Summary

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a memo prioritizing federal funding for communities with marriage and birth rates above the national average.

The directive, which applies to grants, loans, and contracts, also prioritizes projects benefiting families with young children.

A congressional aide criticized the policy, saying, “Considering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will be… It’s absolutely creepy. It’s a little ‘Chinese government.’”

The memo also blocks mask mandates and requires compliance with immigration enforcement.

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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    4 months ago

    I know we like to shit on Trump for his dumb ideas, but why is this idea bad? I would remove the marriage rates, but prioritizing communities with many children, especially families with young children seems to me like a sane idea, this is where help is needed the most and where you make the most impact for the future generations or am I missing something?

    • SolarTapestryofNoise@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Gay marriage will be used against areas. Fertility rates are higher in rural and conservative areas because of a lack of access to proper sex ed and contraception. Everything about this screams punish blue states, funding only for maga.

    • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Who has marriage and birth rates higher than the national average? White evangelicals. This is a gift to the religious right.

      • Today@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Who’s that weird family with a ton of kids? They get all the money. Also, Utah.

    • Jinna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      Off the top of my head, it makes it desirable to cook the stats to get money, whether by banning abortion or simply prioritizing births vs children. Every funding metric is gamed, that’s why there’s arcane rules to enact change by hoping for a certain game strategy. In this case every strategy leads to misery.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      To summarize what everyone else is saying: It can (and therefore will) be abused to only benefit “the right people”.

      • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 months ago

        Isn’t poverty strongly correlated to higher birth rates? Education is very much known to cause lower birth rates and poorer areas lack (access to) education.

        • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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          4 months ago

          Yes but my counter point would be not when people are taking BCs or doing abortions. No one In right mind has children that can’t afford if they can help it, which is a issue globally. Plus the stress of caring for someone in uncertain times.

          Box of condoms way cheaper than a child. I would bet if you gave poor countries free BCs, you would see a sharp decline in pops in a few years.

          • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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            4 months ago

            Eh, I’d argue for birth control to be effective the knowledge how to use it and have safe sex is pretty important - which relies on education (though in a sex-ed and not tertiary education kind of way).

            Increasing education spending directly results in a lower birth rate, much more so than “just” providing free birth control. Ideally both should be provided though.

            • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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              4 months ago

              Lol this feels like chicken and egg convo.

              Education leads more people wanting to take BC Vs Bc allow more people to get educated.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I mean why not just say higher population density and leave room for abuse? because they want room for abuse.

      • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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        4 months ago

        Which makes no sense when beep boops are around the corner. Every company is talking about AI this and AI that.

        “Sooo you don’t need more workers, lets scale down the pops so we have more resources to share, got it!”

        And all I hear is “oh not like that”

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      and where you make the most impact for the future generations or am I missing something?

      Yeah you definitely make an impact, if by making an impact you mean flooding the future labor market with quasi-slaves.