In a move my conservative neighbors ought to be cheering, the federal government is cutting back spending on child safety. Since 2005, South Dakota parents have benefited from the Project 8 Child Seat Program, which last year alone handed out 3,300 child car seats to needy families. The Governor gets to slap his name across the program, but the funding comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The funding stops coming from Uncle Sam at the end of this fiscal year. Instead of celebrating the demise of one more intrusive, dependency-building government handout, Governor Daugaard is saying he'll round up state and private dollars to keep handing out child car seats and performing free seat inspections.
I'm fine with this handout. I'm fine with federal funding thereof. Making sure low-income folks can keep their kids safe on the road is real "family-values" legislation. Funding car seats for folks who can't afford them puts our money where our family-values mouth is.
My right-wing neighbors are now engaged in a combination of family-values karaoke and limbo as they try to convince themselves that RINO-Mitt is really Rick Santorum on "family values." They want you to believe that shouting against gay marriage and abortion are really economic development policies. But once they're done judging your sex life, they run from discussing and implementing practical policies that show they truly value families.
We can be glad that Governor Daugaard is not so radically right that he would abandon the car seat program. Through Project 8, the federal government did good for thousands of South Dakota families. We need more recognition of the good we can do for our fellow citizens through government and less on the harm we can do to other nations that cross us.
As long as kids have car sets, then that proves we have family values. Cory isn't most of the kids living in poverty are in single mother homes? How is being without a father good for a family? A working father living with his children and married to their mother would be able to buy their own safety seats. And that is what would be the best for the children, the security of having a father.
"Significantly greater hippocampal atrophy was also observed from baseline to final assessment among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation, compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again." Duke University.
I was working in SD Highway Safety when the US Government offered incentives to mandate seat belt use. SD Republican legislators spewed all kinds of nonsense mythology in opposition. SD diddled for years despite the evidence that such a law was nearly a zero-cost way to save many lives. In the meantime SD lost needlessly the equivalent of a small town in extra fatalities because of this kind of mindless stupidity.
Child safety seats are one of the best investments a state can make. Whether or not a father is involved is more smoke and fog that is irrelevant. The state should however do some serious research on which is best for the money. Getting people to do what actually makes real sense for them in times when money is short is difficult by itself. It is made even more difficult when people who know better fog the issue with mind-numbing mythology and irrelevancy.
This may be one of the few things Daugaard deserves to be remembered for.
Steve, I welcome your conservative suggestions for having government force moms and dads into loving, lifelong relationships.
Doug, I agree that the Governor is doing the right thing in trying to preserve this program. I'd like to see some more consistent family values choices from our state government. I'm also curious who called for the federal cuts. Did President Obama drop a ball here?
Cory, I don't know if Obama dropped this ball or not. The GOP loons keep tossing balls and bombs in his direction..not a surprise if he misses a few now and then.