01-27-2009, 04:30 PM
Don't forget Pelosi's awesome stance on the contraceptive pork. I don't remember the exact number, but I know it's in the neighborhood of two hundred million.
[drop]Yeah, good idea[/drop]
From what I can tell, she's basing her argument on the opinion that providing children with what they need is expensive.. so let's prevent more children from being born. I guess that kind of makes sense, but the reality is different and not that difficult to figure out.
Children grow up and, ideally, become contributing members of society. Once they graduate from public schools and enter university or the workforce, they're on their own. The elderly, however, are a different story. And please don't consider me ageist or an elder-hater or whatever.. it's simply that people are living longer than Social Security was ever intended to provide for. When it was implemented, people (mostly men) worked until they were in their late 50's or early 60's, retired, and died in their early 70's. People are living longer now, on average, and the system no longer works. It goes back to the commercial principle of supply and demand. There's more elderly people now who are living longer at a bigger expense than there are people to pay for their care.
So the system is broken, and the best way they can address it is to bust out a couple hundred million bucks (borrowed.. not on hand) to prevent more people from being born? That's counter-intuitive, seeing as how a smaller workforce in the future will simply shortchange the people who are working now and will probably live longer than the last few generations (unless that pesky obesity thing clogs our arteries early enough). Anyway, rant over.
[drop]Yeah, good idea[/drop]
From what I can tell, she's basing her argument on the opinion that providing children with what they need is expensive.. so let's prevent more children from being born. I guess that kind of makes sense, but the reality is different and not that difficult to figure out.
Children grow up and, ideally, become contributing members of society. Once they graduate from public schools and enter university or the workforce, they're on their own. The elderly, however, are a different story. And please don't consider me ageist or an elder-hater or whatever.. it's simply that people are living longer than Social Security was ever intended to provide for. When it was implemented, people (mostly men) worked until they were in their late 50's or early 60's, retired, and died in their early 70's. People are living longer now, on average, and the system no longer works. It goes back to the commercial principle of supply and demand. There's more elderly people now who are living longer at a bigger expense than there are people to pay for their care.
So the system is broken, and the best way they can address it is to bust out a couple hundred million bucks (borrowed.. not on hand) to prevent more people from being born? That's counter-intuitive, seeing as how a smaller workforce in the future will simply shortchange the people who are working now and will probably live longer than the last few generations (unless that pesky obesity thing clogs our arteries early enough). Anyway, rant over.
Where would we be without the agitators of the world attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance?