Here’s hoping that the next time Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi goes to confession – the lady confesses to being a Catholic – the priest in the confessional box has the presence of mind to have an economist seated beside him.
Pelosi believes that contraception and other family planning services, among which must abortion must be included, “help states meet their financial needs” and ultimately reduce costs.
This sunburst came during a confab with George Stephanopoulos 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.
Fewer children means less money the states must churn out for schools.
When Pelosi told Tom Brocaw that the Catholic Church’s view on the impermissibility of abortion was of recent vintage, she was corrected by every Catholic theologian from sea to shining sea. Bishop Charles Chaput of Denver gave Pelosi an “F” in Catholic theology: “Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.” Apart from Pelosi’s crooked theology, her economics is also a bit screwy.
Apart from Pelosi’s crooked theology, her economics is also a bit screwy.
It is true that fewer children mean fewer schools. It is also true that fewer schools mean fewer teachers, school administrators, principals, superintendents and other unionized workers, most of whom, even the Catholics among them, voted for Peolosi. So, the upside for Republicans and the Pope, neither of whom favor the Americanization of foreign attitudes on abortion, is that more family planning and more abortions ultimately reduce the number of voters who would be inclined to vote for such as Pelosi.
The news for Pelosi is not good on the tax revenue side either.
While it is true that in the short run fewer births, now controlled by the US Congress, might lead to less money shelled out by the states for such expenses as education, it is also true that in the long run fewer births also result in fewer taxpayers – and less money for such as Nancy Pelosi to spend wildly propping up Main Street and Wall Street.
And fewer children mean, another upside for Republicans and the Pope, fewer potential voters who can be bewitched by politicians, like Pelosi, who claim that they are passing legislation that benefits children.
One would never guess from all this talk about birth controlling and aborting future Democrat voters that the United States is dangerously close to joining much of Europe in the family planning downslide. In Europe, birth has been so controlled that many countries cannot produce enough children to replace the dying population.
France is the exception.
Why? Because France, determined not to disappear any time soon, pays families – in tax refunds – to have more than 2.5 children, the rate at which the population increases.
This too is birth control. But it is the kind of control that will assure the nation that its debts will ultimately be paid by a growing population. It has often been said by pay-as-you go Democrats in the congress that national debts are the unwanted legacy the present generation leaves to future generations. Less generation leads inexorably to lesser generations.
And wouldn’t it be nice, when the country’s multi-trillion dollar bill comes due, to have someone at the end of the line pay for it?
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