The XX Factor: What women really think.

Rush, One More Time

Not Putting My Eggs in the Government Basket

Hanna, you may well be right that government is the only thing that can save us from this financial crisis. But like Abigail and Bobby Jindal and many of my fellow conservatives, I'm going to maintain a healthy skepticism. Because even if government is going to be our savior, I am not convinced that our government has yet taken the right steps. The stimulus package might indeed have some provisions that actually stimulate, but they're buried among the hundreds and hundreds of pages of pork and years-old Democratic Christmas wish lists. Only 23 percent of the money in the stimulus package will be spent in 2009 and 2010 (by estimate of the Congressional Budget Office), but it was so urgent to get it passed that members of Congress had no time to read it? The market tanked earlier this month after our new treasury secretary announced a bailout plan with no details, apparently because at the last minute he scrapped the plan he'd been working on for months. Chris Dodd—the chairman of the Senate banking committee—had to apologize earlier this week after claiming that maybe banks would be nationalized, causing the market to tank last Friday.

Believe me, I'm not rooting against the economy. I want nothing more than to see my friends and family who've been laid off find new jobs and for things I used to take for granted, like a modest summer vacation, no longer to seem like inaccessible luxuries. But unlike those poor folks who gave all their money to Bernie Madoff and watched it disappaer, I'm not going to put all my hope and faith in the government to sort this out by itself.

Wake up, Mr. Summers!

I'll be the first to admit that I can't turn down free stuff. It's an impulse that defies logic. I hate key chains, and I don't really like ice cream, but I still find myself grabbing the tacky keychain at the convention booth because it's free and I religiously wait 45 minutes every Earth Day in line at Ben and Jerry's on free cone day. Something about those four letters messes with my brain.
 
Thankfully, there are people out there with more will power. Today, the gorgeous and brilliant Dambisa Moyo is arguing that the temptation to accept what's free at the expense of what's best is wreaking havoc in Africa. In her book Dead Aid she argues that one of the best things that could happen for the continent is for leaders to start defying the impulse to accept free aid from the likes of Bono and the U.S. government. In her fabulous interview with the NYT she gives a Capitalism 101 lesson that should be required reading for celebrities and congressmen who might have slept through economics class. (Or if you are Lawrence Summers, Obama's head of the National Economic Council, that would be sleeping through last week's "Fiscal Sustainability Summit." He literally was asleep on the podium.)

A handful of Republican Governors are also resisting temptation. Govs. Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Sarah Palin of Alaska are refusing—or at least talking about refusing—to take some of the free money from Obama's massive stimulus bill. They're essentially echoing Moyo, arguing that the money will only leave them dependent down the road. In this moment when corporations are asking for handouts on the order of billions, this level of restraint should count as saintly.

For Women, Good Jobs Depend on Good Contraception ... and Yet ...

Dayo, I agree with you on a number of things about contraception and economic prosperity for the country and for women—and disagree with Rachael's contention that contraception isn't related to jobs.

Let's be real: Most women (with the exception of lesbians like me) couldn't be 21st-century workers without contraception. Helping poor women pay for contraception keeps them in the workforce (good for the economy), keeps down maternity-related health care costs down (ditto), helps poor women not have more children than they can support (TANF costs reduced), incrementally helps expand health care coverage, and all sorts of other things that are good for the economy, for women, for children, and for the country. Yes, I salute Medicaid coverage for contraception!

What's more, I agree with Ruth Rosen's more recent analytical post explaining the right wing's philosophical objection to family planning at all. Here's a snippet from her brilliant explanation of why Margaret Sanger was repeatedly arrested for opening her pioneering birth control clinics, why she and her fellows were attacked so ferociously by the forces of Comstock, and why contraception is still being attacked today:

... the religious right's real agenda is not just to eliminate abortion, but to end the historic rupture between sex and reproduction that took place in the 20th century.... If reproduction ceased to be the goal, sexuality might become yoked to pleasure and that is quite unsettling to many Americans. That is the legacy the religious right has fought against, and it's that agenda that cut funding for family planning.

As I explained in my book What Is Marriage For?, when women won the battle over contraception, it blazed the trail for the acceptance of lesbians and gay men. Hurray contraception, both practically and philosophically! What's more, there's some disguised racism in the opposition to Medicaid-funded contraception; all "welfare" supports for poor folks get a racialized tinge in the cultural imagination (however false the imaginary picture). 

And. Yet. I still don't get the angst over whether expanded Medicaid payments for contraception should or should not have been in the stimulus package. Can't we give Obama a chance to make this happen some other way? The man has been in office for all of nine days. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! And in those nine days he has already done some amazing things for poor women—both symbolically resonant and immediately practical—like repeal the gag rule, appoint a female solicitor general, make Hillary Clinton (with her explicitly pro-women approach to foreign policy, dating back to the Beijing conference and beyond) our secretary of state, and support equal pay in the fabulous Ledbetter Act.

Look, Clinton went down in flames when he tried—right after he was inaugurated—to allow lesbians and gay men to serve openly in the military. The idea was right but the tactics were wrong—and the results were the disastrously restrictive Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Can we give the Obamanauts another month or two—or call me crazy, three! —to work on Medicaid-funded contraception, which is so outrageously controversial, for the reasons Ruth explains, and more?

Republicans Drool

Dayo, it's giving a little too much credit where credit doesn't belong to say Republicans "ruled" by hissy fit on the contraceptive provision. You could claim that it was removed thanks, obliquely, to House Minority Leader John Boehner and the other GOPers who turned it into a big story, but at bottom (no jokes, please), it was removed for Democrats' sake. The Blue Dog Democrats, that is, who could have sunk the stimulus had they voted en masse against it and who—having run on heroic promises to crusade against fiscal irresponsibility—were feeling super antsy about the whole $819 billion bonanza.

Usually, the House GOP's bellyaching about being victimized by Nancy Pelosi and left out of the "process" strikes me as so many crocodile tears. Did any more vomitous image emerge from last fall's congressional session than that of Eric Cantor, then the GOP's chief deputy whip, waving a copy of a "partisan" speech by Nancy Pelosi in front of the cameras and claiming that it had so hurt his delicate-flower Republican colleagues' feelings they'd refused to vote for the financial bailout? But I actually think the Republicans performed a type of useful minority function in this whole contraceptive thing: publicizing a conservative objection to the bill so that more conservative-minded Democrats could consider whether it might sway them, too.

But "ruled" by hissy fit? No Republican voted for the stimulus, even after the contraceptive provision was yanked. But it didn't matter, because hey hey, it still passed the House! Some rule. I know it's considered a moral defeat for Obama that tonight's stimulus vote was party-line, but frankly, I kind of liked it. The GOP might have thought it was in "the minority" last year, but this New York Times lede is what it really feels like to be in the minority: "Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday ..."

Maybe more of these ledes will finally prompt some soul-searching.

Jobs First, Please

Dayo,

Forgive me, but didn't we just spend eight years complaining that George Bush and Congress were saddling future generations with an unfair burden of debt? (I was no fan of the GOP-led Congress, believe me.) And wasn't one of the many complaints about the Patriot Act that it was rushed through and congressfolk didn't have time to read it? But now we have a proposal that will end up costing $1 trillion with interest and a president who says there is not a "moment to spare," and yet it's the Republicans with their concerns who are trying to "rule by ... hissy fit." (Um, also, aren't the Democrats in the majority here?) [Note: The NYT reports that the package has passed the House. It apparently went through without the contraceptives, but with $335 million for STD prevention.]

Now that they are out of power, the Republicans have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to start living up to their historical reputations for fiscal conservatism. House Minority Leader John Boehner had compiled a long list of concerns about the stimulus package, of which the complaint about contraceptives was just one item. For example, the creation of 32 new government programs that will cost $136 billion. What happens when they've spent their stimulus money? Will the programs go away? And then there's the fact that this is being sold as an "infrastructure" package, yet only 25 percent of the infrastructure dollars would be spent in the first year. (So, why the rush?)

I'm not an economist. I have no idea if the stimulus is going to work. It might be the only thing standing between us and a depression, or, as Politico pointed out today, even $1 trillion on stimulus might not be enough. But what I do know, is that if we're going to go ahead with this massive and hugely expensive project (the Senate takes it up next week), I want the focus to be on creating jobs quickly and getting money pumping through the economy. Whether that is through infrastructure or corporate tax breaks, I don't care. But I don't think that $200 million for contraceptives would create as many jobs as it could if directed toward some other purpose. There are lots of generic oral contraceptives, for example, which cost less (yay for Medicaid and our tax dollars) but reduce the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to have people out there selling (profitable) brand-name alternatives. And while $5 billion might sound like a big industry, it's comparable to what we spend on Halloween. Heck, the porn industry has asked for a bailout worth $5 billion. I'd much rather see that $200 million go as tax breaks to small businesses in return for hiring new employees, or a necessary infrastructure project (maybe a couple of bridges to SOMEWHERE, for a change). It's got nothing to do with scorn for women's health.

More Stimulation

Rachael, it's lovely to agree with you ... at least partly. I too am vastly in favor of contraception being available to all, and yet agree that it shouldn't be in the stimulus package.

I've long found it amusing that Viagra, but not contraception, is regularly covered by health insurance: Why should men's sexual pleasure be underwritten but not women's? I don't know whether Medicaid covers Viagra without a waiver (according to MSNBC, 27 states' Medicaid programs do cover contraception, but they had to seek a waiver to do it.) If yes, obviously contraception should be, too. And I agree that underwriting contraception for poor folks seems like a no-brainer-except for the radicals (and yes, they do exist) who believe that all sexual activity should lead to babies.

And yet like you, Rach, I humbly disagree with my admired friend Ruth Rosen's position ... although for different reasons. I don't have any economic philosophical objections to its inclusion: After all, this stimulus package includes money for food stamps, the GAO, the census, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, unnamed projects for the Department of Homeland Security, information technology projects for the Department of State... and what's most relevant, Medicaid. If the Obamites deem a project good for the country, it's in this bill.

So why do I disagree with Ruth? Because the White House is already showing incredible savvy in making controversial changes about women's health. I was wowed by the fact that the controversial global gag was repealed on Friday at about 4:45 p.m. ... perfect timing for missing the American news cycles. Thursday's and Friday's news cycles were dominated by Gitmo closing; Monday, the news media were all over the plan to back higher fuel-emissions standards, a big symbolic move on environmental policy. Obama slipped through his move to improve women's lives by allowing women's health providers to talk freely about all options without losing U.S. funding with no controversy. (If Rick Warren's ghastly inaugural prayer was a fig leaf for this repeal of the gag rule, well, it was worth it.)

That's why I don't mind seeing this particular, um, withdrawal from the stimulus package: because I'm guessing that the Obamamites are being savvy—taking this fight out of the public eye so that they can handle it in a better way.

Is Birth Control, Um, Stimulating?

When I read this morning that President Obama was going to ask House Democrats to pull family-planning funds from the stimulus package, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not because I'm opposed to birth control (quite the contrary, actually), but because I was opposed to the stimulus package being used for such a purpose. (And yes, feel free to insert your jokes about the, har har, stimulating effects of birth control at any point.) Alas, and perhaps obviously, not everyone shares my sentiments. At Talking Points Memo, Ruth Rosen chides Obama for courting Republicans and calls his request "misguided."

This doesn't have to be an issue that divides women and brings Democrats and Republicans to blows so early in the new administration. I feel like there's a liberal argument for excluding the funds from the stimulus package, and a conservative argument for providing birth control for family planning.

First, not including the funds in the stimulus package: Despite Obama's pledge that there would be no pork in the legislation, Las Vegas' mayor has been trying to get stimulus bucks for a planned "Mob Museum" for his city, and conservatives are already having fun with such proposals as an extra $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. If family planning is so important, do we really want it to be reduced to comparisons to the Mob Museum?  Can't it stand on its own merits?

As for the (fiscally) conservative argument for funding family planning, well, as much as I rarely agree with Nancy Pelosi on anything, her comments to George Stephanopolous make a point. It's cheaper to provide birth control to poor families than it is to pay for unintended and sometimes unwanted children. And I'd rather fund birth control than abortion, a million times over. If we can give these parents the means to limit their family size, they will have an easier time taking care of themselves, meaning they will be less likely to need government assistance. And the parents will have more time and resources to devote to the children they already have, helping them with school and getting them involved in extracurricular activities, with the effect of helping them to break the cycle of poverty once they become adults themselves. (To me, that's a pretty important "family value.")

But both arguments lead me to the same conclusion: Make funding for family planning its OWN legislation. Get the debate out into the open. Obama promised hope and change. Congress shouldn't let him down with business as usual.