Restricting abortion will necessitate more welfare, education funding
I have heard too many times from both friends and acquaintances, that they could not vote Democratic because of all the killings in Philadelphia and the drug problem that is rampant, especially Kensington and Allegheny. Well, there are serious problems, but don't blame those that are on the street dealing drugs and involved in gang wars. It sounds strange. But don't blame them. Blame the system.
Blame both Democrat and Republican politicians over the last 50 years for not caring and doing enough to get those at the low end of the financial ladder a quality education. Too many times I have heard how terrible things are for the poor. Well they are and what is being done to change that? Most every high-income person that I have met constantly votes to have taxes cut, and will vote for the politicians that promise to lower their taxes. The high-end income earners and investors will vote against any increase in their taxes, even though it would be to their best interest, if that extra income tax which they have to reluctantly pay, goes to education in the communities that need it the most.
I wrote many years ago that I wanted to see my taxes raised provided that money is used in the communities that need it most and not scammed off for other projects.
Our Supreme Court is loaded with right-wing conservatives who overturned Roe v. Wade. Ironically, that will come back to haunt the Republicans in many ways. First they constantly and possibly rightfully so complained about all the money that was being given to people on welfare. Most of welfare is based on the amount of children that the recipient has, therefore, without being able to obtain an abortion there will be more born children, causing a financial burden to the government paying monthly welfare benefits. Going further, a mother in a mostly single-parent household cannot give all her children the education and the nurturing that is needed.
Without that nurturing, the child will be pushed through an educational system with passing grades (not earned) even though they are not receiving a proper education. So what does a young minority community member living in poverty do? Get a minimum wage job? Even minimum wage jobs require some basic education and our educational system is a failure.
Let's have a financial system that takes 2% off the top of every one's income above $500,000. Mostly everybody, I think, can get by with that but those wealthy people will still fight about it. So let's make it that the 2% does come off the top, whether they like it or not, but send it directly to revamping our entire school system starting in the poorest communities.
Then let's increase the amount of welfare that in individual is getting by 25%. O.K., now you think I'm crazy since that means more money going out of the government when they're trying to reduce these benefits. There's a caveat to the 25% increase: if they have any more children, they get a 25% cut in their welfare payments. What will that do? The woman will make sure that the man has protection since now, if she has another child, she's going to lose 25% of her payments.
It's time for both Republicans, Democrats and those representing independents to get together and make sense. Stop trying to make points!
Gene Epstein lives in Newtown.
This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: Restricting abortion will necessitate more welfare, education funding
