Simp Caucus — Republicans Cave Again
All these Republicans are big fiscal conservatives. That is, until someone suggests we cut something specific in the budget.
State health officials have pulled back on a plan to cut millions from programs that serve low-income women and parents of children with developmental disabilities, responding to concerns from advocates and lawmakers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Health and Human Services Commission said it will restore about $15 million to the programs, which provide direct care. In an updated planning document, it said it can cover the expense with unused funds from fiscal year 2020, which ended last month.
$15M is 0.006% of the budget that Greg Abbott signed in 2019.
House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who is helping lead the budget talks with fellow top Republicans — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sen. Jane Nelson and Rep. Giovanni Capriglione — said there was especially strong opposition to reducing access to women’s health programs.
The opposition was not from people who would actually vote for Republicans anyway, or the people that elected them.
The agency also plans to restore funding for a program that provides part-time childcare for parents of children with developmental disabilities and other complex medical needs. The program costs the state about $400,000 per year, and advocates say it helps prevent child neglect and abuse.
These people say with a straight face that having the government take care of children instead of their own mothers or family members “helps prevent child neglect and abuse.” And these Republicans are utterly incapable of arguing against this absurd premise.
Advocates said the current plan still creates dangerous delays for children and women who need to access care through state-run programs, and will further weaken oversight at child care facilities.
So as you can see, they propose these tiny, tiny little cuts to the budget, completely back down, and the people they sought to appease say they still didn’t do enough. The entire reason for these budget cuts is because the Texas government slaughtered the middle class taxpayer base with their hoax lockdowns, leading to a budget shortfall.
It’s maddening.
The mirage of the “fiscal conservative” or the conservative who focuses on fiscal issues is literally the stupidest thing in all of politics. First of all, people have been promising this for years. It’s an undefined goal that never actually gets achieved, evidenced by the fact that we live under the biggest government in world history. Second, people don’t actually want fiscal conservatism when it gets down to brass tax. Go ask a conservative Republican baby boomer if they want to get rid of the largest federal government expense, which is social security. You know what they’ll say.
You can say the same about every issue, all the way down to this $15M, which is just throwing money at women who don’t have husbands. Nobody has the guts to cut anything because our system is no longer designed to be able to operate responsibly as it once was (topic for another day.)
Democrats continue to run circles around Republicans. Not only are none of these people in these welfare programs Republican voters, these programs perpetuate exactly what is wrong with our society. Women should have husbands taking care of them, not Greg Abbott. If they don’t have a husband and they’ve got all these issues, they need to figure it out themselves, like they have for all of human history up until 12 seconds ago. (Hint: they can)
We should not have the government making child care easier for families. The government should be making it easier for families to care for and raise their own children.
To accomplish these types of pro-family goals requires vision and courage. To instantly cave because the media will write mean things about you and you’re incapable of defending yourself is the status quo.
Imagine saying you’re a leader while wearing a muzzle
Our Republican legislators are the most unserious people in our society. Given what’s going on, I wish they would just resign for the good of the country.
American conservatives are not only a people without a homeland, we’re a people without any representation anywhere. As every single large corporation bows down to minority groups and endlessly shills for their brown supremacist agenda, we can’t even get the one person who’s supposed to represent our interests to take a stand over what amounts to crumbs in the budget directed towards harmful anti-family programs. We need new leaders with a message for the public and vision for the grassroots.
It’s a good thing we have The Leader to help us find our way.
