Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Indiana’s Governor has been emphasizing the importance of strong families, and promising that measures taken by his administration will be “family friendly.” (Well, to be accurate, they’ll be friendly for heterosexual families…)
Family is a key indicator of success and we’re looking for ways that we can encourage more young people to get married, to stay married, to wait to have children until they’re married is very important,” he said.
Very nice. Unfortunately, the Governor’s cart is in front of his horse.
There is a raft of research showing that people who enjoy financial security are more likely to stay married. There’s a reason for the statistic the Governor shared, to the effect that upper-income folks and college graduates are more likely to have stable marriages–people who aren’t sweating the rent are more likely to stay married.
The Governor also said that his administration has been putting “the interests of strong families at the very center of our policies on development.”
Sorry, but without policies that help the working poor make ends meet, that’s just blowing smoke.
A living wage is what enables and facilitates stable marriages. It isn’t the other way around.
And what Indiana has done instead is pass a law prohibiting municipalities from passing a livable minimum wage
It’s just more of his campaign for president, the new softer, nicer Pence.
Indiana is also deciding exactly who is a family and who is not with their anti same-sex marriage bans. They are intruding on birth control decisions of women, married or unmarried, and in doing so are forcing some families to encrease their number regardless of health conditions of mother or child which adds to already strained financial situations. Financial security of families and singles is deeply effected by the cost of medical care; their intrusion regarding this issue plus refusing federal funds to expand Medicaid has a profound effect on families whether married or unmarried. The term “family” has a different meaning than it did several years ago when couples stayed married even in unhealthy and often dangerous situations. Family is not a political situation, nor are medical decisions, religious affiliation or sexual orientation in all it’s forms. Government needs to return to governing this state and this country and remove themselves from private and very personal situations. Their job is to protect and serve us; using our tax dollars to provide assistance when needed, seek solutions to poverty, joblessness, homelessness, improving public safety and education issues, repairing and maintaining our crumbling infrastructure.
More state graft uncovered in the Star today; another job where state government has failed – or aided and abetted the graft. These charges will probably be overturned or swept under the rug as usual. State elected officials at the federal level are concentrating on pleasing big business lobbyists and lining their own pockets rather than seeking remedies for the financial state of individuals and families in this country. They fight raising minimum wage and continue trying to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare which senior families, single persons and disabled pay for and depend on to survive. Much needed Medicaid assistance has been cut to those on below poverty level incomes with Medicare health coverage in Indiana. Food stamps have been taken from those whose financial situations are already precarious; families with children are being forced deeper into poverty due to government greed on all levels. The lack of a healthy diet due to loss of food stamps coupled with low income adds not only to financial loss but often results in additional health care expense. It has caused an increase in vast numbers of those seeking public assistance; already straining at the seams. It is a viscious circle that is escalating and drawing in more and more hapless victims; most of whom have a strong work ethic but are being forced to poverty level existence through no fault of their own…if they even have a minimum wage job. These problems can all be laid at the feet of this current GOP leadership – state and federal levels. They have lost sight of the GOP beginnings so long ago. My friend wears a sweatshirt stating, “If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he would be a Democrat” – this tells you how far the GOP has strayed from its roots. It doesn’t seem to sink into their greedy minds that their decisions and actions – and non-actions – also effect remaining members of the Republican party.
I’d have to frankly say, though it makes me look sheltered (to be self charitable) that this blog is my only window through which to view Indiana from New York and/or Florida. Hmmmmmm. Some smart people amongst a horde of, well, those to whom “progress” is unacceptable, and countries like Afghanistan are model communities.
How did that happen? From whence came the return of the dark ages?
There is belief among historians that the original dark ages were an investment by the Pope in business growth. Is our recreation also the result of growth opportunities by the new church?
http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/18/inside-the-koch-brothers%e2%80%99-secret-summit-of-billionaires/
Lemmings are looking like world leaders in individualism
For a man who NEVER passed ANY Legislation, this guy is now just full of ideas. I have met dozens and dozens of young people who have been tortured mentally by their crazy christian families. What these perfect Mom & Dad families do to their kids in defense of their church is clearly child abuse. Later, when the kids are full of Drugs and Booze, they come to us for help. From what I have seen, these lovely church based homes are not quite so perfect as our presidential candidate would lead us to believe.
That trick has been done many times which has led to wrong-headed decisions and silliness. And it is convincing until you try it out in other situations. Bright, high functioning kids score high on school tests. Arranging for kids to score high on tests does not make them bright and high functioning. If people are naive, you can get by with that sort of nonsense for a while, but Pence needs just enough time to generate more silliness so it’s hard to catch up. Demagoguery is tricky.
And there are numerous tricks they have tried, and many have worked. How about the one where they claim that we have a billion dollar surplus when our infrastructure is in crisis? Some people to our west have actually bought that lie, and think that Indiana has passed Illinois. The Russians knew about that little trick exposed when a Russian said that they were confident that Russia would eventually pass the U.S., but they were afraid that we would see the big hole in the back of their pants.
Just for the record, evolutionary theory is clear that the egg came first. 🙂
bigmart; who – or what – laid that egg?
Just FYI, JoAnn, that would be a proto-chicken (to use a term). The proto-chicken, not quite chicken yet, laid a mutant egg which gave rise to a “mutant proto-chicken” that we would now call a chicken.
Evolutionary theory means that any mutation that is going to endure as a new species has to come from the fertilized egg, otherwise, the mutation is gone when the adult dies.
Sorry, sometimes this retired-from-biology scientist misses teaching. 8)>