The political extremists demanding that government control every woman’s personal reproductive decisions claim that they are “pro-life.” But that’s a rhetorical fraud.

Look at their overall policy agenda and you’ll see that they are merely pro-birth. After that, adios, baby… good luck. They consistently join Republican lawmakers to kill public programs that deliver essential real-life needs to babies after they’re born.

Consider child care, a fundamental need in any society. Yet the “leaders” of our rich, sophisticated nation that supposedly treasures family, work, and children have created a mingy system that literally is a crying shame, revealing that our society deliberately does NOT care for children.

Here’s reality for you: 98% of American workers are better paid than those we entrust to care for our children. Working at a nail salon, loading boxes at an Amazon warehouse, flipping burgers at McDonald’s are jobs given more pay and respect than most child care jobs!

This is not just a “poor people’s problem,” for the lack of child care availability, affordability, and quality is a looming crisis for a majority of American families. Nonetheless, Republicans, enabled by corporate Democrat Joe Manchin, recently killed funding of a program to both raise worker pay and lower the prices families are charged. Such care is “too expensive,” squawked the same lawmakers who routinely dole out billions in welfare to corporate profiteers.

But wait—the GOP has come up with a genius, low-cost solution: Relax safety and educational requirements for child care centers (as Iowa and Montana have already done), allowing 16-year-olds to provide “care” for up to 15 children each! Also, why not automate the system… and do the little nippers really need that orange juice and daily snack?

This is Jim Hightower saying… To support life, not just birth, join up with the First Five Years Fund at ffyf.org.

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