Bush touts premarital counseling for poor

[Robbien]

CINCINNATI — President Bush raised money for the Republican Party and promoted his theme of compassionate conservatism Monday as he and his Democratic rival focus on a key state in their battle for the White House.

On his 18th presidential trip to Ohio, Bush promoted his $1.5 billion proposal to offer premarital counseling to parents on welfare.

"I think one of the smartest things we can do is to encourage families" by spending money on grants to states, faith-based organizations and community-based groups that "teach people what it means to be in a successful marriage," Bush told supporters at an alcohol- and drug-addiction services center.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8979445.htm?ERIGHTS=-3786795365456207035twincities::[e-mail]&KRD_RM=8oppppopwxvvruwwpvtooooooo|Jesus|Y&is_rd=Y

WTF??? Because the people are poor they need to be taught about relationships?

[wickerwoman]

1. More bullshit to get single mothers hitched as quickly as possible.

Sometimes there's a reason they're single, Georgie boy.

The only consolation is that this will never actually happen. As soon as Bush pledges money, he cuts it somewhere else and then the cash never materializes. He'll try to cut funding to health and human services somewhere else. It's going to Iraq, not pre-marital counselling.

[AndyTiedye]

3. They'll Fund it All Right, "Faith-Based" Anti-Abortion "Counselling"

[saigon68]

20. I thought he "touted" PRISONS for the poor.

Guess I was wrong

[MidwestMomma]

21. Yeah, he likes to 'tout' a lot of crazy ideas

He's the 'touter in chief'. Him and his advisors meet every day for their daily 'toutings'.

Okay...I'm done.:)

[Classical_Liberal]

2. Marriage isn't antipoverty program.

. Women who get out of poverty are more likely to stay married than impoverished women. Alot of these marriage initiatives reduce benefits to the unmarried poor, so it encourages them to stay with abusers. This is waste of money and a bad idea.

[Don_G]

4. How Will It Be Funded?

Faith-based bake sales? $2000-a-plate fundraisers without silverware?

Give it up Georgie, you're going down this fall!

[Voltaire99]

5. Gather round, po' folk, for the secrets to Dubya's "successful marriage"

Step One: Drink, snort, and screw through your thirties.

Step Two: Marry a Stepford Wife.

Step Three: Move into the White House.

Works every time!

[sweetheart]

6. why is the public paying?

This is WAY beyond the remit of government, and it makes my
libertarian skin crawl... but so does everything else this cretin
comes up with.

The government has no business promoting a religious institution...
... a further erosion of church/state separation.

[namvet73]

7. Bush needs a pre-presidential education...

He needs to go back and retake HS history, economics and psychology, then he needs to get an A in all of them or be fired from the presidency. He needs to learn what has and has not worked in war and economics. It's all documented.

Oh yes, maybe he should have to pass, say, home economics or read Dr. Seuss.

Jeeze, what an idiot!

[Tripmann]

8. Faith based councelling eh?

How about councelling for the children being orphaned in Iraq. For the wives being widowed, for the people having to learn to live without limbs.

Or how about for the families of the soldiers dying in a needless conflict.

We have faith based councelling here in Ireland too. A group that guilt-trips young girls into not having abortions, not caring about the mothers welfare, the babys quality of life, and that in the vast majority of cases there valid reasons for the abortion in the first place.

Oh yeah, they're strongly affiliated to the catholic church (but I'm sure thats obvious!)

Faith based councelling, faith based wars? Religion has a lot to answer for. It really is mankinds worst creation.

Tripmann

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Hello, Tripmann!

It's always great to get another European perspective.

Welcome to DU!

[Pachamama]

41. Grief counseling for orphans & families of the soldiers...much better...

...way to spend our TAXPAYER $$$ than on the war and bullsh*t programs like this proposed one of his...

Welcome to the DU Tripmann...always nice to have more freethinkers join us and get the opinion of people on other continents...

:hi:

[radfringe]

9. sounds kinda, ummm, errr... "elitist"

the implication is that poor people are dumb and therefore need instruction/counseling, but wealthier people do not

meanwhile this sounds like just another "unfunded" pile of crap proposal for political purposes in propping up the "family values" bandwagon

[no_hypocrisy]

12. Wealthy folk don't need counseling. They finance mistresses.

That makes divorce irrelevent.

[Pachamama]

38. Hee hee...LOL...and separate homes...

[GoBlue]

10. Yup, The non-poor don't need no stinking counseling.

They can always force it down their spouse's throat with religion and the law on their side. But then Bush isn't talking about the union of two souls now is he. He's counseling the union of egoes who haven't a clue what true marriage is.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. Yeah, sure, that's it. Marriage cures all social ills. Middleclass

values triumph and are now available to the "poor". Imagine this mantra: we may not have money, but we've got each other.

Well, at least, * isn't mandating that people get married -- yet . . .

[koopie57]

13. in all actuality

it seems to me that the rich bastar*s need marriage counseling more than the poor people. Or rather relationship counseling and * should be a permanent student. Poor people need good jobs and decent wages, health care, a safe place to live, healthy food, etc.

What good will marriage counseling do if they arrive hungry, leave hungry, and go home and face eviction notices, late fees, no health care?

[izzie]

14. Two big messes the Dem . made in social things were this----

How to deal with welfare, and those awful large housing places for the poor to live in, they were better of in the local slums. I know that sounds odd, but they had their own schools, churches, stores and friends, even if the houses were bad. That whole thing worked out bad. Welfare was iffy. Now this sounds like another bad plan. And whats with Bush doing it? Does his maid not get along with her husband? I am willing to bet we have a large corp. that deals in this stuff.

[James T. Kirk]

15. My wife-to-be and I went to counseling and it was cool.

We went to pre-marriage counseling last year and got married this year. The program was very beneficial and it is really helping out in our marriage.

I'm not so sure that everything that is a good idea needs to be a federal program. I guess that's "compassionate conservatism".

[Pachamama]

42. I don't want the Gov't in my bedroom or my marriage...

..yes, counseling can be very beneficial, but they have no right to be the ones implementing such programs....think of privacy issues, think separation of church and state...

[justjones]

44. I agree, counseling is a good thing whether it's couple or individual...

The problem is he is basically prescribing marriage as an antidote for the being poor as if it is some kind of "disorder."

The fact is that there are more basic needs like earning a living wage and access to healthcare BEFORE anyone can even think about establishing a healthy marriage. This is on par with being adamantly against abortion, but not believing in everyone's right to receive adequate healthcare to increase women's overall access to birth control.

The hyprocrisy never ceases to amaze me....

[gatlingforme]

16. It's amazing how Bush can weazle his way into anything-------

The guy makes me puke, How dare he think he is the steward of "Poor Peoples' Lives" God He is one sick MF.

[MidwestMomma]

17. Can't believe he's still lugging around the 'compassionate conservatism'

schtick. Who the hell is buying that load of crap?

Oh yeah, that scary group called 'his base'.

IMHO Bush is the hypocrite of all hypocrites. Hell, if there was a Nobel Prize for Hypocrisy, he'd win it hands down.

If this was the old west, him and his snake oils would have been run out of town a long time ago.

[Citizen Daryl]

18. Maybe he can hire his brother Neil to head up the new Department n/t

[colonel odis]

19. amen to neil.

maybe jack ryan from illinois can help teach.

perhaps henry hyde can discuss the necessity of not fathering children out of wedlock.

newt and rush can team teach a section on the terrible impact of divorce.

maybe w. can even offer some insights into the morality of forcing an underage girl to have an abortion -- when the procdure was still illegal.

ah, yes. the party of family values.

[Ready4Change]

22. Ok. Also require Rich people to get counseling, on their own nickel.

And if, as I suspect, only maintstream "faith based organizations" will ever see any actual monies for this purpose, let's require that Rich people get their counseling from non christian religious groups. Maybe Buddhists or Wiccans.

That will make sure that monies in this regard are spread out amongst all religions, rather than be concetrated into the pockets of the big boy religions.

[iconoclastic cat]

23. Bush: "Daah, they don't need jobs! They need counselin'! Daah..."

"Me know good counselor, his name Jeebus!"

[tlcandie]

24. Maybe he should FIRST offer it to his rethug senator who is

being divorced by his wife because he wanted her to have sex in sex clubs in front of lots of strangers! Poor in wealth does not make one in need of counseling...poor in consciousness and/or spirit now that is another story regarding those who deem themselves to be among the self-rightous!

[2Design]

25. omg......who the hell is he to talk.....look at that dysfunctional family

[More Than A Feeling]

26. "Premarital counseling to parents on welfare?"

so this will be counseling to couples with children who are not married? Forgive me if this is a stereotype, but isn't the largest problem with poor families the absence of one parent? How in the world can a single mother with children marry the father if the father is nowhere to be found? Might not a better use of this money be for tracking down deadbeat dads for child support? Just my two cents.

[skippysmom]

27. the poor need good paying jobs

not a talking to about "responsibility."

WTF does Bush know about what it's like to be poor?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. A lot of those dads are "deadbeat" because they're unemployed

I never really realized this until I lived in New Haven, Connecticut in the 1970s and saw groups of grown men, formerly employed by the factories that had left town, standing around on street corners at 10AM on a Monday morning.

Before that, I was sympathetic to the conservative cry of, "Those deadbeat dads need to support their families."

Conservatives also need to be reminded that it was their crusade against "freeloaders" that forced families apart in the first place, because some time during the 1960s, it became impossible for a woman with children to get welfare if there was a man, whether legal husband or boyfriend, living in her house.

[Classical_Liberal]

32. Interesting, didn't know that.

I do know that in the 1980s before the welfare queens became a big thing, they stopped allowing women to work part time and still recieve partial welfare benefits, and they also ended a program to insure the children of women who got off welfare and worked full time, that had existed throughout the 70s and really helped my aunt, who divorced her abusive husband.

[denverbill]

28. Rush is rich and has been married 3 times? How bout some counseling?

Maybe he should work on his drug problem first though.

[Tina H]

31. geez, I thought it was Democrats

who wanted to spend federal government money to teach people good values and helpful life lessons. Now the Chimp is on the bandwagon and screwing up the whole concept by teaching perverse values and unhelpful life lessons.

If we, as a society, can't agree on what good values and helpful life lessons are, then maybe the federal government ought to simply avoid the whole business of teaching people how to live their lives.

[Malva Zebrina]

33. this nothing but another way to get churches, specifically Christian

churches, on the tax payer dole.

We will suddenly see a host of Christian "counselors" emerge out of the woodwork with palms outstretched.

are we to suppose the Catholic priests will be counseling people ona how to have a loving and lengthy marriage? Or will that be left to the Nuns?

[rocktivity]

34. Well, that's where the "faith-based" counseling come in

I guess poor people have to be taught how to live on faith instead of money.

:headbang:
rockantion

[Th1onein]

35. Yeah, only the poor don't know about successful relationships......

And, this, coming from a party which is rich in divorce and child molesters.

[aden_nak]

36. I've got a crazy idea. . .

How about a $1.5 billion proposal to offer FOOD to parents on welfare, you jackass?

[NickB79]

37. This is what my sister said about premarital counselling

Her and her fiance went in last fall for premarital counselling, as a prerequisite before the Catholic Church would grant them a marriage. Here are the 4 things the priest told them to do to have a successful marriage:

1) Give 10% of your earnings to the Catholic Church. Collectively they make ~$55-60K per year, so that's $6000 per year into the collection plate!

2) Don't live together until you're married. Oops, they've had a house together for 2 years now.

3) Practice "natural" family planning. No pills, Depo shots, or condoms. This makes sense because of point #4.

4) Try to have a child within 2 years of marriage. Damn, they don't want you wasting any time, do they?

When I heard that I was like "They expect couples who have never lived together before to have a baby within a year or two of marriage AND give up thousands of dollars of your income to the Church that should be spent caring for the baby?!? Do they realize how stressful it is simply living with someone for the first time, much less raising a child together and giving away so much money? How the hell is that anything but a recipe for divorce???"

[Pachamama]

39. How about helping people not be poor? That might keep more marriages

...together....Finances is one of the biggest causes of fights amongst married people...why not focus on that?

I see what their "real" fundie agenda is...and its not "marriage"...

:grr:

[Emillereid]

40. What happened to the conservatives' philosophy of small government --

this madman not only wants to oversee what we do in our bedrooms, what we discuss with our doctors, but now he wants to get inside our heads with psychobabble about what makes a good marriage. Whose view of what constitutes a good marriage -- one where the woman is subservient, doesn't use birth control, prays with her husband, etc.? Who does Bush think he is minister in chief or therapist in chief. God save us from these Orwellian maniacs.

[ynot]

43. Just another blip on the screen

This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to pay off his cronies on the religious right.

[SOS]

45. Two points

1. Who gets the $1.5 billion? Churches that support Bush?

2. This "initiative" is a scam to dump people from welfare. If the man is working at low wage job and the woman receives public assistance, they can't get married. Simple economics. If they get married, she loses the assistance. Which, of course, is what the Republicans want.

[ynot]

46. you're right

Your are 100% correct.