Here’s a video from the Texas Tribune that looks at how the cuts to contraception, family planning and preventative care in Texas end up costing the state far more than covering family planning would have cost in the first place. When the religious right claims to be fiscal conservatives, that’s nonsense; they’re just moral authoritarians.
Jul 15 2012
Family Planning Saves Money
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D. C. Sessions
July 15, 2012 at 10:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pregnancy and disease may be expensive, but the price is nothing if even one innocent girl’s soul can be saved from the sin of fornication.
Besides, we’re working on getting rid of those socialist programs that waste money on those sluts and their worthless bastards.
DaveL
July 15, 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Except for prisons; they don’t count. We’re okay with feeding, housing, and providing medical care to able-bodied adults as long as we get to cage and humiliate them.
Modusoperandi
July 15, 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Everything’s bigger in Texas. Even spite.
Rando
July 15, 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
George Carlin is right, “If you’re preborn your fine, if your preschool you’re on your own!” It’s amazing just how much these right to life people will go on and on about how important life is to them, but don’t seem to give a shit after that life is born.
raven
July 15, 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Even if they cut welfare benefits, the state still ends up paying for unwanted children.
Poor kids with no education and poorly socialized end up running loose and a lot of them end up committing crimes, which cost society directly and indirectly.
Then they end up in prison. IIRC, it cost $25,000 to $50,000 per year per prisoner in state prisons.
In California, a significant part of their perpetual budget problems is due to the huge and rapidly growing prison system.
Early intervention programs like Headstart and food stamps are incredibly cost effective when you factor in their lifetime benefits.
raven
July 15, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Texas has the fourth highest teen birth rate in the USA. It’s been the highest in some recent years.
It also leads the nation in children growing up in poverty.
These are critical metrics because teenage birth and growing up in poverty are highly correlated with lifelong poverty. And this costs the state a lot in money and livability.
otrame
July 15, 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is also the fact that poor people don’t make enough money to pay taxes. If they made more money, everyone could pay less taxes for the same services.
But, of course, if poor people could get an education and made more money then who would all the conservatives look down on (well, except gays, because there just aren’t enough gays to look down on, amirite)? Yeah, that is more important than increasing tax revenue without increasing tax rates.
Dr X
July 15, 2012 at 4:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And if they do fornicate, they should suffer the consequences. It’s natural law.
lancifer
July 15, 2012 at 8:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed,
That is absolutely true.
Of course there are plenty of “moral authoritarians” on the left as well.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
July 15, 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The conservative solution, of course, is to issue hunting licenses to those who can pay.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
July 15, 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Such as?
Modusoperandi
July 16, 2012 at 2:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven “Such as?”
Hmmm. Let me take a sip of my maximum legal sized soda while I think about it.
jaybee
July 16, 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Modusoperandi, when did Bloomberg become a Democrat? He was more than a decade ago, but ran as a Republican in 2001. A few years back he switched to Independent.
Azkyroth, the first democratic moral authoritarian I can think of is Tipper Gore with her lobbying to have records labeled for content.
Modusoperandi
July 16, 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My bad. I’ll bask in the shadows of my shame while taking a cigarette break outside, more than ten feet away from an entrance, in what was the designated area but they took the sign down.
SEO
July 30, 2012 at 6:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
SEO…
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