Well?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well, where is she?

[lumberjim]

HEY, I GEUSS THE YEA'S HAVE IT!

congrats, lady sidhe! are you pissed that bruce beat you to posting first on your forum? heehee

which one of your holes is your "think hole"?

ooo that was crude

[Lady Sidhe]

*grins* The one in my head....

(I'll leave you to take that however you wish)

I work during the day until around six, and I pick up my daughter at daycare afterwards, so I'm usually not home until later in the evening. I just got through checking my mail, which is how I found out that I got the forum. Hoodeehoooo!!!

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED "YES," BTW....




Ok, let's see...first topic of discussion: Let's start with something relatively low-key....How about President Bush's Marriage Plan?

He wants to allocate $1.5 billion (during a five-year period) to help couples develop skills that promote "healthy marriages." The money would go to train counselors to help couples, with an emphasis on those with low incomes. Thus far, it's passed both the House and the Senate Finance Committee, and now they're trying to get it through the Senate as well.

Wade Horn, the assistant secretary for the Administration of Children, Youth, and Families (which is part of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services) says that the marriage initiative is meant to help those who are either already married or have decided to get married, not to persuade single people to GET married.

Basically, the idea is that you can reduce poverty by increasing marriage; supposedly, if you get more single mothers married, you reduce poverty and welfare, which saves the state money.

However, being a single parent isn't only an EFFECT of poverty. It's also a RESULT of it. Poverty would seem to be best dealt with through a decent income rather than marriage, or JUST marriage. Therefore, why don't they simply get rid of the "marriage penalty," (a penalty on working couples who file a joint tax return)? Also, according to the AMA, more than 40 million are either underinsured, or not insured at all. What about the problems they face?

Another interesting finding concerns a study of women from poor families, which was published in the February issue of the journal, "Social Problems"...Sociology professor Daniel T. Lichter of Ohio State University found that while women did get some economic benefits from marriage, those who married and then divorced had higher poverty rates than those who never got married at all.

Therefore, while Bush's plan MAY help couples, there's no guarantee that couples will seek out the counseling, or stay together even after the counseling, and if they don't stay together, the problem is just as bad. I'm not really sure how much it would help. I'm waiting on more information, but so far, it seems like the cost would outweigh the benefits which could just as well be gained by making more affordable health insurance available and getting rid of the marriage penalty.


So, what do YOU think?

Sidhe

[Beestie]

Honestly, I think its less about marriage and more about family structure. There are wayyy to many children being raised in single parent homes. And too many of those children don't have regular contact with the other parent.

So, the way I interpret Bush's intentions is as an investment in protecting and cultivating the family structure. I think its a stark contrast between Hillary's "It Takes a Village" and Bush's "It Takes a Family" and that is what I think this debate is really about.

Oh, and congratulations on getting the forum.

[Lady Sidhe]

Thanks

I agree that it takes a family, not a village. I always thought that was a stupid phrase...

Anyway...I was just mentioning that families DO pay a lot for health care, and that perhaps doing something on that front may also help.

I know that when I was working at the hospital, I was making ten dollars an hour, and I still couldn't afford the health care they offered. It was sixty dollars a paycheck, AND had a $350 deductible. I don't get $350 worth of sick...the only major thing I've had to do with hospitals in the past, say, ten years, was my pregnancy. I just don't often get sick. But what about my husband, or my daughter? If they got really sick and required even an emergency room visit, it'd probably take almost my whole check to pay it, because I can't afford insurance. That's ridiculous. I once had a migraine so bad that I had to leave work, and they made me go to the hospital. For them to take my temp and pulse, and give me one little pill, it cost me $267. That's ridiculous. So even if I'd HAD insurance, it wouldn't have paid for it, because there was a $350 deductible.

And then there's the marriage penalty, which makes absolutely NO sense to me.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/fede...gepenalty.html

I don't understand why a household in which two people must work to make ends meet is taxed at a higher rate than two single people living together who make the same amount as the married couple. The tax should be the same. The marriage penalty is actually a discouragement to getting hitched, especially if you want to have children. As we all know, kids aren't cheap. They talk about how they believe that having people be married would result in fewer public assistance cases; It seems to me, though, that if married couples got more of their money back, instead of having it taken by the government, that THAT would reduce the number of people who rely on such public assistance programs as WIC and LaChip.

Having people get married, or having them go to counseling in the hope that they stay married, isn't going to help them out of poverty if they're penalized monetarily by doing so. Lots of couples fight about money. The marrige penalty probably doesn't help that, and no amount of counseling will change the fact that the penalty exists.


I'm all for marriage...just ask my husband . I was raised in a single family home myself. I met my father when I was around 21 or so, and to be honest, I'm glad I grew up without him. He was a major flake, and probably would have been a bad and/or disruptive influence on our family had he stayed. My mother raised me well, I think. It might have been nice to have had a father around, but since he wasn't, I can't miss something I never had, and no influence is better than a bad/disruptive one. Not to mention the fact that not all single parents were ALWAYS unmarried. Some may be divorced or widowed.

And I'm all for couples going to counseling, if necessary, to help them work out their problems. But a counselor can't help you work out your money problems, and going to a counselor won't make those problems disappear. I'm not saying that his idea is a bad one. I think that low-cost counseling is a damn good idea...I'm just pointing out that it's not quite the magic bullet I think he's hoping it will be. Poverty isn't necessarily caused by not being married, especially if being married actually takes MORE money out of your pocket.



Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Sorry...typo...I meant to say that I was raised in a single-PARENT home...

Sidhe

[xoxoxoBruce]

Basically, the idea is that you can reduce poverty by increasing marriage; supposedly, if you get more single mothers married, you reduce poverty and welfare, which saves the state money.

Who said this? Or is it your take on the reasoning behind the proposal.

[elSicomoro]

I think it does take a village to raise a child. While many parents do a great job of raising their children, I don't think they can cover everything there is to know. That's where the village comes in.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I was raised by a village. Most any adult in town would smack me up side the head if got caught fucking up. Then they'd call my parents to insure more of the same.

[lumberjim]

no, bruce...i told you before. a bunch of wolves is called a "pack", not a "villiage".

get it right

[xoxoxoBruce]

Knock it off! This is Sidhe's Think Hole. No jocularity here. Now get serious.:p

[lumberjim]

don' worry, mon....if a she no like, she delete, yes? we been warned already. flame censored for your protection, Irie?

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Who said this? Or is it your take on the reasoning behind the proposal.

No, that's basically what they're saying the proposal will do.

And jocularity is fine. Attacking people personally because youd don't like their opinions isn't. But ya know what? Flame away, if that's what you want.

Sidhe

[Griff]

I think his proposal is exactly the same kind of well-meaning nonsense that Hillaries stuff would be. Maybe they should both start by thinking about what exactly the government doing right now to destroy families before coming out with new programs. The hard left sees it as a sinister attempt to force people into government approved families, while the hard right sees it as a chance to save the family from outside influences (snicker) using the power of government. If Hillary got her chance it'd be the same, except that society becomes more important than the family.

*crazy idea for the day*- Balance the freaking budget before starting any new social engineering schemes which will backfire in most peculiar ways.

[wolf]

Govt. sponsored family therapy is yet another nice-sounding idea doomed to failure. (I don't think it's nice-sounding, actually ... too Brave New World-ish for me)

It's hard enough to get people to go to therapy that they desperately NEED, much less "elective therapy" like this.

Marriage and Family therapy services are probably the least utilized in the industry (no numbers to back it up) but mostly is the stomping ground of weathly worried-well parents who feel that they aren't "communicating" with their children, so pay a stranger to help them not communicate but feel more empowered about it for one hour a week.

If they are going to put the money into psych services, there are a a lot better places/programs.