Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Owlman]

Neither vasectomies nor bilateral tubal ligations are considered reversible. Any physician that does a tubal ligation on a teen is likely to get his license suspended without a significant other health issue necessitating.

Of course, if your suggestion of all this is to save money (AA has already pointed out the flaw in that thinking), then just mandate that all teen pregnancies be aborted. Much cheaper than them having the baby.

[innocentbystander]

Okay dokey, then. And people who file bankruptcy, too. Those folks don't need to be having kids. Can't (or won't) pay their bills and having kids? Those sum-bitches need to get their finances straight first. Ditto people with arrest records and people with disabilities. Don't need no deadbeats, fuckin' retards, or criminals having kids. Forced sterilization for them all is the answer.

Hello, I would also like to see forced BC required for Auburn fans. Those bastards breed like crazy.

You are all avoiding the main issue, that is, there should absolutely, positively, never been government assistance provided to single moms in the first place. That is where we fucked up and that must be UNDONE ASAP. I want you all to read this....

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005244.html

Another example is welfare. To sketch a brief history of welfare, it emerged in the nineteenth century as "Widows and orphans pensions", which were paid by the state to destitute families whose breadwinner had passed away. They were often not available to blacks; they were never available to unwed mothers. Though public services expanded in the first half of the twentieth century, that mentality was very much the same: public services were about supporting unfortunate families, not unwed mothers. Unwed mothers could not, in most cases, obtain welfare; they were not allowed in public housing (which was supposed to be--and was--a way station for young, struggling families on the way to homeownership, not a permanent abode); they were otherwise discriminated against by social services. The help you could expect from society was a home for wayward girls, in which you would give birth and then put the baby up for adoption.

The description of public housing in the fifties is shocking to anyone who's spent any time in modern public housing. Big item on the agenda at the tenant's meeting: housewives, don't shake your dustcloths out of the windows--other wives don't want your dirt in their apartment! Men, if you wear heavy work boots, please don't walk on the lawns until you can change into lighter shoes, as it damages the grass! (Descriptions taken from the invaluable book, The Inheritance, about the transition of the white working class from Democrat to Republican.) Needless to say, if those same housing projects could today find a majority of tenants who reliably dusted, or worked, they would be thrilled.

Public housing was, in short, a place full of functioning families.

Now, in the late fifties, a debate began over whether to extend benefits to the unmarried. It was unfair to stigmatise unwed mothers. Why shouldn't they be able to avail themselves of the benefits available to other citizens? The brutal societal prejudice against illegitimacy was old fashioned, bigoted, irrational.

But if you give unmarried mothers money, said the critics, you will get more unmarried mothers.

Ridiculous, said the proponents of the change. Being an unmarried mother is a brutal, thankless task. What kind of idiot would have a baby out of wedlock just because the state was willing to give her paltry welfare benefits?

People do all sorts of idiotic things, said the critics. If you pay for something, you usually get more of it.

C'mon said the activists. That's just silly. I just can't imagine anyone deciding to get pregnant out of wedlock simply because there are welfare benefits available.

Oooops.

Of course, change didn't happen overnight. But the marginal cases did have children out of wedlock, which made it more acceptable for the next marginal case to do so. Meanwhile, women who wanted to get married essentially found themselves in competition for young men with women who were willing to have sex, and bear children, without forcing the men to take any responsibility. This is a pretty attractive proposition for most young men. So despite the fact that the sixties brought us the biggest advance in birth control ever, illegitimacy exploded. In the early 1960s, a black illegitimacy rate of roughly 25 percent caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan to write a tract warning of a crisis in "the negro family" (a tract for which he was eviscerated by many of those selfsame activists.)

By 1990, that rate was over 70 percent. This, despite the fact that the inner city, where the illegitimacy problem was biggest, only accounts for a fraction of the black population.

But in that inner city, marriage had been destroyed. It had literally ceased to exist in any meaningful way. Possibly one of the most moving moments in Jason de Parle's absolutely wonderful book, American Dream, which follows three welfare mothers through welfare reform, is when he reveals that none of these three women, all in their late thirties, had ever been to a wedding.

Marriage matters. It is better for the kids; it is better for the adults raising those kids; and it is better for the childless people in the communities where those kids and adults live. Marriage reduces poverty, improves kids outcomes in all measurable ways, makes men live longer and both spouses happier. Marriage, it turns out, is an incredibly important institution. It also turns out to be a lot more fragile than we thought back then. It looked, to those extremely smart and well-meaning welfare reformers, practically unshakeable; the idea that it could be undone by something as simple as enabling women to have children without husbands, seemed ludicrous. Its cultural underpinnings were far too firm. Why would a woman choose such a hard road? It seemed self-evident that the only unwed mothers claiming benefits would be the ones pushed there by terrible circumstance.

This argument is compelling and logical. I would never become an unwed welfare mother, even if benefits were a great deal higher than they are now. It seems crazy to even suggest that one would bear a child out of wedlock for $567 a month. Indeed, to this day, I find the reformist side much more persuasive than the conservative side, except for one thing, which is that the conservatives turned out to be right. In fact, they turned out to be even more right than they suspected; they were predicting upticks in illegitimacy that were much more modest than what actually occurred--they expected marriage rates to suffer, not collapse.

How did people go so badly wrong? Well, to start with, they fell into the basic fallacy that economists are so well acquainted with: they thought about themselves instead of the marginal case. For another, they completely failed to realise that each additional illegitimate birth would, in effect, slightly destigmatise the next one. They assigned men very little agency, failing to predict that women willing to forgo marriage would essentially become unwelcome competition for women who weren't, and that as the numbers changed, that competition might push the marriage market towards unwelcome outcomes. They failed to forsee the confounding effect that the birth control pill would have on sexual mores.

But I think the core problems are two. The first is that they looked only at individuals, and took instititutions as a given. That is, they looked at all the cultural pressure to marry, and assumed that that would be a countervailing force powerful enough to overcome the new financial incentives for out-of-wedlock births. They failed to see the institution as dynamic. It wasn't a simple matter of two forces: cultural pressure to marry, financial freedom not to, arrayed against eachother; those forces had a complex interplay, and when you changed one, you changed the other.

The second is that they didn't assign any cultural reason for, or value to, the stigma on illegitimacy. They saw it as an outmoded vestige of a repressive Victorial values system, based on an unnatural fear of sexuality. But the stigma attached to unwed motherhood has quite logical, and important, foundations: having a child without a husband is bad for children, and bad for mothers, and thus bad for the rest of us. So our culture made it very costly for the mother to do. Lower the cost, and you raise the incidence. As an economist would say, incentives matter.

(Now, I am not arguing in favor of stigmatising unwed mothers the way the Victorians did. I'm just pointing out that the stigma did not exist merely, as many mid-century reformers seem to have believed, because of some dark Freudian excesses on the part of our ancestors.)

But all the reformers saw was the terrible pain--and it was terrible--inflicted on unwed mothers. They saw the terrible unfairness--and it was terribly unfair--of punishing the mother, and not the father. They saw the inherent injustice--and need I add, it was indeed unjust--of treating American citizens differently because of their marital status.

But as G.K. Chesterton points out, people who don't see the use of a social institution are the last people who should be allowed to reform it:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

Now, of course, this can turn into a sort of precautionary principle that prevents reform from ever happening. That would be bad; all sorts of things need changing all the time, because society and our environment change. But as a matter of principle, it is probably a bad idea to let someone go mucking around with social arrangements, such as the way we treat unwed parenthood, if their idea about that institution is that "it just growed". You don't have to be a rock-ribbed conservative to recognise that there is something of an evolutionary process in society: institutional features are not necessarily the best possible arrangement, but they have been selected for a certain amount of fitness.

It might also be, of course, that the feature is what evolutionary biologists call a spandrel. It's a term taken from architecture; spandrels are the pretty little spaces between vaulted arches. They are not designed for; they are a useless, but pretty, side effect of the physical properties of arches. In evolutionary biology, spandrel is some feature which is not selected for, but appears as a byproduct of other traits that are selected for. Belly buttons are a neat place to put piercings, but they're not there because of that; they're a byproduct of mammalian reproduction.

However, and architect will be happy to tell you that if you try to rip out the spandrel, you might easily bring down the building.

We are all arguing nonsense. You pay single women a check to support their children, you motivate them to have MORE children. It is that simple. To believe in anything else, is to believe in pure hooey.

[Owlman]

We are all arguing nonsense. You pay single women a check to support their children, you motivate them to have MORE children. It is that simple. To believe in anything else, is to believe in pure hooey.

Even if this is true (and I really don't believe it to be as most people don't seem to connect sex with pregnancy), the solution isn't incorporating some expensive testing program. Mandatory elective termination of pregnancy is cheaper on society and actually safer than a full-term pregnancy.

[Professor Tiger]

This whole discussion is laughable. Many PNN'ers are so obsessed with denying a welfare queen her $1K per month that they will post 100+ passionate posts on this subject.

Meanwhile white collar criminals like Bernie Madoff, and the many like him, who steal billions from the taxpayer and/or society, don't warrant a single mention.

[Professor Tiger]

BTW, Megan McArdle is to IB what Boortz is to puter.

[innocentbystander]

We are all arguing nonsense. You pay single women a check to support their children, you motivate them to have MORE children. It is that simple. To believe in anything else, is to believe in pure hooey.

Even if this is true (and I really don't believe it to be as most people don't seem to connect sex with pregnancy), the solution isn't incorporating some expensive testing program. Mandatory elective termination of pregnancy is cheaper on society and actually safer than a full-term pregnancy.

It's time to pull the plug on welfare for single parents.

It's over.

[GBJs]

Piss on Madoff... And the asshats who prosecuted him. I haven't gotten a damn thing back which he or the others like him cost me, or the cost of the prosecution. Quite the BS that it would be a class action suit and the only sons of bitches who'd receive anything from it are the lawyers.

AA mentions quite a few plausible counterpoints. I believe Augie gives the best option. Have as many as you wish, you'll get no more money for more children.

[sardis]

I must have missed the post DSL made about Weiner's wiener.

I can't believe he pulled such a boner.

You won't see DSL for awhile, he's painstakingly going over Sarah Palin's every email...

[BigRedMan]

I'm all for drug testing people getting gubment checks and kicking them off if they are positive. That includes unemployment.

You'd have to drug test:

teachers, police, firemen, students getting financial aid and grants, all employees and executives of Exxon etc.

The costs of testing will markedly be more than the benefit

Most of the people listed above all ready go through drug tests.

[Owlman]

Most teachers you know are regularly drug tested? Students? Oil execs? Employees of Exxon?

I don't think so.

[Owlman]

t's time to pull the plug on welfare for single parents.

It's over.

Don't bet any money on it. In particular, instituting an expensive drug testing program is counterproductive

[AlabamAlum]

There are different levels of drug testing. We test employees when hired. The cost is great and the rewards are low. We do not test the employees monthly, which you would probably need (or something close) for this plan.

The" what happens after " question is what makes this a bad plan in my mind. Look at the possible numbers (all figures are made up; just to be illustrative - I ain't about to research this to get exact numbers):

* Assume we have 5 million on Welfare.

* Of that 5 million, let's say 10% have a drug or alcohol problem, which gives us a number of 500,000 removed from roles.

* Of those 500,000 people we have have now cut off, let's assume that half have children - and the average is 2.2 children per those 250,000 on the dole.
________________________________

We now have the following:

(1) 250,000 drug addicts without kids, who have no money, and little or no ability to find work. These folks go where? The street? They will get money from someplace, and that someplace is stealing or prostitution, I would think.

and...


(2) 250,000 drug addicts with kids, who have no money, and little or no ability to find work. These folks go where? The street? They will get money from someplace, and that someplace is stealing or prostitution, I would think.

and

(3) 550,000 children of group #2 who have to be placed in foster care or orphanages at Govt expense. Assume the average cost for foster care is 12K per year per child, or 6,600,000,000 (let's not kid ourselves, very few of this group have supportive extended families).

and

(4) The cost of 5,000,000 drug screens a month, at a cost of $30 per screen, which is 1,800,000,000 per year.

and

(5) Of the 500,000 who were on Welfare, who turned to crime, are caught and sent to prison at a cost of $12K per year, or 3,000,000,000/yr. The remainder who are uncaught just continue to steal or whatever which hurts society by increased prices for goods and in insurance costs.


So, we end up reducing welfare roles by 10%, but now these desperate drug users are on the street or in jail (they don't just go away) - so we end up paying for and administering prison for some, increased cost of goods and insurance, providing 60,000,000 drug screens a year, and paying for foster care for their kids. The ripples of this action cause, in my mind, worse problems and likely cost us more money. There has to be a better way.

[gule]

you could always send them to Kansas...

[Dr. Strangelove]

But as G.K. Chesterton points out, people who don't see the use of a social institution are the last people who should be allowed to reform it:

So why turn over social security, medicare, welfare, etc. to people who, in their heart of hearts, think none of these programs should exist?

STERILIZE THE UNDESIRABLES! DEUTSCHELAND UBER ALLES...er....GODBLESS AMERICA!!

[gule]

I've left the Tv turned on to MSNBC for 2 hours this morning and now I feel sick.... and significantly more depressed about life in amurricaka

[Dr. Strangelove]

I took no drug test when I got my student loan AKA govt. handout

[Hacksaw]

Thank goodness for AA introducing some intelligent counterpoints into this discussion. The lefties here are helpless without him, left flailing to equate firefighters' salaries and student loans (which, by definition, are expected to be paid back) with welfare handouts.

Hell, we even got a nazi reference (DSL never disappoints).

[Dr. Strangelove]

Thank goodness for AA introducing some intelligent counterpoints into this discussion. The lefties here are helpless without him, left flailing to equate firefighters' salaries and student loans (which, by definition, are expected to be paid back) with welfare handouts.

Hell, we even got a nazi reference (DSL never disappoints).

Yeah you know it's funny. For some unfair reason, I tend to associate the forced sterilization of society's lower classes with Nazism. Maybe because they advocated the exact same thing? I dunno.

[Big Orange Junky]

Yep, AA is the only one that actually made any sense.

All the rest just want to give away SOMEONE ELSES money.

The baby raise definately needs to go.

DSL, nobody was basing it on class, race or anything else. The only thing they were basing it on was were they on the gubment tit or not while producing nothing. I don't agree with sterilization in that situation, but don't try to twist their statements into something they are not.

[Hacksaw]

Thank goodness for AA introducing some intelligent counterpoints into this discussion. The lefties here are helpless without him, left flailing to equate firefighters' salaries and student loans (which, by definition, are expected to be paid back) with welfare handouts.

Hell, we even got a nazi reference (DSL never disappoints).

Yeah you know it's funny. For some unfair reason, I tend to associate the forced sterilization of society's lower classes with Nazism. Maybe because they advocated the exact same thing? I dunno.

LOL