The Stupider Party?

I don't get upset if people criticize me for staying at home, or don't respect me for doing so. What bothers me about the Democratic party's focus on working women is the ultimate cost we're talking about here.

Government-funded childcare, early pre-K programs, tax incentives for working mothers of young children, after-school care programs and plans, all the things that crop up election cycle after election cycle, would all cost a LOT of money. Where is that money going to come from?

Maybe we should stop hemorrhaging to the military and dumping it out airplanes by the billions over in Iraq.

Oh, and here's a little known fact about welfare: The more you attempt to restrict it, with conditions and riders and requirements and exceptions, the more it will cost to manage. You might save 10%, with maybe 1% of that being abuse and the other 9% being people who legitimately need it but missed some rule or another, but you'll spend 25% more administrating it.

Sometimes it's just and cheaper to let people 'abuse' it. The number of people who do not 'cheat' the system but don't need welfare is very small. (The people committing actual fraud is an entirely separate discussion and doesn't have anything to do with rules about how often someone has to look for a job and whatnot.)

The usual answer is that we'll raise taxes on the "rich." But more often than not, the taxes end up getting raised across the board. Each time the tax bill of a single-income middle class family rises, Mom gets a little closer to having to get a job just so the family can continue to provide food, clothing, shelter, and transportation for each other. And this will be *especially* true if just by getting that job, the family suddenly qualifies for all the working-mother incentives that have been created.

Don't blame the Democrats for the Republican's tax lunacy. ;)

Seriously, thought, it makes no sense to pretend the government is running low on money, and everyone who operates in a sane universe agrees that we should actually only spend the money we collect in taxes (On average, that is. We probably want to deficit spend during recession and pay it off during booms.), so if we're not actually collecting enough money I assure you that such programs would remain nothing but pipe dreams.

In fact, as one of the only people here that is, if you will, pro-progressive, let me assure the absolute first thing we do is pay off the debt, period. Until we do so, unless there is an actual national emergency, no deficit spending at all. (And that includes the interest on the debt.) So you've got years to worry about it.(1)

After that, I'm not sure. I wouldn't be happy with more than about 5% deficit spending in any year, with no more than two or three years of that. Or, to rephrase, the highest national debt should, ultimately, be no more than 15% of yearly revenue. (This is all just off-the-cuff, mind you.)

What we have to decide, in a way, is whether there is any social, economic, or other benefit to having mothers stay at home with their children, or whether there really isn't. The first decision might lead to a whole different set of policies and practices than the second; but to take the default position that there's no benefit at all to having children in the care of their own mothers instead of in the care of strangers is to act as though that conversation has already happened, and the issue is already decided.

Agreed. If you want to social engineer, you have to make sure you're doing it in the correct direction. For what it's worth, I don't think the direction you imagine the Democrats are going is is the right direction.

However, what is being proposed isn't intended to do that, it's intended to help all those mothers that have no choice about working. There are plenty of alternatives to this:

a) Letting those families starve
b) Leaving those kids alone all day (Not possible with young kids)
c) Abortions for all!
d) More social engineering to attempt to reduce the number of women supporting children who have to work, by things like raising the minimum wage or longer paid leave and vacations or more welfare.

Most Democrats thinks that, quite possibly, d) is the best bet, and have been helped immensely by the Republicans. Wait, no, that's not the word. Hindered, that's it. Yes, hindered immensely by the Republicans.

1) The only new big social program most of us want introduced is national health care, and considering that, by all estimates, that would be cheaper than the current system, we could slightly raise taxes on everyone while salaries go up slightly more than that to compensate for not including health insurance. (And, considering we'd want to hugely cut military spending, we wouldn't actually raise any taxes.)

DavidTC, I'm not saying this to be cantakerous, but quite seriously, I have heard on a regular basis from democratic politicians, liberal news and commentary outlets and liberal blogs who all espouse a distinct preference for women working outside of the home. I also hear frequent commentary from that end of the political spectrum denigrating the idea that women would willing choose to stay home with their kids. I have never (and I'm not saying this as hyperbole or to be a jerk) heard anyone in the public arena from that end of the political spectrum speaking to how we need to work as hard to support more women being able to stay home if they so choose as we work to support those who feel that they have no choice but to work outside the home. It may well be that the vast majority of democratic voices would prefer to make it easier for women to stay home if they so chose (actually I do know quite a few liberal stay at home homeschooling moms who would probably agree with that tactic), but their voices are simply not being heard at all in the public sphere.
If all we ever hear from the left is a particular POV, it's hard to blame people for thinking that this is in fact representative of the left and how they would like to run things.
Also, while each side likes to write off it's wack-job outliers as not representative of the majority sentiment and therefor not worth taking seriously, the fact of the matter is that the outliers tend to have a disproportionate influence on actual policy which gets put in place. So it is entirely reasonable that each side take what the wack jobs say seriously (especially when they're practically the only voices being heard) and fight like hell against them. It would probably also be very wise for the majority on each side to yell and scream and rant and rave like crazy when someone from their contingent of wack jobs says something awful. I'll do it with Ann Coulter if you'll do it with Linda Hirschman. But until I hear more denuciations on the left of some of the really anti-woman, anti-family, anti-religion, etc stuff coming from people on the left, please excuse me if I take the left's spokespeople at face value.

Linda Hirschman? Who is...writes books and articles, none for left publications and has no influence on any political policy whatsoever.

There's not only no connection between her and Democratic party, but you're also just sorta assuming what her political leanings are. If she's pro-women entering the workplace, in your mind, she must magically be a Democrat and setting Democratic policy.

Basically she's just some random person, with no connection to politics or 'the left', except that she might self-identify as one.

You know about her solely because the Republicans attacked her, when they're not giving her air time on TV so they can attack her later. She's the only voice you're hearing because you're listening to the Republicans.

I find it really absurd that, somehow, on the right, there are people who are supported by the right-wing political establishment, like Ann Coulter. Republican politicians go on her shows, they invite her to speak at events, and then she predictably says something horrible and, oh, of course, she doesn't represent the views of anyone on the right.

But if someone, anyone, with absolutely no connection to left politics whatsoever, who has never been given a TV show or invited to speak at a Democratic event or anything, says something horrible that might be, in some universe, 'on the left', suddenly that's actual Democratic policy.

It's Ward Churchill all over again. Hey, look, an (ex-)college professor said something very stupid and offensive! Let's pretend the Democrats said it!

Here lies often enough, and they become truths, I guess. At least inside your head.

Meanwhile, if you want a parent to stay at home and raise the kids, you are, indeed, looking at the Democrats as the only ones who will be willing to attempt make that possible. They're the ones who will make sure you have health insurance and that the other member of the family makes enough to support them. (They also will, like I just did, talk in a gender neutral manner to appease their feminists, but everyone knows that 99% of the time, they are talking about women staying home and men working.)

The Republicans, OTOH, will make a bunch of mildly sexist talk about how they favor 'traditional single-income dual-parent families'. (Which, incidentally, is just as offensive to women in the workplace as Linda Hirschman is to you, implying that their choices are invalid or lesser. The difference here, of course, is that it is actually politicians on the right saying it instead of random people.)

But, oddly enough, they won't actually do anything to make that work. Said families presumably are supposed to conjure up money to operate out of thin air.