Another Great Republican Idea: Let's Pay Women On Welfare To Get Their Tubes Tied

Rep. John LaBruzzo (R-LA)

So let's see, Louisiana, like many states with a republican controlled state government is crying broke. Oh where or where are those stimulus funds when you need 'em? But anyway, governor Bobby Jindal has gone as far as to cut funding for higher education, as well as funding for public schools.



Yup, what benefit is there in assisting poor people escape the trenches of poverty by assisting them obtain a higher education or fixing shitty public schools, right?  And this is in Louisiana, the fifth largest oil producing state in the country, where for every dollar per barrel increase in oil prices results in a yield of $12 million per year in tax revenue... but I digress.

Meanwhile, realizing just how broke the state actually is, Rep. John LaBruzzo is contemplating the introduction of legislation that would save the state's much needed funds. According to him, things are so bad that they cannot afford to support their social programs intended to assist poor residents.

So what's his plan? Well, read it for yourself:

Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out, " LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."

LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare, " he said.

He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

LaBruzzo, 38, is white, married to a lawyer, has a toddler daughter and holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University.



[...] LaBruzzo described the tube-tying incentive as a brainstorming exercise that has yet to take form as a bill for the Legislature to consider. He said it already has drawn critics who argue the idea is racist, sexist, unethical and immoral. He said more white people are on welfare than black people, so his proposal is not targeting race.

LaBruzzo said other, mainstream strategies for attacking poverty, such as education reforms and programs informing people about family planning issues, have repeatedly failed to solve the problem. He said he is simply looking for new ways to address it.

"It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist, ' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard part is to sit down and think of some solutions."

LaBruzzo said he opposes abortion and paying people to have abortions. He described a sterilization program as providing poor people with better opportunities to avoid welfare, because they would have fewer children to feed and clothe. (source)

OK, so yeah, this idea is absurd; and depending on who you ask, it's racist. Sure there are more white people on Wlefare, and him pointing that out was slick. However, we all know much love Republicans have for those Cadillac-driving, project-dwelling, welfare-queens; and best believe, Ronald Reagan didn't have white folks in mind when he tossed around the well known racial dog-whistle.

Of course there's no way in hell something like this would ever become reality. But then again, republicans are kinda good at getting people to vote against their own principles. And let's not forget just how they've escalated class warfare lately. In this copycat political landscape, don't be surprised to hear more along these lines from republican politicians in other states...

I'm just sayin'.