PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

I think her intent was correct, her verbage not so much.

How's about welfare not paying for extra babies? Depot Provera implants should be mandatory for women on welfare (if there were a viable injectable/implantable male contraceptive, I'd support that also). And drug testing.

Can't agree more.

She readily admits that it is NOT a stimulus at all. It is hopefully a reduction in costs or a savings. Nowhere did she say that it was a stimulus. There are a lot of things similar to that in this package. They may be good and have benefits, but they are not stimulating any economic recovery.

Caterpillar--cutting 20,000 jobs
Sprint/Nextel--cutting 8000 jobs
Home Depot--cutting 7000 jobs


35,000 jobs lost


I must say that Obama better get on the stick. Did anyone see the number of large companies that anounced job layoffs today? He keeps talking about how this economic plan being cooked up by the Dems in Congress and his administration are going to create all these jobs. So far I am not sure that anyone can say that a single job has been created and there are none to be created in the immediate future. Right now a lot of talk about what we need and what they are going to do, but no plan on how to make it happen.

I'm trying to be patient. :bites tongue:

Yeah, I'm pretty pissed at myself for voting for him. It's been 6 motherfucking days, and no results that I can see. Sheesh. He sucks. :headshake

Don't bite to hard. And certainly don't hold your breath. Steady drum beat but no plan of attack.

I think there is definitely a plan. Its effectiveness is unknown, but it can't be any worse than the last one...can it?

Well one the one hand you have the US gov't giving bonuses to bank executives. And on the other they are talking about building roads and bridges and shit. I'd agree. Can't be any worse.

Well it won't mean squat if something actionable is not started immediately. I fear that this job creation fantasy is just that, a fantasy, not a plan. I think they believe that if they throw money at a system it will just start up like the turn of a key and jobs will be created. That would be highly unlikely.

Let's take that one example, and I think about it because they keep repeating it. Now say they free up a bunch of money for roads and bridges specifically. Who would be first in line for that money? Most likely it would go to the individual states for their highway, roads, and bridges, or even if is a national plan, who would be first in line for that money? Well that would be those companies that are best suited to immediately fill equipment with gas and put shovels in hands and begin work right? Well no, the law requires a bidding process for public works projects by private companies. That takes time. I guess they could figure out a way to fast track that process if they even think about it. Ok, so now we have the companies that are best suited to begin work, which companies? The ones that already have all the equipment and a ready force of workers to do the job, even if they call back recently laid off workers, we are not talking about a lot of people here. And of all those who have just been laid off, how many are willing to leave a desk job and jump right on a shovel? I doubt that many. The problem is huge and not simple.

Reminds me of all the critical views on Haliburton at the start of the various wars, they were the only ones pre-positioned to do the job.

Not sure what's going to happen with that pesky infrastructure stuff, since none of the work is allowed to be done by white male construction workers, or anyone else with experience.

I have a little insight into that Merc. The worst part is that they are looking to REPAIR bridges and need the ones which can be completed in the shortest amount of time with the least disruption to traffic. This means that the ones which need reparations the most are not going to be worked on. That gets things moving quickly, but still leaves the bridges in the worst shape - just that, in the worst shape. Addressing them is apparently not on the "short list."