Adrienne's Corner

This is What Your Children and Grandchildren Will be Paying For:

Santa on Steroids

• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
• $300 million for grants to combat violence against women
• $2 billion for federal child-care block grants
• $6 billion for university building projects
• $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
• $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
• $1 billion for community-development block grants
• $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
• $650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
• $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs
• $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits
• $83 billion for the earned income credit
• $150 million for the Smithsonian
• $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
• $500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
• $44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
• $350 million for Agriculture Department computers
• $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
• $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
• $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
• $450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
• $600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
• $1 billion for the Census Bureau
• $89 billion for Medicaid
• $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
• $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
• $20 billion for food stamps
• $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• $850 million for Amtrak
• $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
• $1.7 billion for the National Park System
• $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
• $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
• $150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
• $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
• $2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
• $2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
• $6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
• $3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
• $3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
• $200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
• $300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
• $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
• $1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
• $1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
• $8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
• $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
• $4.5 billion for electricity grid
• $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
  

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*****"The Catholic Church has had many different relationships with many different states in many different eras. What we've learned is this: We will never build God's kingdom here on earth. When people have messianic expectations of the state, when they ask politics to deliver more than it can, the story ends badly."

*****"But neither will we ever be released from the duty to sanctify, humanize, and bring Jesus Christ to the public square in which we live. And it is precisely because of this duty that the American experiment is so hopeful --and so important."

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput
Render Unto Caesar

Baby Seats and Homicide

****I sure didn't intend to start WW III by commenting on the woman being charged for putting her child in a rear-facing baby seat on the front passenger seat. I simply thought it was odd that we would take the trouble to prosecute such a case when doctors are allowed to perform what amounts to infanticide with no criminal charges.

****If I had a young child, I would probably put them in a car seat because I think it makes a big difference. I'm not so sure the state should be telling me I have to do this and regulating it to the point where perfect compliance becomes almost impossible. As to those airbags? At 5'2" and a with a very short waist (I all but disappear when seated), I live in mortal terror that my air bag will deploy (which does not keep me any safer than a properly worn seat belt and harness.)

****Now we have that sad case of the child born alive in Florida at 23 weeks, stuffed in a garbage bag, and thrown in the trash. The doctor in question, who I understand was not present, has had many complaints brought against him. How will the state deal with this case?

**** If they charge the perpetrator with homicide, it goes against the exact thing President Obama is trying to protect; the right for a baby to be killed whether it's in the womb, half out, or in this case, completely born. My concern about all these laws is that they harbor a type of legal schizophrenia. If a baby gets part way born and a doctor sticks a scissor in the base of the skull, inserts a tube and sucks the brains out, well, that's okay. But let a poor baby slip out and gasp some air and it's murder. I find it all "odd", which in my world means it feels like a trip down Alice's rabbit hole (where I spend a lot of time)


Notes from the Nanny State
On the tyranny of the baby seat.
by Jonathan V. Last
10/06/2008, Volume 014, Issue 04