Summary
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a memo prioritizing federal funding for communities with marriage and birth rates above the national average.
The directive, which applies to grants, loans, and contracts, also prioritizes projects benefiting families with young children.
A congressional aide criticized the policy, saying, “Considering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will be… It’s absolutely creepy. It’s a little ‘Chinese government.’”
The memo also blocks mask mandates and requires compliance with immigration enforcement.
If the criterion is to prioritise funding to areas that need the most why not just say higher population density? We already know republicans use “traditional family values” as a propaganda tool. Can you seriously not see how this can be abused by Trump administration after news like ordering to retract the word “gender” from medical articles published by CDC:
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-news-cdc-orders-mass-retraction
In my mind it was because children are expensive, so high birthrates - less “free” income, means higher reliance on public services like transportation. At least here in Germany highest birthrates are usually low income, low education, often immigrant areas that would profit greatly from having a broader support from the public.
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-news-cdc-orders-mass-retraction
Well now I obviously do, but like I mentioned, I am from Germany, I try to keep up with rapid-fire bullshit machine that is governing the US right now, but unfortunately we are also in a dire situation here right now. And I wouldn’t expect the whole world to automatically understand all the details of what is happening in our government right now, for example how terrifying and dangerous the last three days were for our democracy. I am happy to answer that for anyone asking genuinely btw. Hence why I was happy someone asked the questions that I had in mind while reading the article.
yes but birthrate is the derivative of population over time. trying to base this prioritization on birthrate only is like claiming you can understand where a car is going by only looking at velocity and not knowing anything about its position.
obviously the best way is to base this on multiple relevant criteria which includes population, birthday and amount of development already present. but the more precisely you layout conditions for spending of course less open it is to abuse for popularism.
One thing to note about the US is that this funding directive means that funds will go to areas that oppose public transportation, as well as keeping funding from cities that could use it.
During the creation of the national highway system (which, apart from destroying much of the public transport in the country, destroyed many immigrant and black neighborhoods and replaced them with highways), there was a designer in New York City who expressly designed the bridges near his home to be too low for busses to go under to keep black kids from being able to take the bus to the beach near his house. His words, not mine. This funding will go to rural, conservative areas, who hate bikes, buses, trains, and outsiders.
Add in the marriage rate part (which goes hand in hand with the poor and uneducated), and the possibility of repealing gay marriage, and it’s obvious to everyone here that this is about denying funding to cities and liberal states, not actually improving communities.