From the Trenches of the Stimulus Package Debate
Jodi Jacobson with a must-read post. H/T to Digby
Lessons from the Stimulus Debate: Sex Ed For Talking Heads, Male Lawmakers
The three-ring circus on the stimulus bill and the Medicaid waiver provision for family planning services might have been avoided, some in the advocacy community and Congress say, if there had been more comprehensive sex education.
Nope, not for teens.
Apparently, the target group most in need of some good old fashioned sex ed can be found among the male members of the Democratic Party and among the talking heads in the media.
Further in the article - an unbelieveable statement from 2006:
As we consider our goals for the New Year,” wrote Diana Zuckerman in a January 2006 op-ed published in the San Jose Mercury News and a number of other papers,
“what is more important to American taxpayers: free Viagra or providing essential food, health care and education for our neediest families? According to our congressional leaders, free Viagra is the priority.
This sounds like a bad joke. It isn’t. Congress decided this week to restore Medicare funding for Viagra and other erectile-dysfunction drugs at a cost of $90 million for 2006. To do so, they had to cut other programs, mostly for our country’s most vulnerable adults and children.
Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, led the charge in favor of Viagra funding, insisting that Congress keep its promise to the drug industry — which had expected ED drugs to be reimbursed under Medicare in 2006. He apparently thought it was unfair when, a few months ago, Congress decided to instead use those $90 million in taxpayer money for relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
In the ideal world, we would have enough federal dollars for disaster relief, food stamps and Viagra for seniors. In the real world, however, tax cuts and the war in Iraq have meant that billions of dollars in essential programs have to be cut. And so, Congress decided to come to the aid of pharmaceutical companies even if it meant harming parents who were counting on after-school programs, pregnant women who were counting on prenatal care and low-income families who were counting on food stamps.
The gender gap on life experiences clearly runs very deep.
Take a deep breath. These are the people running our country.
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