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You'll never guess what bill funded this site... ... the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 of course! It's in Sec 7103: Grants for Healthy Marriage Promotion and

You'll never guess what bill funded this site... ... the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 of course! It's in Sec 7103: Grants for Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood

cdot2 3y ago
Efforts to reduce single motherhood probably serve to reduce welfare expenses more than most other efforts
- eru 3y ago
  On those grounds, you can probably argue that any spending anywhere reduces the deficit in the long run. EDIT: to clarify, an argument that providing dad-jokes leads to less single motherhood (which then leads to less spending) is so tenuous, that if you accept it, you can accept almost any kind of mental gymnastics. I agree that reducing single motherhood would probably lead to less spending. It's the connection to dad-jokes that tenuous (at least without any further evidence).
  - callalex 3y ago
    Can you explain how your statement follows from the parent? To me it reads like a slippery slope type statement.
    - eru 3y ago
      Almost any kind of spending that anyone, including the government, does is coupled with some arguments about the benefits it brings. For most claimed benefits, it doesn't require a lot of mental gymnastics to find some arguments why they would reduce some spending in the long run. If you give me an example as a challenge, I can (most probably) spin you the argument of how it reduces spending.
      - callalex 3y ago
        I still don’t understand why that’s an argument against government spending.
        eru 3y ago
        It's not an argument against government spending, nor was it intended as one. What makes you think so? It's an argument against this specific argument for government spending. Making bad arguments is excessively easy, independent of whether the thing argued for is good or bad, or true or false. To give a simple example: consider a faulty proof of Pythagoras' theorem. See eg https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml Pointing out flaws in these purported proofs is not an argument against Pythagoras' theorem; it's still true after all. It's merely an argument against the faulty arguments.
  - User23 3y ago
    How does that follow?
  - cdot2 3y ago
    My comment was in response to the comment above mine. Not to the article directly.
    - eru 3y ago
      Oh, I wasn't even complaining about using government money for dad jokes. I don't know whether it's a good use of tax money (probably not), but it's such a minuscule amount in the grand scheme of things, that it doesn't really matter. Eg repealing the Jones act would do a lot more, if one wanted to get riled up about something. It's basically a very inefficient re-distribution from Hawaiians to a few domestic ship owners.
- asah 3y ago
  These jokes contribute to single motherhood.
hattmall 3y ago
What a change, now the government penalizes marriage through the ACA. I wonder why the shift from promoting to penalizing marriage.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  https://thefinancebuff.com/marriage-penalty-under-obamacare-premium-subsidy.html https://thefinancebuff.com/marriage-penalty-under-obamacare-... For anyone curious.
- analog31 3y ago
  ACA was a bag of compromises intended to increase health care access without disrupting the insurance industry. It succeeded on both counts.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    Remember when we were told that insurance companies would go bankrupt without the individual mandate and then it was ruled unconstitutional and not implemented after the first few years and insurance companies made more money than ever? The insurance industry could've tolerated quite a bit of disruption. The ACA was successful in ensuring the donor class got to keep the profit levels they are accustomed to, the only thing it was ever designed to do.
    - tzs 3y ago
      > The ACA was successful in ensuring the donor class got to keep the profit levels they are accustomed to, the only thing it was ever designed to do. So it reducing the number of uninsured by many millions was just an unintentional consequence, or what?
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        Health insurance != Healthcare. Now a bunch of people are paying hundreds a month for a ten thousand dollar deductible. Those people already pay for socialized medicine (the US spends the most on socialized medicine per captia), so I don't see that as a win as much as a gift to the insurance companies.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
These levels of irony shouldn't be possible! You could probably fuel a FTL spacecraft using this stuff, and it would probably work better than running it on government money.

You'll never guess what bill funded this site... ... the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 of course! It's in Sec 7103: Grants for Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood

cdot2 3y ago

Efforts to reduce single motherhood probably serve to reduce welfare expenses more than most other efforts

eru 3y ago
On those grounds, you can probably argue that any spending anywhere reduces the deficit in the long run. EDIT: to clarify, an argument that providing dad-jokes leads to less single motherhood (which then leads to less spending) is so tenuous, that if you accept it, you can accept almost any kind of mental gymnastics. I agree that reducing single motherhood would probably lead to less spending. It's the connection to dad-jokes that tenuous (at least without any further evidence).
- callalex 3y ago
  Can you explain how your statement follows from the parent? To me it reads like a slippery slope type statement.
  - eru 3y ago
    Almost any kind of spending that anyone, including the government, does is coupled with some arguments about the benefits it brings. For most claimed benefits, it doesn't require a lot of mental gymnastics to find some arguments why they would reduce some spending in the long run. If you give me an example as a challenge, I can (most probably) spin you the argument of how it reduces spending.
    - callalex 3y ago
      I still don’t understand why that’s an argument against government spending.
      - eru 3y ago
        It's not an argument against government spending, nor was it intended as one. What makes you think so? It's an argument against this specific argument for government spending. Making bad arguments is excessively easy, independent of whether the thing argued for is good or bad, or true or false. To give a simple example: consider a faulty proof of Pythagoras' theorem. See eg https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml Pointing out flaws in these purported proofs is not an argument against Pythagoras' theorem; it's still true after all. It's merely an argument against the faulty arguments.
- User23 3y ago
  How does that follow?
- cdot2 3y ago
  My comment was in response to the comment above mine. Not to the article directly.
  - eru 3y ago
    Oh, I wasn't even complaining about using government money for dad jokes. I don't know whether it's a good use of tax money (probably not), but it's such a minuscule amount in the grand scheme of things, that it doesn't really matter. Eg repealing the Jones act would do a lot more, if one wanted to get riled up about something. It's basically a very inefficient re-distribution from Hawaiians to a few domestic ship owners.
asah 3y ago
These jokes contribute to single motherhood.

hattmall 3y ago

What a change, now the government penalizes marriage through the ACA. I wonder why the shift from promoting to penalizing marriage.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
https://thefinancebuff.com/marriage-penalty-under-obamacare-premium-subsidy.html https://thefinancebuff.com/marriage-penalty-under-obamacare-... For anyone curious.
analog31 3y ago
ACA was a bag of compromises intended to increase health care access without disrupting the insurance industry. It succeeded on both counts.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  Remember when we were told that insurance companies would go bankrupt without the individual mandate and then it was ruled unconstitutional and not implemented after the first few years and insurance companies made more money than ever? The insurance industry could've tolerated quite a bit of disruption. The ACA was successful in ensuring the donor class got to keep the profit levels they are accustomed to, the only thing it was ever designed to do.
  - tzs 3y ago
    > The ACA was successful in ensuring the donor class got to keep the profit levels they are accustomed to, the only thing it was ever designed to do. So it reducing the number of uninsured by many millions was just an unintentional consequence, or what?
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Health insurance != Healthcare. Now a bunch of people are paying hundreds a month for a ten thousand dollar deductible. Those people already pay for socialized medicine (the US spends the most on socialized medicine per captia), so I don't see that as a win as much as a gift to the insurance companies.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

These levels of irony shouldn't be possible! You could probably fuel a FTL spacecraft using this stuff, and it would probably work better than running it on government money.