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Thursday, November 09, 2023

I have a real crackerjack super special provident answer for Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson's distaste for abortion cutting down on women having able-bodied work ready newborns. Having more able-bodied workers can be incentivized by my reckoning.

First, Johnson on record, MSN carry of Snopes fact-checking the man:

Following the Oct. 25, 2023, election of U.S. Representative Mike Johnson, R-La., to the post of Speaker of the House, a meme attributing the statement [...]


[FALSE SNOPES SAYS. stating] Johnson shared this excerpt to his official YouTube channel in the form of a video titled "Congressman Johnson on Overturning Roe v. Wade: I will not yield" on the day of the hearing. Viral versions of the video circulating in October and November 2023 omitted the middle paragraph of Johnson's remarks, which are shown below:

Roe v. Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America. Period. Think about it. Let it settle on you. As a result, the lives of more than 63 million American children have been lost. Think about the staggering implications of that.

I was born in January, 1972. I'm just a year older [...] than Roe. [...] 63 million represents somewhere between one half and one third of my entire generation. My high school class should have been almost twice as large as it was [...]. If you're under the age of 50, your class should have been twice as larger, maybe a third larger than it was. Your classmates were not allowed to be born.

You think about the implications of that on the economy. We're all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest.  If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn't be going upside down and toppling over like this. Listen, [...] Roe was a terrible corruption of America's constitutional jurisprudence.

Viral posts on social media following the shorter Oct. 25 release of the video were quick to paraphrase the statement in ways similar to the meme form in circulation now. 

So there it is. He wants all those potential able-bodied workers as if his high school class had been twice its actual size, something he wants nation-wide because he sees it as a good thing.

Readers - Decide whether the full several paragraphs do say what the meme became in a shorter and more direct form. Is Snopes presenting a distinction without a difference? Clearly, no "has a duty" language, but again, what does "substantial equivalence" mean, as to the entirety of the "idea" Rep. Johnson was presenting.

Next, what is my crackerjack super idea to put the man's mind at ease?

Well, Strib carries a Nov. 4, 2023, local content item stating in relevant part:


When Jenny Barrett took out nearly $80,000 in student loans to attend an out-of-state school from 2019 to 2021, she wasn't worried about repaying them.

She figured college was the next step, and she'd worry about the debt once she had a job.

"I think most of us are pretty naïve at 17 or 18, and my parents didn't go to college, so I didn't have anyone to course me through it," the 22-year-old said.

The current average student loan debt in Minnesota is nearly $34,000, according to the Education Data Initiative. As the student loan pause ended last month, many borrowers faced making payments for the first time in 3½ years. Any hope Biden's plan would erase some debt soon ended when the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down earlier this year.

Barrett, who graduated from college two years ago, is planning to live with her mom and dad indefinitely. Another borrower is putting off having kids. A current University of Minnesota student dreams of law school but will attend only if a scholarship covers the costs.

Before borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to attend college, all said high school students should educate themselves about managing money, student loans and credit cards to avoid a debt treadmill.

[,,, italics added]

A decade of debt

Casi Rogers racked up $80,000 in student loan debt and graduated with a statistics degree from Winona State University a decade ago.

She used her degree in a couple of jobs after college. But Rogers, now 32 and a restaurant manager in the north suburbs, wishes she'd known then that a desk job wasn't for her. She still has to pay off $60,000 in loans at $500 a month for 15 years. She also makes car and credit card payments out of her monthly take-home pay that ranges from $2,400 to $3,600.

"A student loan feels like a punch to the gut, and there's nothing you can do because you were told this is something you're supposed to do," Rogers said. "But at the end of the day, it's a decision you made."

During a challenging period after graduation, she converted her federal student loans her father co-signed into private loans for a lower monthly payment as she also balanced a car payment and credit card debt.

[...] "I will be honest, I was pretty irresponsible financially when I was younger," Rogers said.

Now married and living with her husband at their Albertville townhome, her salary goes toward her debt while her husband pays the other household bills.

"Right now, my husband and I are talking about kids, but my mentality is I'm worried about affording them with the bills I have in place," she said.

If Rogers were graduating from high school today, she'd attend community college and work more while in school to avoid debt.

 So, Mike Johnson, wanter of more able-bodied workers (implicit, he wants white, born-here, English speakers and not Hispanic able-bodies crossing national borders), note a truth. This white English speaking woman - putting off having children because of economics arising from student borrowing presents the answer to satisfy your dreams.

Back student loan forgiveness, Mikey!! Do that and there will be fewer abortions because of having to service a mountain of debt leading to postponement of birthing (yes Mike, we understand the Republican & Democrat aim growing out of the late '60s of putting white college grads - indeed, all college students and grads - on onerous payments to keep them pliant and not trouble makers). Let them choose instead between having kids and trouble making and a fraction will choose kids. (Trouble making to Johnson being uppity women wanting careers vs being birthing machines.) Just don't saddle the young with intimidating restrictive debt, Mikey, and lo, behold the jump in birth rates, one thing following the other.

So, readers, any guess why Mikey feigns unawareness of such an answer? Don't load the educated young with burdensome debt so that raising families will consequently be less a risk - that should be a cause having an effect Johnson claims to desire - fewer white abortions, more able bodied white workers, and with government subsidized child care and early schooling there can be children and career dual goals met.

Go figure.

Mike should suggest, first child, half of loan debt wiped, second child, all debt satisfied. It could work for mortgages and auto loans too. Mike could have his way. 

And there'd be having-a-sibling benefit with fewer only-child growing-up-spoiled experiences. We could have a birth rate greater than Russia. Perhaps even greater than China. All those greater numbers of able-bodied workers to work on finding answers to climate change.