of these non-marital births occurs to a girl under age 18. Most out-of-wedlock births occur to men and women in their early twenties. Half of the women who have children out of wedlock are cohabiting with the father at the time of birth; 75 percent are in a romantic relationship with the father.[3] Policymakers seeking to reduce out-of-wedlock births must look far beyond teen pregnancy.
Fact: Few out-of-wedlock births are accidental. The overwhelming majority of young adult women who have a non-marital birth strongly want to have children. Although they are ambivalent about the best timing, they want and expect to have children at a fairly young age. Most are also interested in marriage, but they do not see marriage or a stable relationship as an important precondition to having a baby. To a significant degree, the decision to have a child outside of marriage is a deliberate choice for these women.
Fact: Lack of access to birth control is not a significant factor contributing to "unintended pregnancy" or non-marital births. A recent survey of low-income women who had had a non-marital pregnancy found that only 1 percent reported that lack of access to birth control played a role in the pregnancy.[4]
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is concentrated among low-income, less educated men and women. In general, the women most likely to have a child without being married are those who have the least ability to support a family by themselves.
Fact: Although the decline in marriage is most prominent among blacks, it is also a serious problem among Hispanics and lower-income whites: 44 percent of Hispanic children and 25 percent of white children are born outside of marriage.
Fact: Low male wages and employment are not the principal cause of out-of-wedlock childbearing. The overwhelming majority of non-married fathers were employed at the time of the child's birth. Over half earn enough to support a family above the poverty level without the mother working at all.[5] Before the child's birth, the fathers-to-be, on average, earned more than the mothers-to-be. If, as some argue, the fathers were not economically prepared to support a family, the mothers were even less prepared. Other factors such as social norms concerning marriage, life-planning skills, and relationship skills play a far greater role than male wages in promoting out-of-wedlock childbearing.
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is not the result of a shortage of marriageable males. Nearly 40 percent of all American children, and 69 percent of black children, are born outside of marriage. The sheer magnitude of the problem undercuts the argument that it is caused by a shortage of marriageable men. The decline in marriage in low-income communities stems from changing social norms and from a welfare system that for decades has penalized marriage, not from a lack of millions of marriageable men.
Government should help low-income couples to move toward more prosperous lives by providing such men and women with education that increases their understanding of the strong link between marriage and better life outcomes and that equips them to make critical life decisions concerning childbearing and family formation more wisely.
Paradoxically, most low-income men and women who are likely to have children out of wedlock have favorable attitudes toward marriage: If anything, they tend to over-idealize it. However, many low-income couples do not believe that it is important to form a stable marital relationship before conceiving children and bringing them into the world. They also tend to believe that haphazard cohabiting relationships are likely to endure and flourish when, in reality, this seldom occurs.
Many low-income individuals choose to have children first and then work on finding suitable partners and building strong relationships. They fail to understand that this pattern is not likely to be successful. Most low-income young women, in particular, strongly want children and hope those children will grow up to enter the middle class, but they fail to appreciate the vitally important role a healthy marriage can play in boosting a child's success.
In The Audacity of Hope, you wrote:
[R]esearch shows that marriage education workshops can make a real difference in helping married couples stay together and in encouraging unmarried couples who are living together to form a more lasting bond. Expanding access to such services to low-income couples, perhaps in concert with job training and placement, medical coverage, and other services already available, should be something everybody can agree on.[6]
You were exactly right. By and large, young low-income men and women aspire to have strong, healthy marriages. They also seek upward social and economic mobility. Marriage education can help at-risk individuals appreciate the role that healthy marriage can have in meeting long-term life goals and can enable them to make decisions about childbearing that best match their life aspirations. These programs can also provide training in life partner selection and in skills that help to build healthy enduring relationships. Such programs should not be regarded as imposing alien middle-class values on the poor, but rather as providing vital tools to help individuals fulfill their real life goals.
You have also written, "most people agree that neither federal welfare programs nor the tax code should penalize married couples."[7] Again, you are right. Given the private and social benefits of marriage, it is absurd for the welfare industry to penalize marriage. Yet that is exactly what welfare does.
Specifically, welfare programs create disincentives to marriage because benefits are reduced as a family's income rises. A mother will receive far more from welfare if she is single than if she has an employed husband in the home. For many low-income couples, marriage means a reduction in government assistance and an overall decline in the couple's joint income. Marriage penalties occur in many means-tested programs such as food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, day care, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The welfare system should be overhauled to reduce such counterproductive incentives.
Now is the time for action. You and your Administration, by launching the following specific initiatives, can help to revitalize marriage in America.
Recognize that the key to arresting the decline of marriage in the U.S. is moral leadership. Use the White House bully pulpit to reaffirm the value and importance of marriage. You are uniquely suited to this task. Your strong personal affirmation of values will prove critical in transforming anti-marriage norms and in promoting a long-overdue renewal of marriage in low-income communities.
Use the bully pulpit to emphasize the historical importance of marriage within the black community. Remind the nation that even at the height of Jim Crow segregation prior to World War II, nine out of ten black children were born to married couples. Warn the nation that the same decline in marriage that afflicted black communities a generation ago is now battering low- and moderate-income white communities.
Encourage public advertising campaigns on the importance of marriage that are targeted to low-income communities.
Provide marriage education programs in high schools with a high proportion of at-risk youth. Most low-income girls strongly desire to have children. They also wish and intend to be good mothers. These young women will be very receptive to information that shows the positive effects of marriage on long-term child outcomes. Such education could be funded under the current "healthy marriage initiative" program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Make voluntary marriage education widely available to interested couples in low-income communities. This could be done by expanding the small "healthy marriage initiative" currently operating in HHS. These programs may also provide job training to participants, but that should not be their primary emphasis.
Provide marriage education referrals in Title X birth control clinics. Government- funded Title X clinics operate in nearly every county in the U.S., providing free or subsidized birth control to over 4 million low-income adult women each year. Many clients of these clinics go on to have children out of wedlock within a short period. With 38 percent of children born outside of marriage, it is obvious that a policy of merely promoting birth control is highly ineffective in stemming the rise of non-marital births. In addition to providing birth control, Title X clinics should be required to offer referrals to education in relationships, marriage, and life-planning skills to clients who are interested.
Reduce the anti-marriage penalties in welfare. The simplest way to accomplish this would be to increase the value of the earned income tax credit (EITC) for married couples with children; this could offset the anti-marriage penalties existing in other programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid.
Conclusion
More than 40 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a member of the White House staff under President Lyndon Johnson, warned of the impending collapse of the black married family. He predicted the social calamities that this collapse would bring. Moynihan was right, but in subsequent decades, as the problem mushroomed, the nation largely hid its head in the sand and ignored the devastation. In the four decades since Moynihan's warning, the government has done almost nothing to protect or restore marriage.
Today, the collapse of marriage about which Moynihan warned so long ago is escalating rapidly across other racial groups. Forty years of neglect and silence is enough. You now have a unique opportunity and ability to halt this destructive trend and to take the first decisive steps to restore marriage in our society.
Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), p. 334.
[2] Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Patrick F. Fagan, and Lauren R. Noyes, "Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty," Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA03-06, May 20, 2003.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kathryn Edin, Paula England, Emily Fitzgibbon Shafer, and Joanna Reed, "Forming Fragile Families: Was the Baby Planned, Unplanned, or In Between?" in Paula England and Kathryn Edin, eds., Unmarried Couples with Children (New York: Russell Sage Publications, 2007), p. 32.
[5] Rector et al., "Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty."
[6] Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p. 334.
[7] Ibid.
Reducing Poverty by Revitalizing Marriage in Low-Income Communities: A Memo to President-elect Obama
by Robert E. Rector
Special Report #45
[C]hildren living with single mothers are five times more likely to be poor than children in two-parent households. Children in single-parent homes are also more likely to drop out of school and become teen parents, even when income is factored out. And the evidence suggests that on average, children who live with their biological mother and father do better than those who live in stepfamilies or with cohabiting partners.... In light of these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who choose it and that discourage unintended births outside of marriage are sensible goals to pursue.
--Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope[1]
President-elect Obama, the collapse of marriage is the most important social problem facing the nation. When the War on Poverty began in the 1960s, 7 percent of U.S. children were born outside of marriage. Today, the number is 38 percent. Among blacks, it is 69 percent. You are in a unique position to reverse this alarming trend.
The decline of marriage is a major cause of child poverty. Roughly two-thirds of poor children live in single-parent homes. Marital collapse is also a major contributor to welfare dependence: Each year, government spends over $250 billion for means-tested welfare benefits for single parents.
When compared to similar children raised by two married biological parents, children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to fail in school, abuse drugs or alcohol, commit crimes, become pregnant as teens, and suffer from emotional and behavioral problems. Such children are also more likely to end up on welfare or in jails when they become adults.
Revitalized marriage can have a powerful impact in reducing poverty in low-income communities. For example, if poor women who have children out of wedlock were married to the actual fathers of their children, nearly two-thirds would be lifted out of poverty immediately.[2] Because the decline in marriage is linked to many other social problems, an increase in healthy marriage would to lead to a long-term drop in those problems as well.
Given these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who are interested and discourage births outside of marriage are indeed sensible. But the first step in developing such policies must be to look beyond the many misperceptions that cloud the issue. Effective policy must be based on facts.
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is not the same problem as teen pregnancy. Although 38 percent of children are born outside of marriage, only about one in seven of these non-marital births occurs to a girl under age 18. Most out-of-wedlock births occur to men and women in their early twenties. Half of the women who have children out of wedlock are cohabiting with the father at the time of birth; 75 percent are in a romantic relationship with the father.[3] Policymakers seeking to reduce out-of-wedlock births must look far beyond teen pregnancy.
Fact: Few out-of-wedlock births are accidental. The overwhelming majority of young adult women who have a non-marital birth strongly want to have children. Although they are ambivalent about the best timing, they want and expect to have children at a fairly young age. Most are also interested in marriage, but they do not see marriage or a stable relationship as an important precondition to having a baby. To a significant degree, the decision to have a child outside of marriage is a deliberate choice for these women.
Fact: Lack of access to birth control is not a significant factor contributing to "unintended pregnancy" or non-marital births. A recent survey of low-income women who had had a non-marital pregnancy found that only 1 percent reported that lack of access to birth control played a role in the pregnancy.[4]
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is concentrated among low-income, less educated men and women. In general, the women most likely to have a child without being married are those who have the least ability to support a family by themselves.
Fact: Although the decline in marriage is most prominent among blacks, it is also a serious problem among Hispanics and lower-income whites: 44 percent of Hispanic children and 25 percent of white children are born outside of marriage.
Fact: Low male wages and employment are not the principal cause of out-of-wedlock childbearing. The overwhelming majority of non-married fathers were employed at the time of the child's birth. Over half earn enough to support a family above the poverty level without the mother working at all.[5] Before the child's birth, the fathers-to-be, on average, earned more than the mothers-to-be. If, as some argue, the fathers were not economically prepared to support a family, the mothers were even less prepared. Other factors such as social norms concerning marriage, life-planning skills, and relationship skills play a far greater role than male wages in promoting out-of-wedlock childbearing.
Fact: Out-of-wedlock childbearing is not the result of a shortage of marriageable males. Nearly 40 percent of all American children, and 69 percent of black children, are born outside of marriage. The sheer magnitude of the problem undercuts the argument that it is caused by a shortage of marriageable men. The decline in marriage in low-income communities stems from changing social norms and from a welfare system that for decades has penalized marriage, not from a lack of millions of marriageable men.
Government should help low-income couples to move toward more prosperous lives by providing such men and women with education that increases their understanding of the strong link between marriage and better life outcomes and that equips them to make critical life decisions concerning childbearing and family formation more wisely.
Paradoxically, most low-income men and women who are likely to have children out of wedlock have favorable attitudes toward marriage: If anything, they tend to over-idealize it. However, many low-income couples do not believe that it is important to form a stable marital relationship before conceiving children and bringing them into the world. They also tend to believe that haphazard cohabiting relationships are likely to endure and flourish when, in reality, this seldom occurs.
Many low-income individuals choose to have children first and then work on finding suitable partners and building strong relationships. They fail to understand that this pattern is not likely to be successful. Most low-income young women, in particular, strongly want children and hope those children will grow up to enter the middle class, but they fail to appreciate the vitally important role a healthy marriage can play in boosting a child's success.
In The Audacity of Hope, you wrote:
[R]esearch shows that marriage education workshops can make a real difference in helping married couples stay together and in encouraging unmarried couples who are living together to form a more lasting bond. Expanding access to such services to low-income couples, perhaps in concert with job training and placement, medical coverage, and other services already available, should be something everybody can agree on.[6]
You were exactly right. By and large, young low-income men and women aspire to have strong, healthy marriages. They also seek upward social and economic mobility. Marriage education can help at-risk individuals appreciate the role that healthy marriage can have in meeting long-term life goals and can enable them to make decisions about childbearing that best match their life aspirations. These programs can also provide training in life partner selection and in skills that help to build healthy enduring relationships. Such programs should not be regarded as imposing alien middle-class values on the poor, but rather as providing vital tools to help individuals fulfill their real life goals.
You have also written, "most people agree that neither federal welfare programs nor the tax code should penalize married couples."[7] Again, you are right. Given the private and social benefits of marriage, it is absurd for the welfare industry to penalize marriage. Yet that is exactly what welfare does.
Specifically, welfare programs create disincentives to marriage because benefits are reduced as a family's income rises. A mother will receive far more from welfare if she is single than if she has an employed husband in the home. For many low-income couples, marriage means a reduction in government assistance and an overall decline in the couple's joint income. Marriage penalties occur in many means-tested programs such as food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, day care, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The welfare system should be overhauled to reduce such counterproductive incentives.
Now is the time for action. You and your Administration, by launching the following specific initiatives, can help to revitalize marriage in America.
Recognize that the key to arresting the decline of marriage in the U.S. is moral leadership. Use the White House bully pulpit to reaffirm the value and importance of marriage. You are uniquely suited to this task. Your strong personal affirmation of values will prove critical in transforming anti-marriage norms and in promoting a long-overdue renewal of marriage in low-income communities.
Use the bully pulpit to emphasize the historical importance of marriage within the black community. Remind the nation that even at the height of Jim Crow segregation prior to World War II, nine out of ten black children were born to married couples. Warn the nation that the same decline in marriage that afflicted black communities a generation ago is now battering low- and moderate-income white communities.
Encourage public advertising campaigns on the importance of marriage that are targeted to low-income communities.
Provide marriage education programs in high schools with a high proportion of at-risk youth. Most low-income girls strongly desire to have children. They also wish and intend to be good mothers. These young women will be very receptive to information that shows the positive effects of marriage on long-term child outcomes. Such education could be funded under the current "healthy marriage initiative" program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Make voluntary marriage education widely available to interested couples in low-income communities. This could be done by expanding the small "healthy marriage initiative" currently operating in HHS. These programs may also provide job training to participants, but that should not be their primary emphasis.
Provide marriage education referrals in Title X birth control clinics. Government- funded Title X clinics operate in nearly every county in the U.S., providing free or subsidized birth control to over 4 million low-income adult women each year. Many clients of these clinics go on to have children out of wedlock within a short period. With 38 percent of children born outside of marriage, it is obvious that a policy of merely promoting birth control is highly ineffective in stemming the rise of non-marital births. In addition to providing birth control, Title X clinics should be required to offer referrals to education in relationships, marriage, and life-planning skills to clients who are interested.
Reduce the anti-marriage penalties in welfare. The simplest way to accomplish this would be to increase the value of the earned income tax credit (EITC) for married couples with children; this could offset the anti-marriage penalties existing in other programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid.
Conclusion
More than 40 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a member of the White House staff under President Lyndon Johnson, warned of the impending collapse of the black married family. He predicted the social calamities that this collapse would bring. Moynihan was right, but in subsequent decades, as the problem mushroomed, the nation largely hid its head in the sand and ignored the devastation. In the four decades since Moynihan's warning, the government has done almost nothing to protect or restore marriage.
Today, the collapse of marriage about which Moynihan warned so long ago is escalating rapidly across other racial groups. Forty years of neglect and silence is enough. You now have a unique opportunity and ability to halt this destructive trend and to take the first decisive steps to restore marriage in our society.
Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), p. 334.
[2] Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Patrick F. Fagan, and Lauren R. Noyes, "Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty," Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA03-06, May 20, 2003.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kathryn Edin, Paula England, Emily Fitzgibbon Shafer, and Joanna Reed, "Forming Fragile Families: Was the Baby Planned, Unplanned, or In Between?" in Paula England and Kathryn Edin, eds., Unmarried Couples with Children (New York: Russell Sage Publications, 2007), p. 32.
[5] Rector et al., "Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty."
[6] Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p. 334.
[7] Ibid.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Two Cows
I received the following via email quite some time ago. It is not very PC but sure is funny.
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk,
and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature' s private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the
black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk,
and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature' s private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the
black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.
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