04 March 2013

How (not) to save money

Because of their fear that public money would be used to fund abortions, Texas legislators decided to save money by stopping funding of public health clinics:
In the fiscal crunch of 2011, the Legislature cut the state’s family-planning budget by two-thirds, with some lawmakers claiming that they were defunding the “abortion industry.” Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, found that more than 50 family-planning clinics had closed statewide as a result.

Now, amid estimates that the cuts could lead to 24,000 additional 2014-15 births at a cost to taxpayers of $273 million,  lawmakers are seeking a way to restore financing without ruffling feathers. 
How could lawmakers not see that coming?

10 comments:

  1. Not just that, but in Freakanomics Levitt argues that access to abortion decreases the crime rate, more significantly than anything else does, albeit after a long delay.

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    1. This bizarrely racist "study" has been roundly debunked, and even the ghoulish hack Levitt grudgingly admits it to a certain degree.

      http://boston.com/community/blogs/crime_punishment/2011/06/abortion_and_crime_-_a_missing.html

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  2. Our state legislators are not known locally for their wisdom.

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  3. How could lawmakers not see that coming?

    In this case it's pretty easy to figure out: They're religious extremists and ideologues.

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  4. I seem to recall reading about something similar to this. Now what was it...
    Oh yes - I believe it's called "cutting off your nose to spite your face".
    Idiots.

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  5. If we grant that these centers are actually performing abortions on tax-payer money, I can understand this move. (Not saying they were, just granting it for argument's sake.) I find them backpedaling now because the lives they saved are actually going to cost them money even more appalling and angering than the original cut.

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    1. They weren't. That is illegal (since 1976) due to the Hyde Amendment, and if Texas thought they had a chance to take down PP on the Hyde Amendment, they would have jumped on that so fast your head would spin. Have you been reading LifeNews or something?

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  6. They show a total lack of critical thinking, failing even to understand cause and effect. As we can assume that many of these children would not have been born if their parents had had access to birth control, then we may posit that a goodly proportion of them are unwanted. There are all kinds of statistics that indicate that unwanted children act out in many ways, thus costing society even more money, not to mention grief.

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  7. They probably did see this coming, but underestimated the size of the results. At the time, the votes from "one issue" voters trumped actual health care.

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  8. States are our centers for experimentation.

    Just as some liberals passed ObamaCare without reading it, figuring they could alter it later to address unintended consequences, so too did the Texas lawmakers.

    Say what you will about the Left and the Right, they are still human beings who are governed by rationality. The difference is in those who willfully act like this isn't so for one side or with the other

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