The Senate this week rejected House Republicans’ “chainsaw massacre” approach to deficit reduction, voting down a $61 billion hit list of domestic programs – including, shockingly, a number designed to reduce teenage pregnancy and abortions.
It’s one thing for Republicans to go after such perennial targets as National Public Radio. For decades, however, conservatives have warned that the breakdown of the nuclear family is devastating poor communities. That Republicans now want government to abandon efforts to curb teen pregnancy shows how far the Tea Party has pushed its agenda.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Democrats and Republicans stopped fighting over whether poverty is caused by irresponsible behavior or social and economic injustice. They agreed that both were implicated in the explosion of out-of-wedlock births and single-parent families, and they tried to do something about it.
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