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.
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?
Get used to it, Teresa. You're 62 now (BTW, Happy birthday). The standard position of all politicians, left, right, or center (if any such pols exist any more), is that once a person approaches that point on the age chart (65) where he or she no longer are counted in official lies, er, statistics, his or her significance to policymakers begins declining; at age 65, he or she sort of disappears from the radar screen completely. When I was 35, or 40, or whatever, I'd hear this from members of the over 62 crowd and used to think that they were just crying in their beer, or whatever drink they were having. Now that I am in that group, I suddenly awoke one morning to realize to my shock that again, my elders were right.
I refuse to just sit here and rot away, Teresa, and neither should you. My volunteer work, involvement with my church, and a service club actually keep me at least as busy and productive as I was years ago - and I just love it. Please consider doing the same with your life. And have a little sympathy for our children and grandchildren; I realize that being a twentysomething isn't what it was when I was there in the 70s. I just hope that won't end in stagflation and a morass of unemployment, as did my 20s. In the military, it's an article of faith that the historical memory of the institution resides in officers and enlisted personnel in mid-career. It's not that way in civilian life; the 30s and 40s are the ages when people are raising families and trying to position themselves financially for their later years. They don't realize what's truly going on, but we do; we've seen much of it before. We know that the designs of Marxist social architects lead only to disaster, and that the government big and powerful enough to give to you everything you want is big and powerful enough to take from you everything you have. We truly are the leaders we've always wanted; we need to act the part.
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.
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
Rephrase that to "involved citizens versus uninvolved residents", Greg, and you'll have it right. Being a citizen in a self governing democratic republic, the Founders told us, is real work. Alas, far too many people are willing to put in the work needed to be informed, active citizens - something the social revolutionaries called the wokesters are counting on.
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.
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!
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.
Perhaps that is hyperbole. However, it is undeniably true that many would be parents choose abortion for reasons which are at best, frivolous, and at worst, self absorbed and narcissistic. Such reasons include deciding they can't afford that child after all, and my personal "favorite", sex selection. Messing with the normal distribution of boys vs. girls in a generation carries with it all manner of danger, as China is realizing; due to that country's "one child" policy, people followed the cultural bias in favor of sons over daughters. Now, there is an estimated 100 million more young men in the 20-35 age group in China than there are women. It's not good to have that many young men of prime reproductive age to have no effective chance to start a family on so many levels, chief among them being the threat of major social disruption. We have no business duplicating that experience here, and that may be a powerful, if admittedly somewhat cynical, reason for keeping limits on abortion.
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.
"For this thing is from Israel—a craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.…" Hosea 8:6-8 And that whirlwind will consume all of us, not just the architects of the coming disaster.
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.
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?
Get used to it, Teresa. You're 62 now (BTW, Happy birthday). The standard position of all politicians, left, right, or center (if any such pols exist any more), is that once a person approaches that point on the age chart (65) where he or she no longer are counted in official lies, er, statistics, his or her significance to policymakers begins declining; at age 65, he or she sort of disappears from the radar screen completely. When I was 35, or 40, or whatever, I'd hear this from members of the over 62 crowd and used to think that they were just crying in their beer, or whatever drink they were having. Now that I am in that group, I suddenly awoke one morning to realize to my shock that again, my elders were right.
I refuse to just sit here and rot away, Teresa, and neither should you. My volunteer work, involvement with my church, and a service club actually keep me at least as busy and productive as I was years ago - and I just love it. Please consider doing the same with your life. And have a little sympathy for our children and grandchildren; I realize that being a twentysomething isn't what it was when I was there in the 70s. I just hope that won't end in stagflation and a morass of unemployment, as did my 20s. In the military, it's an article of faith that the historical memory of the institution resides in officers and enlisted personnel in mid-career. It's not that way in civilian life; the 30s and 40s are the ages when people are raising families and trying to position themselves financially for their later years. They don't realize what's truly going on, but we do; we've seen much of it before. We know that the designs of Marxist social architects lead only to disaster, and that the government big and powerful enough to give to you everything you want is big and powerful enough to take from you everything you have. We truly are the leaders we've always wanted; we need to act the part.
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.
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
Rephrase that to "involved citizens versus uninvolved residents", Greg, and you'll have it right. Being a citizen in a self governing democratic republic, the Founders told us, is real work. Alas, far too many people are willing to put in the work needed to be informed, active citizens - something the social revolutionaries called the wokesters are counting on.
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.
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!
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.
Perhaps that is hyperbole. However, it is undeniably true that many would be parents choose abortion for reasons which are at best, frivolous, and at worst, self absorbed and narcissistic. Such reasons include deciding they can't afford that child after all, and my personal "favorite", sex selection. Messing with the normal distribution of boys vs. girls in a generation carries with it all manner of danger, as China is realizing; due to that country's "one child" policy, people followed the cultural bias in favor of sons over daughters. Now, there is an estimated 100 million more young men in the 20-35 age group in China than there are women. It's not good to have that many young men of prime reproductive age to have no effective chance to start a family on so many levels, chief among them being the threat of major social disruption. We have no business duplicating that experience here, and that may be a powerful, if admittedly somewhat cynical, reason for keeping limits on abortion.
I agree with your analysis but I would like to see reports and statistics from the sources.
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.
"For this thing is from Israel—a craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.…" Hosea 8:6-8 And that whirlwind will consume all of us, not just the architects of the coming disaster.
Cradle to the grave governmental parenting. Pretty disgusting ideology.
But not new: President Obama debuted this notion during his 2012 reelection campaign with his infamous "Life of Julia" Web ad. What we're seeing now is merely a bad idea with 9n years' seasoning, none of which helped it age any better: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-julia-ad-and-the-new-hubby-state/2012/05/11/gIQAcRdoIU_story.html
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."