Federally funded ad campaign holds up value of marriage

Federally funded ad campaign holds up value of marriage

www.usatoday.com

...
The average age at first marriage is now almost 26 for women and 28 for men. And a growing percentage of Americans aren't marrying at all: Provisional federal statistics released Tuesday report 7.1 marriages per 1,000 people in 2008, down from 10 per 1,000 in 1986.
...
Faced with such numbers, the federal government is funding a $5 million national media campaign that launches this month, extolling the virtues of marriage for those ages 18 to 30.

"We're not telling people 'Get married' but 'Don't underestimate the benefits of marriage,' " says Paul Amato, a Pennsylvania State University sociologist and adviser to the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, which is spearheading the campaign.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I can think of 5 million better ways to spend out money. This might seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the billions and trillions being bandied about these days, but enough drops and you have a flood and stop wondering just why this country is in the shape it's in.

And don't even get me started on the whole issue of government sanctioned and encouraged marriage. Really. Don't.

www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Dont get married. If you have a father and mother with a child the government will cut your benefits.

It's much better to get knocked up and just have the guy live in the house with you. You get the most money from the government this way.

Be sure to get knocked up again just before the benefit period ends for not only an extension of benefits but a boost in the payout. Keep this up and you'll never have to work a day in your life plus you'll have children to love you unconditionally.

Tell me it doesnt happen. I'll introduce you to my sister and her like-minded "friends."

I'm not sure whether your reply was tongue-in-cheek or not. Are you saying that people who don't get married make out better on the dole?

I guess the things I take away from this are 1.) wasteful spending and 2.) the government's "concern."

5 million for a study on marriage??

Obviously the academics that write the grants have found a very lucrative way to supplement their salary thru BS, redundant research.

Perhaps I should take a course in grant writing. My life is filled with trivia that most politicians seem to be interested in. They obviously are not concerned with anything meaningful. Like CORRUPTION.

I'm considering writing a grant proposal for a study on the etiology of political ineptness. I doubt if I would receive the funding.


[edit on 18-2-2009 by whaaa]

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
I'm not sure whether your reply was tongue-in-cheek or not. Are you saying that people who don't get married make out better on the dole?

That's one thing I'm saying.

Another thing that might not have been so clear, in fact wasnt clear at all and I apologize, is that government loves to throw money around. It's not theirs so why shouldnt they love throwing it around?

They prop up, reward and fund awful behavior like that which I described and their solutions to said awful behavior and exploitation of their supplementing said awful behavior is to throw even more money at the problem.

Somebody has identified a lack of married couples as a problem to government does what it does best and throws money at it.

Seems to me that if government wanted to encourage marriage and limit some of the welfare-queen propagation they should simply stop subsidizing the welfare-queens.

If you tax something you get less of it and if you subsidize something you get more of it. This has been true since the dawn of time. Subsidizing marriage will create more marriage but you cant simultaneously subsidize the antithesis of marriage as each will continue to grow and the entity doing the subsidizing will eventually go bankrupt.

I guess the subsidizing entity is already bankrupt in this case so, whatever. Everybody gets a check for everything. Woo-hoo.

Smoking crack under a bridge will soon be one of the highest paid professions.

I don't know.

I've been thinking about this as I was having my lunch, Whether I agree with government spending money to encourage marriage.

I do believe that two parents are better then one, and that a married couple make better parents. I also believe that part of the problem with society today is that our children are getting neglected due to the fact that a) there aren't enough fathers around and b) mothers are "forced" to work to provide a sociablly acceptable standard of living.

However I am uncomfortable with the idea that people will marry only for the precieved benfits with no thought as to the long term consequences of being married to someone you probably shouldn't be.

Considering that governments have been wasting our money on campaigns for ages that just don't work I don't see how this one will either.

So in the end I think it's a waste of money. Therefore I don't agree it is a good buy.

I want to get married, I keep thinking my partner will ask me anytime now..but it isn't because of any precieved benfits we'd recieve, it's merley because I want to wear a pretty white dress and have a big party where I can show off how pretty I will look....Alas no advert is going to convince him that my motives are anything less then selfish. *grins*

P.S If you're reading this, love...*wink wink*

reply to post by Merigold


I guess the point as I see it is that they have no business spending my money of this drivel. The debate about whether marriage is "good" or "bad" doesn't belong in their hands.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Yes you are so right, my nephew in the state of Tennessee when decided to marry his girlfriend after getting her pregnant, was told by a welfare official that they would be better off if she had the child, get the "single mother status" and just have him living with her, like that she would have been able to get more benefits than if they were a marry couple.

Still he married her and now the are just wondering about the decision as life is getting very hard finding ways to support a now growing family while struggling with the chances of unemployent.



[edit on 18-2-2009 by marg6043]