16 Comments

On the bright side, the Biden administration is so hamfisted at actually spending allocated money that most of it won't end up going anywhere. Plus, these programs won't be used, so the funding (which is almost always need-based at the agency level) will just sit. Eventually, it will be co-opted to pay for things like Social Security and Medicare, like every other penny in the federal budget. So this is really a back-door play to keep those entitlements afloat a little longer.

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Wow, I had no idea. I turned 62 today. I’m still working full time. I have to live on a budget. I’m still carrying debt from my marriage of 36 years. Parted now. What about us? Where do we fall?

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WOW! Parents staying home with their children is music to my ears! My husband and I sacrificed a LOT for me to stay home with our boys. I worked at a day care center as a newlywed and I loved my students! But I quickly decided that if I could not stay home with my own children I would not have any. We had many lean years, but I would not have traded one minute of convenience for time with my boys. There are many blessings coming out of this pandemic.

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The biggest divide may not be Dem vs Republican, Conservative vs Liberal, Private vs Government, etc. - It could be between involved parents vs uninvolved parents

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There is a lot of truth in what you say, but the sad fact is the vast, vast majority of kids are not going to be homeschooled, they are going to be captives of the teacher's unions. And one talking point of conservatives has always bothered me -the hysterical fear that some child somewhere might be getting a free lunch at school. Why? I would wager every single county in Iowa and Indiana probably receives more federal funds in crop subsidies than the entire national budget for school lunch programs, but those programs never excite the passions of conservatives. We probably waste more money trying to set a price, account for, collect and dun the money received from parents for these lunch charges than is eventually collected, and in the meantime children are stigmatized to their classmates.

I'm about 10 years older than you, Erick, I grew up before food stamps or school programs. My mom raised 5 kids on a truck stop waitresses' salary. I remember the stares of other kids when I would eat a ketchup sandwich in the lunchroom. We are a rich country, we can afford to give kids a free meal while at school.

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Too funny. I responded to an article in Barrons with something quite similar about a month or two ago. I got harassed. Wall Street wants the government to flood with money even though they know it’s inflationary and will lead to an unmitigated economic disaster. Manchin and Synema need to hold the line, but they can’t do a damn thing without increasing the debt ceiling. We need to press our representatives to say no to raising the debt ceiling. With interests rates hovering near zero, debt service is manageable but once rates go up, which they will, look out. No to raising the debt ceiling. No to their garbage spin about government shutting down. It’s total BS, and if it weren’t, we’d probably all be better off!

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Do you really think young congressional staffers—or any woman, for that matter—want to get pregnant just so they can abort their baby for bragging rights?

Maybe I am out of touch with our crazy society. Or maybe I am nitpicking. But that statement strikes me as shock jock hyperbole.

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I agree with your analysis but I would like to see reports and statistics from the sources.

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Smashing analysis Erick! You recognized something that a lot of people don't realize: Most often when real change comes it comes cataclysmically. The irony is that the Democrats stirred the pot to "get rid of Trump" and will have ended up getting exactly what you outlined - something that they find abhorrent. They may have wanted to get rid of Trump but sure as hell did not want stay at home moms, one income families, homeschooling, less abortion, endless wars and the like. By the time it is over Covid will have swept out the 1960s like it had never happened and the rich irony is that life will be a modern version of the 1950s. The country has had 50 years of the liberal left and is now seeing just how bankrupt their ideas are.

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Cradle to the grave governmental parenting. Pretty disgusting ideology.

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This is about buying votes to keep "the plantation" going.

Alexis de Tocqueville: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

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