$410B Spending Bill Strikes Blow For Truth-Based Sex Ed, Science
I reported yesterday that the Democrats' new $410 billion government spending bill fails to restore the Medicaid family-planning aid provision that got unceremoniously sliced from the stimulus bill last month.
But while the spending bill -- which increases spending levels between now and October by $20.5 billion -- includes a flurry of provisions reversing controversial Bush-era policies on abstinence-based sex education.
The Democratic spending plan cuts total funding for abstinence education by $14.2 million, compared with the previous year, and trims Bush's total abstinence-ed request by $42 million. General family-planning aid has been increased by $7.5 million. The spending bill also specifies that any competitive grants awarded to abstinence-ed programs "shall be scientifically accurate" and that "none of the funds made available in this Act may be used to disseminate scientific information that is deliberately false or misleading."
If you recall, the Bush administration lavished aid on abstinence-ed programs that, according to independent audits, were rarely evaluated for scientific accuracy. By the end of the Bush years, 23 states were turning down funds for abstinence-only sex-ed funding in a bid to emphasize a more comprehensive approach.
The Democratic spending plan also contains a provision ensuring that no future administration can gag its scientists from testifying truthfully before Congress (as the Bush team sought to do on climate change). The bill states that
scientific information, including such information provided in congressional testimony, requested by the Committees on Appropriations and prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted to the Committees on Appropriations, uncensored and without delay.
Josh
Matt
Eric
That's the man I voted for.
February 24, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't this bill from congress? Doesn't that mean you should say something nice about Pelosi and/or Reid?
Oh wait a minute ... that's not allowed. Never mind.
February 24, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a direct attack on abuse of executive power, which is exactly what we want Congress to do. Probably Obama is OK with it, but I guess we don't know for sure. If Obama opposes it but abides by it when it becomes law, that is still a huge improvement over Bush, who would have said the law doesn't apply to him.
February 24, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it would be nice if comments made at least a bit of sense, but alas, nice try to insult the Democrats but all it did was show real silliness.
February 24, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've got no beef with Pelosi or Reid, so sure, kudos to them, as well. A lot of people seem to assume, however, that Presidents have no voice in how bills are written. Technically, of course, bills can only be sponsored by Representatives or Senators. It's always been my impression (possibly wrong) that in practice, however, Presidential administrations often draft bills and hand them over to members of Congress to sponsor. I have no idea if that was the case here or not, but assumed so from the way Elana wrote her summary. That obviously might be a false assumption.
February 25, 2009 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand the headline in relation to the text of the post. The text looks good and the headline looks like there is a problem. I like the text though.
February 24, 2009 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Same here. I can't tell from the headline whether I'm supposed to cheer for this or not.
It sounds like it's a good repudiation of Bush-era abstinence only sex education, but the headline seems to have it backwards.
February 24, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe Elana fixed it before I got here, but the headline says this is a blow struck FOR good stuff, not AGAINST it. That's right ... no?
February 24, 2009 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of that money should be used to hire Bristol Palin to explain to the repubs that it's, like, totally unrealistic to, like, expect teenagers to be abstinent.
February 24, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
If ever a provision of a bill would have provoked a signing statement from the crazy people who used to be in the White House, that last one would have. The inalienable right to delay, censor and imbed lies into information from the Executive to Congress was one of the most important powers conferred by the Constitution under the the unitary executive theory.
February 24, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is one of those rediculous topics. In the reality-based reality people make better, more informed decisions when they have all the information about a subject. Yet, many on the right want to squash programs that provide all the information because to allow it would mean that their cherished myths would be challenged...like abstinance only sex ed is an effective way to control unwanted pregnancy and STDs.
Pesky reality.
February 24, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The spending bill also specifies that any competitive grants awarded to abstinence-ed programs 'shall be scientifically accurate' and that 'none of the funds made available in this Act may be used to disseminate scientific information that is deliberately false or misleading.'..."
I'm pretty sure that the statement "if you abstain from sex you won't get pregnant" is scientifically accurate.
February 24, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the claim from Abstinence-Only proponents were, "If you abstain from sex you won't get pregnant," your reply would be on topic.
Since the claim by the Abstinence-Only proponents is actually, "Telling teenagers not to have sex before marriage only is more effective in reducing teen preganancy rates than a combination of telling teenagers not to have sex combined with a message that if they do have sex to use a condom properly," your reply is gloriously and enthusiatically off topic and non sequitur.
I fail to see how telling Abstinence Only proponents that their claims will be evaluated on the merits by properly subjecting them to outcomes based statistical analysis is so awful. Would you pray enlighten me?
February 24, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Enlighten" is a word totally at odds with "Abstinence Only" programs and that idea alone has not only cost many, many teen pregnancies but also the lives of several young women who died needlessly due to complications of teen pregnancies.
February 24, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where is that money that was slashed form the stim? Maybe in the budget?
February 24, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to take the side of keeping this out, but I think people are missing the point on what this Spending Bill is:
It's for the *current* Fiscal Year that started back on October 1, 2008 and runs through September 30, 2009.
This is to clean up the mess of trying to get the budget passed by Bush last year. At a certain point, the Dems through up their arms, essentially tabled it until a new Admin came in, and have been running the budget on a series of continuing resolutions to keep from having to shut things down.
Getting the Medicaid family-planning aid into the Stimulus was in effect an attempt to make it "supplimental" to the Budget of current fiscal year. Put it into the current budget would be an add on.
When it was taken off the table and talked about being handled in the Budget Process, there's little doubt that they were talking about the process that will be starting up after *this one* to set the October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010 budget, which is Obama's first real budget.
Before we go batshit over this, perhaps Elana can work the halls of congress as she does so well and check with Nancy & Co. to see if the intent is to put it into the 10/01/09 to 09/30/10 budget. If that's the intent, then we can all step off the soap box.
John
February 24, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know there's a lot of problems in the world, but it's reassuring that in our corner of it, the adults are back in charge.
February 24, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink