From current Progressive Populist: http://www.populist.com/16.01.dispatches.html
FAMILY PLANNING CUTS INCREASE FAMILIES.
In 2011, skinflint Texas lawmakers passed a two-year budget that, in an attempt to halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics (even those that don’t provide abortions), cut $73 mln from family planning services and moved the money to other programs. The state Health and Human Services Commission estimates that during the 2014-15 biennium poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have as a result of reduced access to state-subsidized birth control due to the budget cuts, Emily Ramshaw reported for TexasTribune.org (Dec. 7). The additional cost to taxpayers as a result of that “savings” of $73 mln is expected to be as much as $273 mln — with more than $100 mln of that coming from the state’s general revenue budget alone — and the bulk of that is the cost of caring for those infants under Medicaid.
Also in the Lone Star State, First Focus, a D.C.-based children’s advocacy group, reported (firstfocus.net, 12/4) that the number of Texas children who live in poverty has nearly quadrupled since 2007. The national child poverty rate is 22% but the Texas rate is 26%. “Having more than one in four kids in the state living in poverty is a deep concern, particularly since when you look at the Census Bureau data on where all the growth in the number of kids in this country are — Texas is disproportionately represented in that because Texas is such a fast-growing state,” said First Focus President Bruce Lesley, as reported by KUHF.org in Houston.
One of the most startling numbers for Texas, Lesley said, is the increase in the number of children who have an unemployed parent. “In 2007 the number of Texas children with parents who were unemployed for six months or more — so you know long-term unemployment — was around 57,000 and today in 2012 that number is over 207,000.” That’s a 263% increase in the number of kids who have parents on long-term unemployment.
While Texas ranks among the worst 15 states for child poverty, it’s not at the bottom of the list. That spot goes to Mississippi with a 34% poverty rate. New Hampshire has the best rate, with just 12% of kids living in poverty there.
