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If you can't afford to breastfeed... can you afford to properly raise a child?
It's really not that simple. If your employer doesn't allow you to pump, you can't breastfeed. It's not like you can turn your boobs off while at work for 8-10 hours, assuming you work 1 job. My wife makes 6 figures, and she couldn't breastfeed because of the logistics issue with her former employer. Luckily, she was able to take the full maternity leave, but that only covers 12 weeks.
I would, however, support a hiring freeze on Congressional and White House staff , reducing the number of staff members through attrition until the freeze reduced staff by 15 or 20 percent.
If the goal is to leave poor people starving on the street, which it evidently is, this program would be an excellent way to accomplish it.
If the goal is to support a healthy and productive society and to treat all the members of society with decency and humanity, then no, I would not support these ridiculous suggestions.
If there was legislation to cut 10% of the following programs every year for 10 years, would you support it?
Food Stamps
WIC
Section 8
Federal Student Aid
Unemployment Insurance (employer taxes also go down 10% every year)
Social Security (your payroll taxes go down 10% every year also)
Medicare (your payroll taxes go down 10% every year also)
Then these programs are retired after 10 years.
Would you support this?
Reform may be needed in many of those areas, but overall your plan makes no sense to me. It doesn't solve any problems I have, as a young taxpayer -- nor does it solve any problems for the people who use these services already.
If the goal is to leave poor people starving on the street, which it evidently is, this program would be an excellent way to accomplish it.
If the goal is to support a healthy and productive society and to treat all the members of society with decency and humanity, then no, I would not support these ridiculous suggestions.
A 10% cut on welfare handouts would not leave the "poor" starving in the street. That's a pretty wild and far fetched response.
The most obese class of people in this country are those living off food stamps. You could easily cut the food stamps by eliminating the ability of food stamps to purchase luxury foods like lobster, steaks, soft drinks, candy, cookies.
And there needs to be some requirement for the welfare mothers to stop having so many out-of-wedlock children. And of course the programs could easily be cut back if they were limited to American citizens. It's foolish to maintain an open border and allow anyone to come here and access the many welfare programs simply by giving birth here.
It's even doubtful that a 10% cut would leave the welfare queens without their nice cell phones.
If there was legislation to cut 10% of the following programs every year for 10 years, would you support it?
Food Stamps
WIC
Section 8
Federal Student Aid
Unemployment Insurance (employer taxes also go down 10% every year)
Social Security (your payroll taxes go down 10% every year also)
Medicare (your payroll taxes go down 10% every year also)
Then these programs are retired after 10 years.
Would you support this?
I don't know. From where does the 10 percent number come? You know, why not 20 percent or 5 percent?
I favor no future entitlements at all for people who:
1) don't graduate from high school (starting with the Class of 2016) and
2) have a baby out of wedlock before they are 30 years old not including spouse death scenarios (that is spouse died while wife pregnant).
If you are already out of high school, you can go back for your GED with the catch that you have to complete it in a limited length of time or you get cut off, too. I yield to the experts on exactly how much time in which that is do-able. If you are in prison and haven't graduated from high school, you have to complete your high school education in prison or no release even if your sentence is up before you complete your GED.
3) I favor no additional student aid for full time students who can't complete their bachelor's degree in 4 years. To be considered a part time student they must have a job.
4) I favor reducing food stamps for the people whose kids are fed in school.
5) I favor returning Unemployment Check week numbers to the number of weeks that existed in 1990.
6) I favor ending social security and medicare right now for anyone who is under 40 years old. That gives you 25 years to save for your retirement. If you are poor and old, you should get medicaid.
7) I would like a 10 percent penalty assessed against the annual salary of politicians in Congress who raided social security to pay for something else. All of them over all of the years this has been going on.
8) I would like universities and colleges investigated for tuition hikes and whether the hikes in tuition are based on government largesse. I would like to end tenure and have a minimum number of hours per week a professor must actually teach in order for a university to get money from the federal government.
9) I would like college students who need remedial classes in college to be sent back to the high school who passed them through to take the classes. No additional federal funds would go to those high schools to do the job they should have done when the student was there the first time. If the student refuses, no federal student aid.
10) I favor ending spousal benefits, period. If you want benefits, work for them.
None of this applies to people who can't work due to physical or mental problems.
The issue is really not which charity is more deserving than the other - the issue is compulsory versus voluntary charity.
"No one should suffer because they lack {fill in the blank}" should be prefaced with "No one should be compelled to labor for the benefit of another, so that..." because slavery is not an acceptable solution to the ills of mankind.
Voluntary charity is a blessing.
Compulsory charity is a curse.
And when the recipients can outvote the donors, the "fleas" run the "dog".
Nearly 60% of Americans are wholly dependent upon government salaries, pensions, or entitlements. No politician can get elected unless he panders to them.
Which means no one in government will ever reduce spending, until a total collapse forces a 100% reduction in spending.
The "system" is on auto-pilot to crash and burn, and whoever is in charge will get the blame, though all those generations before contributed to the mess.
You have no idea about the "politicians" health care.
On the federal level, it's the same as every other federal employee and you can research it at fehb.com.
There is nothing special about it except that they have more options because the fed is so big and offers options from numerous sources.
Breastfeeding doesn't work for everyone, especially those who work.
So many of you like the idea of the poor ending up on the streets.
That will end so many problems in the US.
I have an idea about politician's healthcare being federal healthcare benefits being that my husband works for the federal government and we have federal healthcare as well. So I do know what I'm talking about. Federal employees do not pay as much as those who work in the private industry for their healthcare and the employee him/herself usually receives free healthcare, meaning they pay no premiums at all for their insurance, which is the case for my husband. He does have to pay for me and our children, but not for himself. Many people who work in his office take the free healthcare for themselves and put their children on a CHIP program so as not to have to pay for their kids healthcare either. Here in my state one can make over 60K and qualify for CHIP. The first two years of CHIP are free for children so one doesn't even have to pay premiums for it.
Also, I work and did work and breastfed two babues. Many working families who cannot afford to buy or do not want to give their children formula, work and pump to provide their babies milk. I also was low income when I was pregnant with and after the birth of my oldest child, who is now 10 and I was still able to breastfeed him for 16 months. I feel that WIC could be of service to breastfeeding families by educating women about federal regulations regarding pumping in the workplace for women, something that is already a federal law and gives women special protections and provisions for pumping in the workplace. Meaning that requires are required to provide adequate break times for breastfeeding mothers to pump and to provide a room, that is not a bathroom for them to utilize during these breaks (Source).
Also, I do not like the idea of the poor being on the street at all, but I being a black mother and knowing of SIDS statistics of black babies and who knows that breastfeeding greatly reduces the instances of SIDS occuring in babies, am a staunch breastfeeding advocate. I live in a poor neighborhood and all the expectant mothers I know I attempt to educate on the benefits of breastfeeding and of how WIC is suppose to help them with breastfeeding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
You don't understand the WIC program if you think it discourages breast-feeding. From memory, breast feeding women get special allotments of food.
I applaud WIC for this and I do know about their allotments of food for breastfeeding women. But I also know from the actual WIC office (I used WIC during my son's infancy) that they are not very knowledgeable about breastfeeding and do not openly push women towards breastfeeding. Like I said I live in a poor neighborhood. The WIC office is down the street from my house and I am involved in a lot of community measures in my area. Even when I was breastfeeding my son, they were shocked that I kept it up past a couple months, they offered no other support except the extra food, of which I was very grateful. They also refused to take the formula off of my vouchers and were always telling at every visit that I would stop breastfeeding before 12 months so they kept paying for the formula. I donated it to the local foodbank.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
It's really not that simple. If your employer doesn't allow you to pump, you can't breastfeed. It's not like you can turn your boobs off while at work for 8-10 hours, assuming you work 1 job. My wife makes 6 figures, and she couldn't breastfeed because of the logistics issue with her former employer. Luckily, she was able to take the full maternity leave, but that only covers 12 weeks.
Federal law protects a breastfeeding woman's need to pump in the workplace. This is recent legislation (from 2010) but obviously many of you are not aware of it. Also many states have state laws that allow women the same provisions of the federal law and were on the books before the federal legislation - that an employer has to provide a break room, not a bathroom and breaks for a woman to pump at work.
I am all for babies eating, it is just much better for all children, not just babies of more wealthier parents (they have the best breastfeeding statistics), or the offspring of stay at home mom's to receive the privilege of their mother's milk, which is free and better for them and for the mothers to provide.
Like I stated in my previous post, I am a staunch breastfeeding supporter. I also do not demonize formula or think it is poison, but I feel that all mothers, especially those going through the WIC program should be offered comprehensive breastfeeding education and support. This will not only be cheaper for the country but will make a healthier populace being that breastfed babies are less likely to be obese children as well, a problem that our country is dealing with and that will have severe ramifications in many economic and even defense situations in the future.
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