Palin Slashes Funding

WaPo : Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

"The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

--------- I wasn't going to bother with the Palin pregnancy hairballs but changed my mind. Seems this is the "news" for most progressive pundits who know their audience.

(Disclaimer: I support no political party.)

Palin cutting funds in Alaska doesn't bother me one way or the other for the simple fact that the programs aimed at troubled youth, and particularly teen mothers/pregnancy, have taught few to become "productive, successful, independent adults" and when they do it is the exception - not the rule.

Children need to be mentored long before they are troubled teens and temp shelters are not the outreach I would choose. Honest, involved, loving parents might work. But for some unknown reason the State and/or society cannot interfere with parenting - until the damaged results are kicked to the curb.

The above traits - productive and independent, used to be part of parenting - not State funded charities. The State fails miserably when attempting to re-do what's left of throw-away children. And there are those scandals of authorities physically and sexually abusing the very children they are charged to protect. Not to mention the siphoning and corruption of funds.

Why is it that society has thrown billions at social programs for 40 years and yet the crisis deepen? When will society approach the problem at the core rather than waiting until the victim is a troubled runaway? Because we don't have the right to interfere with parents? So we can ignore the messes and horrors, and then fund attempts to clean up a fraction of the ruined lives?

Often it's the blind leading the blind and you cannot teach what you yourself do not know. But you would think success is rampant if you attend the charity fundraisers. They're gonna put themselves out of business if they're not careful.

Covenant House, founded by 2 New York priests, is a faith-based international program and "the largest privately-funded childcare agency in the United States providing shelter and services to homeless and runaway youth."

Passage House , an offspring of Covenant House, is a 10-bed residential program for "pregnant and parenting women ages 17-20" in Alaska.

Palin must have been very saddened by her daughter's pregnancy, because regardless of how well you think you're doing the job of parenting, you will blame yourself for the mistakes your children make - you will ask yourself where did I go wrong, where did I fail. (Unless you're the Casey Anthony family living blissfully self-deluded, and always have been to produce a daughter such as Casey.)

Modern parenting - all appearance and little substance.

Palin says she does not support funding for "explicit sex-ed programs." Note the word "explicit." I agree. It is not the State's job to teach my children how a condom is used.

What are parents teaching children if the State needs to teach explicit sex education? Our children are exposed 24/7 from all media directions with sex education - however, crude and pornographic it may be, and many are exposed to anything and everything at home by the parents.

Are you unaware of what today's teens are uploading and watching on the internet?

I have no problem with children learning the biology of reproduction in school - they do not need demonstrations on how to unroll a rubber.

The progressive howling about Palin's "slashing" funds for a charity in Alaska is hype. If this is all they have to make her ugly they'll need to dig deeper.

Maybe the accusation she pressured someone to get her former brother-in-law fired will do the trick, although he's still working. I read somewhere the brother-in-law, 4 times married and divorced Mike Wooten, used a taser on his 11-year-old stepson, poached game, drank in his patrol car, threatened Palin's dad would "eat a f*cking lead bullet" if he helped his daughter (Palin's sister) get an attorney - maybe that's why progressives are not running harder with that accusation.