This is so ludicrous. People can’t afford food, cars, gas, health insurance, housing, utilities, school, medicine, modern school supplies, or child care, let alone education. Most people move out of rural or remote towns to the suburbs and city. Yet, they think small towns and these rural areas are going to be incentivised to pop out mass quantities of babies. Also, some people simply do not want children. Me personally it wasn’t high on my priority list. I am glad I didn’t now.
Then you have the situation of quality of life. The parents for instance. Being a parent to 1 is hard enough these days with 2 parents, let alone a single parent. The fear associated with crime in schools and neighborhoods, and crime happening at younger and younger ages. From gun violence to drugs, to sexual assaults and domestic violence all on the rise. Then they are saying they are going to lower the mandates for vaccines. So now you will have the kids that ARE born getting Measles, Chicken Pox, COVID, Flu, Pneumonia, and it will be just a matter of time Small Pox and more.
This will translate to higher child mortality rate, higher childhood severe illness, higher mid to low childhood illness, more whole or partial family illness, higher elderly mortality rates, higher elderly illness rates, all due to familial exposure.
All of this comes at financial expense to the families. Plus, the burden on the community in the medical industries unequipped for these types of surges in services and treatment, already understaffed, already overworked, already under supplied. This comes at the expense of local businesses who then lose consumers for regular business because those people are either at home, in the hospital, or dead.
Plus, what about the Rights of women. Forced more pregnancies will mean forced more mortalities of women due to complications of pregnancies. Or worse due to crimes such as rape, and incest.
They truly have not thought this through. First you solve current problems, or at least lower the volatility of the current problems. Then you create an atmosphere that appeals to child birthing, where it is not question of paying for meds versus paying for electricty or food (let alone quality food). That is how you solve problems.
In places around the world they are facing rapidly declining birth rates. So much so the are offering financial incentives to both citizens and foreigners (to come to the country and birth and guaranteed work, and guaranteed housing). Criterias vary. Some you must be within a certain age range. Some if you are older you are willing to adopt. All sorts of different criterias.
Having nicer roads with less population simply is zero solution. I just drove through endless small towns. Populations under 5k, through Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. 2200 miles. Predominantly Republican. Predominantly poverty to lower income, and scattered middle lower income, scattered middle income, rare anything more. Lots of blank land. As in uninhibited land.
These new and old policy makers are completely out of touch. They are simply about their ideology and control and ultimately greed. This goes for many of our current government, and especially our highest offices.
Always remember, more population creates more tax revenue. More illness feeds more big pharma ultimately. And so much more. Ultimately, feeding the fat cats at the top more and more, while the rest suffer. Meanwhile, they pay less and less taxes.
Many people really did not think their vote through. Now we all will pay the price, unless of course you personally are a .01% income person. Then you are making bank. Or you are Senior Executives in a big corporation. However, even you will feel these repercussions.
Yesterday Trump flat out said, we will be going though a “rough patch” i.e. “Recession”. We all better pray it doesn’t become a full blown “Global Recession” and worse a “Depression”.
This is why we MUST VOTE every single ELECTION. DO NOT VOTE PARTY.
VOTE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB!!! When I voted in 2024, I voted for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, based upon their personal policies and goals. This last time the canidate selection was very limited. So it felt like voting in many cases, for the lesser of two evils. So hopefully, we have some rising people that have some sht figured out, thus giving us real canidates with real plans, for We the People, not We the Rich.
On a side note: Do you think this is why this CURRENT ADMINISTRATION is so Anti Homosexual, Anti Women being in control of their OWN BODIES, and Anti Minorities? Their current ideology would aline with their Anti sentiment. Just an honest observation.
I mean I just spent the past 5 days driving through towns with GIANT handmade and commercial “Get Pregnant” signs or “Don’t Let Our Population End”, or “Ten Commandment Signs”. In all honesty is was quite surreal. To say invasive is an understatement. I mean BILLBOARD size signs. Totally wild.
I am all about Pro God, Christ, Holy Spirit, Angels, and Saints. However, besides the way thus is presented as being completely invasive, it seems hypocritical too. There were some things most of these towns had in common. Some form of gambling, some form of strip clubs, and questionable behind the scenes brothells (illegal and legal. Also, Human Trafficking signs in all the STATES. Posted EVERYWHERE.
So, it feels all so very wrong.
Trump Transportation Department to prioritize birth rates in doling out projects amid declining fertility – Washington Examiner
The Trump administration will prioritize birth rates in doling out transportation projects, testing out a rising philosophy of conservative politics, and punishing blue cities in the process.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the father of nine children, released an undated memo saying the department will act on “sound economic principles” while maximizing benefits for families, representing a new direction for the agency and a new way of thinking about federal projects.
Duffy’s memo indicates that environmental concerns will be given less emphasis, which was expected given the switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration, but the eyebrow-raising line spells out that places with more marriages and babies will get a leg up when applying for DOT projects.
DOT will “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” the memo reads, a 14-word phrase that set off alarms across Washington, D.C.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called it “deeply frightening” and something the Chinese Communist Party might do, while Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) dubbed it “disturbingly dystopian,” according to the Associated Press. Kevin DeGood, a housing and infrastructure policy expert at the Center for American Progress, said the move was “bizarre and a little creepy.”
Yet even on the Right, setting policy based on birth rates might have seemed strange a few years ago, when the Republican Party was best known for its libertarian emphasis on free markets and economic growth. That stance has changed somewhat as the GOP reexamines how its policies affect ordinary people.
“There are plenty of Republicans who are skeptical about any effort to rely on public policy to encourage marriage or family formation,” said Brad Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. “But there is a rising generation of staffers and populist Republicans who are more open to pursuing policies, measures like this.”
Along with Duffy, Wilcox named Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance as members of that rising generation.
“I do think it’s important for federal agencies to think about how the work they’re doing is conducive to family formation,” Wilcox said.
Duffy’s memo also comes as birth rates continue a two-decade decline across the United States.
The number of births in the U.S. peaked in 2007 at more than 4.3 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has fallen steadily ever since, with under 3.6 million people born in the country in 2023. Over the same time frame, the general fertility rate declined from 69.3 births per 1,000 women to 54.5, a record low.
While this initiative aims to reward family formation, DOT also justifies its stance by saying projects will go to areas with rising populations, which presumably would need them in years to come.
Elsewhere in the memo, DOT says it will try to avoid adverse impacts on families, prioritize accessibility of transportation to families with young children, prohibit project recipients from requiring masks or vaccines, and require compliance with federal immigration authorities.
All of those factors will test blue cities, which tend to have the lowest birth rates and are often self-designated sanctuary jurisdictions that do not assist in reporting immigration status to federal authorities.
Duffy and the Trump administration will be in charge of billions of dollars worth of unspent funds from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law passed in 2021, one of former President Joe Biden’s signature achievements.
According to the latest figures from the CDC, all of the 14 states with the highest birth rates backed President Donald Trump in last November’s election, while the bottom 11 states plus the District of Columbia supported Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Marriage rates are also higher in red states, though by a smaller margin.
If it were a state, D.C. would have the lowest birth rate in the nation, meaning it can expect to see relatively fewer new transportation projects in the future. Rural South Dakota, by contrast, has the nation’s highest fertility rate.
One criticism of the new initiative is that people do not necessarily live where they are born. Big cities, in particular, are places people often move to in young adulthood, leaving their suburban or rural surroundings behind.
Yet, providing opportunities for people where they live rather than forcing them to move for work has become a major tenet of conservative philosophy, underpinning Trump’s strength in the Rust Belt and his plans to rebuild the manufacturing economy in the heartland.
“Families and children are the foundation to a strong society, and by investing in them, we invest in the strength and future of our country,” a DOT spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, adding that population growth is one of many factors considered in project evaluation.
Republicans have been increasingly vocal about the topic as birth rates decline. Vance, a father of three and an early voice in warning about the “baby bust,” speaks frequently about making the GOP and the nation pro-family.
His remarks at the annual March for Life event on Jan. 24 went far beyond simply opposing abortion, instead actively calling for more births.
“Let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said in the speech’s most memorable line. “I want more happy children in our country. And I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”
Contrary to the limited government view that used to dominate the GOP, Vance said the government can and should have a role to play in achieving those outcomes.
“It is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world, and to welcome them at the blessings that we know they are,” Vance said.
While awarding transportation projects may not directly achieve that goal, it’s part of the wider way of thinking that’s rising within the Republican Party.
Oren Cass, a high-profile political adviser whom Vance has praised, admits that pro-family policy can be a tough sell but argues it’s a worthwhile project that should be emphasized at least as much as economic growth.
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“At first, the family-policy mindset will seem almost nonsensical,” he wrote in 2020. “Which infrastructure investments boost fertility the most, which education policies boost marriage rates? What kind of questions are those, how would we answer them, and what could we possibly do with the information?”
“Yet our confusion should be what strikes us as strange,” Cass added. “In what sort of society would we ask those questions about economic growth and design policy accordingly, while ignoring them with respect to the family?”
What are your thoughts? Do you think the CURRENT ADMINISTRATION (NO MATTER WHAT PARTY) is moving in the right direction? Or do you think their priorities are misguided? If so how? Or do you think it is blended?
Leila World Blog 