Political Irony

Want to save money — lots of money — on homeless people? Give them free housing!

The United Way of Los Angeles studied four people who had been living on the streets, then they put them into free apartments and got them access to free support services. Interestingly, it cost the government less money than it did when they were homeless. How could that be?

Living on the street can be rough. If you get sick, you go to the emergency room. During the time they were on the streets, the four people together used the emergency room 19 times. There were also the costs of shelters, which require people to run them. In addition, homeless people tend to get arrested, and the cost for police and jails is substantial.

In total, when the four were living on the streets, it cost the government $187,288. Afterwards, the same four people, including their free housing costs and all the free services, cost the government $107,032. The biggest savings was in medical costs, which went from $26,060 to $830, and in criminal justice costs, which went from $23,361 to zero.

That’s a savings of over $20,000 per person! Los Angeles is estimated to have 100,000 homeless people, so that could mean a savings of $2 billion in just one city.

Of course, our government is cutting services for the poor, and the mortage crisis is increasing the number of homeless people. We’re spending increasing amounts on medical costs and jails. No wonder our governments (especially state governments) are going broke. And the Republicans are calling for even more cuts to services for the poor, which will likely make the situation even worse.

Unintended consequences can be a bitch.

© Jim Morin
The Republicans say that raising taxes is not allowed. Nancy Pelosi has declared that Democrats will not support cuts to Medicare or Social Security benefits. So who is going to blink first?

Warren Buffett has one solution: “I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.”

I’ve often thought that our elected representatives are disconnected from reality, but I didn’t know it was this bad.

Last October, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) was piloting his Cessna to Cameron County Airport in South Texas, when he decided to land on a closed runway. The closure was reported in NOTAM (Notices to Airmen) but Inhofe didn’t bother to check that. The runway was also marked with a big X across it, which Inhofe saw but decided to ignore, even though there were construction workers and vehicles on the runway. According to one worker Inhofe’s plane touched down and then “sky hopped” over six vehicles and personnel working on the runway. One vehicle driver reportedly “wet his britches”. The airport manager, who has been a pilot for 50 years and did three tours of Vietnam, said he had “never seen such a reckless disregard for human life”.

Of course, Inhofe managed to wiggle out of any legal action against him, and amazingly still has his pilots license. But then he took it one step beyond. He introduced a bill to go after the FAA for “agency overreach”. Inhofe still claims he is innocent, complaining “I did nothing wrong, but at any time I could have suffered the revocation of a license.”

As Washington Monthly put it “Inhofe is probably about as good a pilot as he is a senator. That’s not a compliment.”

[Reprinted from The Serum Magazine.]

They also did a similar rundown at the end of March, and everything has changed since then. As everyone knows, even 24 hours is a very long time in politics, let alone a few months. So don’t take what any pundit says about who is going to win the Republican nomination very seriously.

Around 38 US states have adopted “fetal homicide” laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from attacks from third parties (such as abusive partners). But these laws are increasingly being used to prosecute the women themselves. For example:

• A pregnant woman in Indiana became despondent after her boyfriend abandoned her and attempted to commit suicide by taking rat poison. She survived but her baby (at 34 weeks) was born a week later and died after four days. The mother is now charged with fetal murder and has been held for the last three months without bail.
• In Mississippi, a girl who became pregnant at the age of 15 had a stillbirth at 36 weeks. When it was discovered that she was also a cocaine addict, she was charged with “depraved-heart murder” of her child, and if convicted faces mandatory life imprisonment.
• A pregnant woman in Alabama was told her child likely had Down’s syndrome, and doctors suggested she terminate the pregnancy, but she declined because she is against abortion. The baby died 19 minutes after birth. But six months later she was charged with “chemical endangerment” and accused of taking drugs during the pregnancy (which she has denied).

  This case is particularly bizarre since it would not have been illegal for her to have an abortion, but it is illegal for her to do something that accidentally ends the pregnancy.

Are these cases flukes? South Carolina was one of the first states to adopt a fetal homicide law, but only one case has been brought against a man who assaulted a pregnant woman under the law, and his case was eventually overturned. But around 300 woman have been arrested for actions during their own pregnancy.

Even more ironic, these laws make it a crime to be a drug addict who becomes pregnant and loses a fetus, but not illegal for the same women to have an abortion. So while these laws claim to protect unborn children, they actually encourage abortions.

Not to mention that they are criminalizing pregnant women who lose their babies.

After New York became the latest — and most populous — state to legalize gay marriage, there were jubilant celebrations with parades, parties, and general taking of the name “gay” seriously. But has anyone noticed that the reaction from conservatives? You could be excused if you haven’t.

For example, David Frum (a former speechwriter for Dubya) was a strong opponent of gay marriage and even debated Andrew Sullivan about it 14 years ago. But a few days ago he published an opinion piece on CNN with the headline “I was wrong about same-sex marriage“. Frum says:

I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state’s vote to authorize same-sex marriage … I don’t think I’m alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm — if not outright approval — to New York’s dramatic decision.

Approval? Wow!

Of course, there are always a few wing-nuts, but cries that New York will befall the same fate as Sodom are few and far between, and are mostly coming from places like the National Organization for Marriage. No big surprise there.

Ironically, the biggest silence has come from those perpetual panderers to social conservatives, the current crop of GOP presidential candidates. For example, why haven’t we seen any nasty comments from Bachmann, who not so long ago was loudly endorsing a federal constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage? But when asked about the New York law last week by Fox News host Chris Wallace, she calmly stated “under the 10th Amendment, the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set.” Even Wallace replied that he was “confused” by her position.

Is rampant gay-bashing no longer going to be a staple of right-wing rhetoric? If so, this is change I can believe in.