Solving Unemployment With Sexism, Racism
Posted September 29th, 2008 in Activism, All, Healthcare, Legal, News You Cannot Use and PoliticsIt’s not the first time such an outstandingly bassackwards resolution has been proposed in a state senate meeting, and I strongly suspect it will not be the last. But there is a little extra sting to Representative John LaBruzzo’s most recent brainchild, which could be generously described as dumbfuckery gone south. LaBruzzo, who represents a Metairie district in the Louisiana state legislature, has officially proposed that the state spend its residents’ hard-earned tax dollars by “voluntarily” sterilizing women who don’t meet his financial standards - while simultaneously “encouraging” wealthy women to have more children - as a means to improve the state’s economy. Seriously.
Now, the asininity (it’s a word, I looked it up) of this proposal should be shockingly obvious to our fair readers, but I’ve got insomnia so just for shits and giggles I’m gonna go ahead and point it all out anyway. Let’s start with the fact that LaBruzzo touts this proposal as a way of “addressing the problem of intergenerational welfare,” which one can only assume means that he thinks “welfare” is the economic quandary at fault for low wages and joblessness in Louisiana (those pesky hurricanes and Wall Street aside). First, there’s no such thing as “welfare” any more, so one can only hope LaBruzzo is using the inadequate term to refer to the replacement program TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), which provides - read my lips here - TEMPORARY financial assistance to some families (children are a requirement, adults without children do not qualify ) whose income falls below the poverty level. In other words, the majority of people who benefit from the TANF system are children whose parents DO work (another requirement) but whose wages are too low to raise the family above poverty. And they can only receive benefits for a maximum of five (that’s 5, or V if you’re an ancient Roman) years total. They can thank Bill Clinton, who I firmly support as our best Republican president ever, for that time limit. So that pretty much shatters the myth of “intergenerational welfare,” because this country will be goddamned if more than one percent (that’s 1%) of the entire federal budget is spent on assistance to these families. Truth.
But why stop there? Last we heard it takes two to tango, so you might ask why LaBruzzo only wants to offer the $1000 bribe to sterilize women? Ah HAH! He has you right where he wants you now! LaBruzzo would be happy to cauterize a few low-class vas deference tubes. Why, he’ll even offer you broke blokes $500 for the pleasure. Apparently your tubes are only worth half as much as fallopian tubes. See? He’s not sexist at all. Why, women’s reproductive rights are twice as expensive as men’s!
Of course, LaBruzzo’s ingenious eugenic plan would only be fair if he offered some form of incentive to upper class, college-educated (read White) families to have more children. After all, parity is an American value, right? So how ’bout some more tax breaks? Because if we’ve learned one thing from the gigantic clusterfuck that has become Wall Street, it’s that the winners of the Birthright Of Family Wealth lottery need more tax breaks. Knock a few more dollars off their itemized lists, that’s sure to get the bedroom rockin.’
In short, Rep. John LaBruzzo thinks he can magically succeed at what smarter and better men (and women) cannot; he can cure the financial disparities of an entire society’s classism by applying the simple tenets of sexism and racism to the whole lot of ‘em. By the way, LaBruzzo is a White upper-class post-grad with a kid, which clarifies where he would personally fall in the mix, though of course that’s beside his point, which I’m thinking resides on the top of his head.
On the other hand, this is from the same district that sent KKK leader David Duke to the legislation in 1989. So maybe LaBruzzo’s making progress after all.
