Stimulating Times

摘要

During World war II, Oscar levant, the pianist and wit, was asked by his draft board, "Do you think you can kill?" He replied, "I don't know about strangers, but friends, yes." Barack Obama might have felt that way when his Democratic friends in Congress proposed expanding contraception services as an economic "stimulus." Defending that (which was eventually dropped as indefensible), Nancy Pelosi said, "States are in terrible fiscal budget crises," partly because of all they do for children's health and education. Therefore, contraception, by reducing the number of wee parasites, "will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." So: Children are a net cost to government and therefore (non sequitur alert) counterstimulative. Pelosi argues that a tril-lion dollars of other government outlays will be stimulative. In any case, the stimulus effect of more contraception would have been at least nine months in arriving.