Tonight @ The University of Mississippi

[JD]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4837644.ece

An "unnamed insider" talking to a UK paper...  I sure hope this is just the
result of a slow news day.

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 12:40 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Dave Monroe
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And here's to the laws of Mississippi
> > [...]
> > Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say ...
>
>
>
> http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-11/122223360988730.xml&coll=1
>
> LaBruzzo: Sterilization plan fights poverty
> Tying poor women's tubes could help taxpayers, legislator says
>
> Wednesday, September 24, 2008
> By Mark Waller
>
> Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers
> declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is
> studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes
> tied.
>
> "We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out,"
> LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends.
> "And nobody wants to talk about it."
>
> LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as
> food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a
> faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably
> pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering
> statistics now.
>
> "What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can
> reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare
> to generational welfare," he said.
>
> He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal
> ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid
> charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.
>
> It also could include tax incentives for college-educated,
> higher-income people to have more children, he said.
>
> LaBruzzo, 38, is white, married to a lawyer, has a toddler daughter
> and holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University.
>
> He is serving his second term in the Legislature, where he drew
> attention this year for advocating the controversial legislative pay
> raise and for trying to abolish the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
> Commission and its Police Department.
>
> His 81st House District runs from Old Metairie north to Bucktown and
> west along Lake Pontchartrain to the Suburban Canal. In a somewhat
> different configuration, it is the same district that sent white
> supremacist David Duke to the Legislature in 1989.
>
> LaBruzzo described the tube-tying incentive as a brainstorming
> exercise that has yet to take form as a bill for the Legislature to
> consider. He said it already has drawn critics who argue the idea is
> racist, sexist, unethical and immoral. He said more white people are
> on welfare than black people, so his proposal is not targeting race.
>
> LaBruzzo said other, mainstream strategies for attacking poverty, such
> as education reforms and programs informing people about family
> planning issues, have repeatedly failed to solve the problem. He said
> he is simply looking for new ways to address it.
>
> "It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist,' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard
> part is to sit down and think of some solutions."
>
> LaBruzzo said he opposes abortion and paying people to have abortions.
> He described a sterilization program as providing poor people with
> better opportunities to avoid welfare, because they would have fewer
> children to feed and clothe.
>
> He acknowledged his idea might be a difficult sell politically.
>
> "I don't know if it's a viable option," LaBruzzo said. "Of course
> people are going to get excited about it. Maybe we'll start a debate
> on it."
>
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