Recently, whether one noticed or not, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to NOT focus on whatever nonsense the Right Wing Politicians have regurgitated up like some high chair bound infant. It has been much easier on my psyche to ignore all that shit.
So this post, although it looks like the outrage of the moment, it is not. It is indicative of a pattern of thinking that goes to the heart of Republicans diacotamy. It is indicative of the "freedom for me, but not for you" pattern of selfishness / fascism. Let me explain.
What Senator Johnson (R-Wisconsin) is saying out loud was also said by Senators Rand Paul (R-TN) and Joe Manchin (D - WV) as well as others (almost all the others Republicans). It has also been repeated by the governors of the two biggest Republican states, Texas and Florida.
To quote Senator Johnson's words directly, “People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice.” LINK Which I might understand, except for their other actions around contraception, childbirth and education of said children.
What the Senators and Governors are objecting to is a tax credit of $3000 per child per year - started during Covid. These payments have reduced the number of children in poverty by 3,000,000 (link). Three million! That is more children lifted out of poverty than the entire population of Chicago or Houston or Phoenix. Or Phoenix and San Diego COMBINED. The support would be phased out after a family income of $75,000 a year - gross (i.e. before taxes).
(More after the jump)
So, Joe Manchin thinks the tax credit was used for drugs*. Note that more children were lifted out of poverty that the population of West Virginia (his state) + another 1 million kids.
As for the Republican politicians. Although they think parents should not have children they cannot afford, the oppose a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy in all cases. Including an impoverished mother where the birth control failed, or who was raped. So mam, you MUST have a child per the government, but you have to shoulder the burden because it was your choice.
They also do not support and government or even subsidized child care. They have stated that women should stay home and care for the baby - that they cannot afford without working.
As for keeping the state out of parental affairs. That only applies to make children and families poor, but not allowing them the agency to raise them in the way they find appropriate. Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Iowa and parts of most other Republican run states are banning (in some cases propose buring) books they don't like in libraries! These books include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners, Booker Prize winners and Young Adult Prize winners.
They have also instituted rules including not discussing slavery and/or it's effect, "because that might make white kids feel bad." It mandates the teaching of both sides of Slavery and the Holocaust (really). It requires in Tennessee that teachers cannot even discuss Nazis (National Socialism), Fascism, Communism or "any other isms."
Florida is close to outlawing the teaching that gay people exist (called the Don't Say Gay bill). Texas has already closed any and all resources that might support high school students questioning their sexual orientation - and telling the parents if the questioning child goes to the school nurse, joins the wrong after school group or seems gay to a counselor. In any "religious company" they can outlawed contraception support. Inventive points to them that they found actual "religious companies". Not companies where workers or owners are religious, but a company is actually defined as "religious".
So, the rules are, the state can force a woman to have a baby, can determine what the child can learn at school, that children are allowed to bring a gun to school - but you cannot give a stipend to parents for food, clothing and child care, because if you can't afford it you shouldn't have one.
For fuck's sake.
*Senator Manchin came to this conclusion after 1 (ONE) of his constituents supposedly said she knew of ONE person that used the tax credit for drugs. He cannot name this constituent, nor when he meet her. But he is positive it happened and he should send 3,000,000 children back into poverty because 1 parent used the money for drugs. Even if it was 10% of people who did that. Isn't the health of 3 million children outweigh that?
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