What do you get when the government begins providing all child care, education and health care?
You get a government that begins to look at its citizens as an expensive burden. The Drudge Report highlights this exchange Sunday between This Week host George Stephanopoulos and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on some of the more ridiculous items in the so-called "stimulus package."
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
So much for the notion the welfare spending fosters compassion. It seems to be doing the opposite. While private charities deal with people with dignity and empathy because the money is given out of a desire to do good, government-sponsored entitlement programs funded by confiscatory taxation are beginning to look at people as costs that can be controlled.
