Governor Robert “Ultra-sound” McDonnell has replaced a much needed several hundred million dollars into Virginia higher education. According to the Washington Post:
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell issued a news release Monday trumpeting the $230 million in new state funds for higher education.
With that new funding in mind, the release said, McDonnell sent a letter to Virginia college presidents and boards, asking them to keep increases in in-state tuition in line with the rate of inflation.
The Consumer Price Index for the last 12 months was up 2.7 percent, while average in-state tuition went up 9.7 percent for the 2011-2012 school year, the release said.
“I remain very concerned about the affordability of post-secondary education for the young people of Virginia,” he wrote.
Good for the governor. College costs across the nation are skyrocketing. McDonnell’s ceiling on rise in costs can’t come at a better time. However, there is a slight problem that puts Virginia ladies at a severe disadvantage. Boys don’t get pregnant. Girls do.
Governor McDonnell, remember the old adage about” one Awwww sh*t ruining a 100 atta boys?” Well….You have your awwww sh*t moment.
Governor McDonnell cut out the pregnancy prevention program for teens in Virginia. He didn’t just cut the budget, he eliminated the program!
While higher education came out ahead in the budget, funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs was eliminated.
“We are shocked and saddened that Virginia is taking this backwards step that will harm public health and the well-being of Virginia’s young people,” Tarina Keene, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, said in a news release.
NARAL blamed McDonnell, who did not provide money for pregnancy prevention in his proposed budget. “McDonnell Succeeds in Putting Teenagers at Risk,” read the headline on the release. (McDonnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
But McDonnell was not the only person who had a hand in that decision. The Senate restored $455,000 for pregnancy prevention in its budget plan, but House and Senate budget negotiators zeroed out that money.
So who does this draconian budget cut hurt the most? Young women and girls. There can be no greater disruption to a young woman’s future than an unwanted pregnancy. Graduation, higher education, and career can all vaporize if a girl becomes a mother while she is really still a child. Not only do plans for education stop, but that woman and child stand a much greater chance of being thrown into cyclical poverty.
So, the governor can throw all the money he wants at higher education but he has also just created a situation where boys have the edge. Is that discrimination? If he truly wanted to help young women, he would restore the pregnancy prevention program rather than continuing what appears to be a war on women. Governor Ultra-Sound just doesn’t get it. The best way to prevent abortion is to prevent unwanted pregancy.
All right, all right, I’ll fix it. Don’t get pregnant. There, all fixed…no charge. By the way, was there anything in the article that made it about women’s issues? Or is it just a story about higher education? and you just made it about women’s issues?
@pokie
It was about 2 things—go read it. adding the higher ed money and cutting out the pregnancy prevention program.
Who gets pregnant? I didn’t create THAT part. I just highlighted it. Solution: do both–more money to hold college costs. check Keep pregnancy prevention program in place. You can’t cut off avenues to contraception and expect abortion to disappear.
Pokie, spoken a sexist for sure.
Then Pokie has a daughter. Then the listen for the trumpeting about what your daughter will never do and how you will kill some so and so blah blah blah…..
With 2 sons, its easy to be glib.
Haven’t gotten the link to work on two different machines.
I’m not convinced that pumping “free” money into the system is a good idea. Tinkering with the free market is never a good idea. If the school is too expensive, people will stop going, and the prices should drop for want of students.
Does your washpo link need a colon in it after the http?
Yes the article is about both, you didn’t add it. Just had to get the link to work.
I have never seen any proof that pregnancy prevention programs succeed in reducing the rate of pregnancy. If the teen pregnancy rate does not balloon in Virginia in the next year, then we will know that such programs are ineffective and unneeded.
@ Slow: Your position of “Tinkering with the free market is never a good idea” would be correct if every potential consumer had the exact same disposable income and the exact same life circumstances and our country had no problems to face. It would also make sense if the country had no need for an educated people. Your position would lead one to believe that you are in favor of eliminating the college funds for veterans since that is free money or if the amount were not enough, then veterans would have to forego their higher education until the market adjusted. Our country needs an educated population to study and address a diverse set of emerging problems that we face. We can’t prosper if only the white upper class gets educated because they would study and address white upper class issues. In order to have a smoothly functioning country we need to eliminate unfairness based upon race, gender, class and others. Higher education is the best medicine for reaching that goal. I will stipulate, that if folks don’t understand or support that goal, then their higher education failed them.
@kelly_3406
Why would you know? How do you know it isn’t working? How do you tell “not pregnant?”
What dog do you have in this fight? You can’t tell anything in one year. You look at trends. How many girls does it take to be a success? One? A hundred?
There is plenty of data out there. Try the Guttmacher Institute. Here’s a good starting point.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-Teen-Sex-Ed.html
@SlowpokeRodriguez
I dont know what its problem is this morning. I can’t seem to get it fixed. I have linking it the way I always link them and it just isnt working.
Its in todays Post, local/ Virginia/
Pokie, I think its something with the WaPo. All the other links work. Sorry. I can’t fix it. I will try again later. I have used 2 different browsers.
@Moon-howler
Trends are always important, but if as many teenagers depend on this program as you think, then there should be a statistically significant jump in pregnancy rate during the first year.
As a tax payer, I have a dog in the fight. With school-age children, I have several dogs in the fight — perhaps more than you.
I do not buy the Guttmacher Institute as a valid source of data — it is way too partisan.
People are either pregnant or they aren’t.
Select your own neutral sources then. I have no problem with neutral sources.
I wouldn’t expect a jump in pregnancy the first year considering pregnancy is a 9 month venture. I would look at trends over time in Virginia. To me, we have saved money if one teenager doesn’t get pregnant. A teen mother who requires state services costs the taxpayers a fortune. I believe the pregnancy programs are more prevalent in the cities.
Kelly, I expect that your children probably have a great deal more guidance than many children in the state.
I continue to have several dogs in the fight also. However, I don’t expect the state to pay the “vet bills.” Additionally, sometimes it takes a village to raise a child. Once you are a parent, your job is never over. (lest anyone want to pull rank)
Kelly, lets go back to that tax payer portion of your argument. Do you have any idea what teen pregnancy costs the state? As a taxpayer, there is the pay me now or pay me later mentality that is very close to being the old adage about ” for want of a nail a shoe was lost. For want of a shoe a horse was lost…..etc etc.”
Starting with prenatal care, delivery, complications of young birth, food stamps, housing, free and reduced lunch, health care, …ready to stop? I don’t even know all the various programs for poor people but it is just so much less costly for girls to not have babies while in their teens.
There is no way that a prevention program is going to be more costly than not having one. Even if a girl postpones pregancy by a year, we are money ahead as taxpayers because that girl has another year of education under her belt.
Male statements that end up being about saving up front money drive me nuts! They ignore cost of girls having babies that they cannot be independly responsible for. Then there is the abortion issue that so many people are shrilly shrieking over…..and do nothing to help out someone who went on and had their baby. Programs are being cut left and right.
The values folks on this subject need a complete reality check. Reality vs the pretend world they live in.
Sorry, rant over.
Get a paper you can hold in your hand and turn to the desired pages.
are you suggesting that I contribute to the prolonging of WashPo’s life? Nahhhh.
I didn’t get it. Of course, I don’t get to touch the paper here. I have to go online. The boss never let’s the paper out of his sight.
@BSinVA
Sorry, there BS, but when you put up a post like that, so wrong that it can’t be fixed, then comment on the effectiveness of higher education, you’re on your own. Just keep saying the following:
“Equality is stagnation….it doesn’t let anything grow”
I am not so sure I agree with your blanket statement, Pokie. Isn’t the foundation of our country based on equality or is that all BS?
Sorry, but I’m not that far away from school to know that there were some who really should not have been there. You want equal outcomes, and THAT is not what America is based on……if I remember correctly, that’s what USSR and China were supposedly based on. Subtle difference, I know.
Ah, equal outcomes. that won’t happen.
I am not sure I buy the created equal either but….it sounds good.
“Census figures released Tuesday highlight the latest education milestone for women, who began to exceed men in college enrollment in the early 1980s. The findings come amid record shares of women in the workplace and a steady decline in stay-at-home mothers.”
-AP
Wait. What the heck are these women doing out of the kitchen and trying to get jobs for? 😉
I say based on Census figures this entire thread is much ado about nothing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/va-budget-provides-more-for-higher-ed-nothing-for-pregnancy-prevention/2012/04/23/gIQApbKqcT_blog.html
I would suggest people right click and choose either open in new window or open in new tab.
Thanks for providing the link. Did you see the comments?