The Debt Ceiling Myth and Abortion Bans

[0:01] Republicans take over the US House and immediately use the mythical debt ceiling to demand cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Landlords in Maumee, Ohio, don’t like regulations to make their housing safe and affordable. And did you know abortion bans violate the separation of church and state?

[0:21] I’m Doug Berger, and this is secular left.

[0:26] Music.

[0:40] Well, it’s the start of a new congressional legislative session in Washington, D.C., and the Republican Party finally. Took control of the House. It was a little sketchy there for a little bit. They spent several days squabbling over who was going to be speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy ended up finally winning after he pretty much gave away the farm to the magers like Jim Jordan and Matt Gates and and all those people.

[1:14] Also, the other funny thing about the new Republican Congress is they have a charlatan in office. His name’s Jorge Santos from the from a district in Long Island in New York. It seems that he, according to McCarthy, embellished his resume.

[1:35] For people who are not trying to maintain their ultra thin margin of majority margin in Congress. Santos lied. He falsified his his life story as biography. He lied about pretty much his whole entire life. And he still got elected. Well, supposedly nobody knew until after he was elected. Now there is no law against somebody lying to get elected to office, because if there was, there wouldn’t be any politicians. Because all politicians lie when they’re running for office, they’ll say they’ll do one thing and they end up not doing it. Or or in this case, the Republicans said that they were going to fight inflation and they ended up there not fighting inflation. Political. And let me clarify, political lies are entirely different than what Santos did. Okay. Santos actually pretty much committed fraud by telling people he was one thing when he was not, and people gave him money and voted for him believing he was that one thing. So that’s entirely different than than, let’s say, President Obama saying that you’re going to keep your doctor and then you end up not keeping your doctor. It’s entirely different thing because.

[3:03] Santos’s action benefited him.

[3:07] Because he got elected, he’s getting a paycheck. He got seated. But there’s no law against that. It’s not against the law. It’s unethical, but it’s against the law. It’s not against the law. You know, as long as long as you have the only requirements to be elected to Congress is you have to live in the district that you’re representing. You have to be at least 35 years of age.

[3:31] And you have to be a natural born citizen. Now, there’s still some question about whether or not he’s a natural born citizen. But that’s something else. So they have him and he actually got assigned to some committees, which is ridiculous. That’s how that’s how craven these Republicans are about having the majority is they’re going to look the other way now. If Santos had been a Democrat, this would be on the chat shows, 24 seven. They’d be talking well, they’re still talking about it, but nothing nothing’s going to happen unless unless he gets charged with a crime, he’s not going to get kicked out. There’s just no way. I just I just don’t see it. This is going to be a story. He’s going to be he’s going to be in Congress for two years before they can get get rid of him, because they’re not going to get rid of him anyway. So we knew that that the Republicans were dysfunctional. They don’t know how to govern. They’re just all about the culture wars and about hurting people like LGBT people and trans people and and hurting people that aren’t Christian. And and so they’re pretty much coming up on their own.

[4:48] The other thing that they’re doing is, is they’re getting revenge for Trump’s impeachment and his classified documents thing. Of course, Biden has a classified document issue.

[5:04] I think it’s different. The actual people who know what they’re talking about say that it’s different than Trump’s, because it appears that when they found these documents that they notified who needed to be notified and they gave them back. Trump, on the other hand, refused to give them back. He evaded, he joked he jagged because he wanted to keep them, because he wanted to show them off, I think because he doesn’t have a big deck. So he wanted to show off something that that people didn’t have to you know, they didn’t have to worry, Oh, he doesn’t have a big day now because, oh, look at this secret document I have, you know. That’s in lieu of a big deck. Anyway, so Biden has that trouble. So of course, the media is both citing everything now.

[5:57] The other thing that they’re doing is Jim Jordan wants to investigate the FBI over the January 6th, and and and Trump’s impeachment and the documents thing. He wants to prosecute Hunter Biden, who isn’t even a member of government. I just don’t get this. He’s not a member of the government. He doesn’t work for his dad. Never worked for his dad. And the Congress wants to investigate them. You know, if it was me and I felt like I would probably sue the Congress for doing that for for defamation of character, because Hunter Biden is a private citizen and they’re trying to prosecute him like he works for the government and he doesn’t. So we knew that was coming. And so.

[6:50] They’re going to have hearings. It’s going to be like Benghazi all over again. They’re going to have two years of hearings and they’re not going to find anything, but they’re going to try to use it to get re-elected. So we knew that they were going to do that. And then finally, the other thing that they’re going to do is they want to blow up the economy. By. By not raising the debt ceiling. They said that they would raise the debt ceiling if the the Biden administration makes significant cuts in the social safety net. They never want to cut the military. We just spent $800 Billion in the last budget on the military, but they never want to cut the military. They always want to cut grandma and grandpa off of Social Security. They want to cut Medicare. They want to cut food stamps. And then they wanted to undo the Medicare drug negotiations that was just passed into law. And I guess I think that was going to cost more money, that was going to raise put more money on the deficit.

[7:59] And they want to cut taxes again. Even even though we haven’t recovered from Trump’s tax cut in 2017. And so we see that coming. Now, Robert Reich is somebody that I is somebody that I admire. He was the labor secretary in the Clinton administration. He he went through a couple of times that that they had that the Republicans were holding the debt ceiling hostage to put it right up at the top. The debt ceiling is an entirely made up, arbitrary limit. That Congress at some point put in to make it seem like that they were managing money well.

[8:48] And the thing is that they want to cut spending that’s already been approved. So they want to cut future debt, not cut future debt. But these debt ceilings would affect only future debt, not stuff that’s already obligated. So the Social Security payments for the next year, next budget period. Those are already paid for. And so any debt ceiling, anything, any cuts made because of a debt ceiling wouldn’t take effect until the next budget.

[9:22] So it’s kicking the can down the road. And they also want to balance budget.

[9:28] And the thing is and Robert, what Robert Reich explains is, is why the debt ceiling can be abolished and why it’s it’s fake. So I’ve got a video. There’s a video that he has on his that he shared on Twitter that explains that concept. And you really should give a listen. I’ll have a link to it in the show notes. But I just want to play just a short a short clip of it. So here it is. High drama, a merciless game of chicken.

[9:57] May I make a modest suggestion? Stop the drama. End the game. Abolish the debt ceiling. It serves absolutely no purpose. When the debt ceiling was first adopted in 1917, it might have been a useful way to prevent a president from spending however much he wanted. But since 1974, Congress has had a formal budget process to control spending and the taxes needed to finance it. There’s no reason for Congress to authorize borrowing for spending that Congress has already approved. Especially when a failure to lift the debt ceiling would be so horrific. Having a debt ceiling doesn’t discipline government anyway. The national debt is obligations government has already made to those who lent it money. Discipline has to do with setting spending limits and legislating tax increases, not penalizing the lenders. So I agree with Mr. Reich like raises. The debt ceiling is just an arbitrary, capricious thing that could be done away with, and it’s not going to harm anything, really.

[11:04] You know, it’s it’s not any it’s not any more harmful than if the Treasury prints $1,000,000,000,000 coin, which would take care of the debt ceiling immediately. And so it just needs to be abolished. But we knew this was going to happen when the Republicans took over.

[11:21] So I’ve already cut out watching the national news because they’re just it’s just so biased towards the Republicans. It’s not even funny. They claim that they they don’t. They are the national news like CBS, ABC. They breathlessly report both sides of the story. And and I already have explained why the both sides of the story is not not accurate. Somebody is telling the truth and usually it’s not the Republicans. My my problem my problem with the with the with the Democrats in particular is they just wasted. That whole time. I mean they got yeah, they got there’s a lot of stuff they did right. But they wasted so many opportunities they could have turned. They did well to, to snuff out the so called red wave that was supposed to happen, you know, because again, that’s the media’s fault. The media trumps this up like everybody is mad at the Democrats. And and it really wasn’t. Most people saw through the extremism and didn’t want that in Congress. Some of them still got through, but that was, you know, the power of incumbency. But the problem I have with the Democrats in particular is that they wasted.

[12:45] An opportunity, an opportune time to codify Roe v Wade. They could have done it. And and they also wasted the opportunity to prosecute Trump. You know, they did they did a good job of prosecuting the January six people that got caught in the in the capital. And it was funny, I was having a conversation in our local paper in the comment section on some letters to the editor. And this guy had this conspiracy theory that the whole video from January six wasn’t seen. And what did the FBI know and why wasn’t this one guy jailed and he was an informant? So, you know, this whole setup thing, the thing is, the fact is these people. These people rioted. They got they got in using force into the Capitol building.

[13:43] They defecated on the walls. They broke things. They. They stole materials. They took Nancy Pelosi’s podium and and things like that. These people did these things. This is on video. They did these things. That is not how you affect change. And it just shows you because, they were trying to equate the January 6th insurrection with the summer of 2020 when the Black Lives Matter protests happened in D.C. And if you remember when that protest happened, then President Trump marshaled all of.

[14:27] Federal law enforcement that he had at his disposal all the way from the park police to FBI agents and and some other people. There was even some guys that didn’t even have any markings on their uniforms and they were in riot gear. And he surrounded all these buildings and they arrested people just for protesting. You know, That was protesting. Yeah. Some of them were violent and they caused damage, but they didn’t try to stop the government from certifying a vote. They didn’t try to undo a a fair and honest election that elected Joe Biden. And that’s what these people did on January the sixth when they stormed the Capitol as they tried to stop government. The Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. They were trying to assert their civil rights. They were trying to be treated the same or better than other people have been treated by the federal government and by police agencies. And they wanted to stop being murdered by cops. And what you do is you protest against the government and you march and and maybe you throw things and you burn cars and things like that, but you don’t storm the building and try to take out vice the vice president.

[15:55] That’s what these guys did on January the sixth.

[15:59] And so we’re going to have this whole normalization of January the sixth by Jim Jordan and his cronies and trying to gloss everything over. It’s going to be it’s going to be like the the the daughters of of the Confederacy all over again. And that was the group that went around the country and had all these statues of of Confederate soldiers erected to honor the Confederacy. You know, the the the side that lost the Civil War. And you know how that what happened with that that normalized the lost cause and made people make people feel sorry for the for the South, even though they’re the ones that started the war. They lost the war and it was for because of slavery. You know, So this is what we’re going to have with the January six stuff again, is it’s just going to all come out. So I would recommend that if you value your sanity. That you do not watch any of these hearings that are going to come up. Don’t follow. Well, I’m probably following the news, but I am not going to spend any time watching the national news beyond.

[17:14] Like, if there’s like a major emergency event, like a hurricane or things like that. But for political news, avoid the national news completely. Trust me. You’ll thank me later when you don’t go crazy and you’re able to live with your family.

[17:34] For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at Secular Left Dot U.S..

[17:41] Music.

[17:47] As we move further out of the pandemic time of 2020 to 2022. One of the things, one of the problems with economics and and society in general is affordable housing.

[18:06] We’ve had we’ve seen a lot of rental increases in rent we’ve had during the pandemic. There was a moratorium on evictions and that’s gone away and a lot of landlords are now evicting their tenants. There’s been a lot of speculation on apartment housing, so much so that that, quite a few places have been bought up by either not local owners or out-of-state owners. And then they let the complex go. They don’t maintain it or anything like that.

[18:50] And so there’s just this been this and it’s been a problem for quite a while, even before the pandemic. Affordable housing, where I’m from, my hometown, they had news, new reports, luxury apartment complex here, luxury condominiums being built on the east side and etc., etc.. But we had a problem with with affordable housing. My sister was developmentally disabled, but she wanted to live on her own. She was functional. It wasn’t like she needed somebody to help her to live or anything like that. She was functional. She was just developmentally disabled. And so we looked into getting her housing for in the local housing authority and the local government housing authority. Back in the day, we called it Section eight, where you would go and find a place that was that was would had market rent and they would accept this voucher. So you only paid a percentage of your income and not the full market rate.

[19:54] Well, a lot of that housing stock doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist anymore. There’s just been a lot of problems. So we try to get my sister. Into government housing and there was like a waiting list, a three year waiting list. And this was this was in the late eighties. There was a three year waiting list in my home town south of Toledo. Still has a problem with affordable housing. They had a lot of housing stock that low income people lived in that was near the river. They got wiped out during the flood in 2007 and not rebuilt because you couldn’t rebuild in a floodplain. But and so I always look for when they when they announce new housing, that there’s going to be affordable housing. There was a senior living senior age housing complexes built on the south end of Finley. And it was required to have because it received government assistance in building the building, that they had to have a certain percentage of the units.

[21:06] That would be affordable. And the rest of them would be market rates. And so the market rate at that time was six, $700 a month. And the affordable ones were 404 50. Not too much different, but affordable. Well, this particular senior complex on the south end of Finley, they had three units that were affordable out of probably 100 units. Only three.

[21:40] So that’s just ridiculous. You know, if you’re talking about a percentage, if you have 100 units and you want a good percentage, it should be it should match at least the poverty level of the area that you build in. And so if it’s ten or 15% poverty rate in in that community, then you should have 10 to 15% of your unit should be affordable. And so, you know, housing affordable housing is something that I feel is important as a humanist. It’s important to have for people to have affordable, safe, affordable housing. So the other day of reading The Toledo Blade, and they had a story about, some housing, zoning for four apartment housing that they’re going to want to revise in the city of Maumee, which is a suburb south of Toledo. Mommy rental registration proposal draws residents to council. They had a large number of people who. And and and I’ll tell you why this is odd in the TV coverage of this meeting. They call these landlords housing providers, air quotes. Housing providers? No, they’re landlords.

[23:01] They’re just trying to put slap lipstick on a pig. Trust me. Um, most most landlords, I have a feeling are pretty good. But usually the ones that complain about regulations are the ones that need the regulations. From my past experience, my vast experience of renting from people, I know that somebody who complains about having to spend money on their on their apartments for regulation purposes, they are the ones that need the regulations.

[23:37] And so what they were going to do was they were going to start a rental registration, city rental registration, which means any existing rental properties need to be put on a list or they will be in violation. A rigorous inspection system will also be imposed every two years with hourly fees for the inspectors to be charged to the rental owners. An application system for owners would also be put in place in addition to source of income rules and a requirement that property owners residing more than 75 miles out of town hire a local agent. The reasoning and you can see the city of Maumee. They’re concerned about affordable housing, not only affordable housing, but they’re concerned about absentee landlords. That’s a big problem. Big problem in the city of Toledo, a big problem everywhere. And again, is are these housing speculators? Because you see the signs sometimes they say we buy houses and things like that. There’s a housing speculation. So you have like these investment groups that get together, they go into an area and they buy up all the housing stock.

[24:44] And it’s investment. So they want to pull as much money out of it as they can to get a return on their investment. They don’t want to spend money on it. All right. So they just do the bare minimum just to make it kind of safe. But it’s not. And if it’s inspected, they would probably condemn some property sometimes because they let them go so bad. And then when a city.

[25:13] Gets a complaint about some housing and they go to contact the owner. They can’t get a hold of the owner because he lives out of town or the investment group is in a different country or something like that. And so they have a hard time making somebody accountable. And so there was a lot of these, quote, housing providers, unquote, that were very upset with the actual idea of having a list, a rental list, and having inspections every two years. Which is funny because I did not know that having having. Safe, affordable housing was such a burden to the property owners.

[26:01] You know, and my thinking is, is if you can’t bother to make even basic maintenance fixes on your on your rental properties because you think that your tenants are going to ruin it, because a lot of these people were talking about that, that their tenants just trashed the place. If that’s your reasoning, then you are in the wrong business. You need to sell your properties and go do something else. So it’s like, why are you providing housing for somebody for $400 a month if you don’t even give them the basic appreciate their basic worth and dignity as a human being?

[26:46] You just see them as a burden. You know, that’s just ridiculous. I can’t I can’t fathom somebody like that. You know, I’ve been pretty lucky in the last few years of having a landlord who actually cares about me. You know, and he personally comes to the property to fix things. And he’s always asking, how’s it going? And sometimes it gets a little nosy. But, you know, I see that his heart’s in the right place.

[27:20] And so I just wish that everybody could have have that. So, like, for example, in this Toledo Blade article about this ordinance, the discussion about this ordinance, oh, and the other part of the ordinance was that these rental properties had to meet current building codes, which just doesn’t seem like it seems like should be debated or should be said.

[27:47] You know, you’re providing. A property to someone to rent and you want it to be as safe as possible. And you you should abide by the current building codes.

[28:03] And so this one housing provider.

[28:09] Mr. Temple. He said there’s a house on Wayne Street that was built in 1898. This is not a house with a lot of insulation. This is probably a house with knob and tube wiring. It’s got all kinds of issues in terms of its age, but it is a well-kept house. It has running water, it has heat, and it is habitable. Mr. Temple said that according to the regulations and the current ordinance, he thinks an inspector could come in and order a house of the age in his example, to put in a lot more insulation. This would require a huge step of carrying out the walls and redoing the wiring. You’re talking about a very costly upgrade. Not really.

[28:48] You know, there’s ways of retrofitting older houses for for insulation and and, you know, and if your your house is not your building that you’re providing to renters is not well insulated. You’re costing the renter in utilities. So it’s costing them more to live there than it should. All because you wanted to save a buck with this old house. I commend I commend Mommy for doing it. Of course, the other the other side of it is to that Mayor Carr believes that having stricter regulation would keep the blight, which would keep the crime, which means keep poor people out. So that’s a whole other story that I’m probably more doing, more speculating than I should be on that. But again, I think affordable housing is important and I commend Mommy for at least trying to get that done.

[29:44] Hello, this is Doug. Host of Secular Left, reminding you that I like to be validated. If you like this podcast and want to thank me. Feel free to buy me a coffee. Or go to buy me a coffee mi.com slash secular left and donate some cash to help make this a better show and validate me as a person. You’ll feel better in the morning.

[30:12] Ever since the Dobbs decision overturned Rowe v Wade, we’ve had a smattering of states passing. Either they are passing or they have passed what are called trigger laws that would go into effect when Roe v Wade went away. Ohio has a six, six week ban that is on hold right now and some other states. Kansas, they defeated one. They tried to get one in there enshrined in their constitution. Michigan got a law passed that protects abortion rights in their state. So you have these these smatterings of different different things. And one of the things for people that are opposing abortion bans in their states is the one argument that that they’re working on. That tends to be an actual argument that could work. Is that these bands, when they were written by the legislators, were imposing a particular religious view. Into law. So basically.

[31:27] The intent of the law was to enshrine a religious tenet or religious belief. Because not all religions see abortion as something awful that needs to be stopped. For example, in the Jewish faith, the health of the mother is paramount and and their religion allows abortion for cases when the mother’s health is in danger.

[31:58] And some religions don’t worry about abortion. It’s a private matter between the person and their doctors. And and we know how the secular people feel about it. And so what happened today? Well, today, when I’m recording this, what happened on January the 19th, Americans United for Separation of Church Estate, State and the National Women’s Law Center, leading experts in religious freedom and gender justice are challenging the state of Missouri’s abortion ban that was triggered by the end of Roe v Wade, on behalf of 13 clergy from six different denominations. The plaintiffs on this lawsuit, and this is in state court, include an Episcopal bishop, an Orthodox Jewish Democrat, a United Methodist pastor and state legislator, as well as reform Jewish rabbis in the United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalist ministers. And fittingly, they filed it days after the Religious Freedom Day and before the 50th anniversary of the Wade.

[33:07] And basically what what the argument they’re contending is that when the lawmakers passed this law in 2019, they put in their personal religious doctrine. Into it. So let’s say let’s say I’m opposed to abortion, all right? And I’m a legislator. And basically, well, for any law, really, you want to get facts. You want to find out, Well, you know, this is a medical procedure and this is how many people are harmed and this is how many people are helped. And. And so you try to outweigh that, whether or not that this particular procedure should be done well. Many people in many of these states where they banned abortion, they tried to make it sound sciency. To get around it. But it was obviously. Religious beliefs that were informing them on banning abortion. Well, in Missouri, they didn’t try to be subtle about it at all.

[34:14] The one example that Americans United mentioned was that right at the beginning, right at the beginning of the bill, the text of the bill, it says Almighty God is the author of life. And it didn’t stop there. There was people that.

[34:33] Said things that that they quoted Bible verses and they said, Well, I’m Christian and this is why I’m voting for this. And Americans United has a little video of some of the Missouri legislators at the time and some of the things that they said, and there’s even one person that’s in opposition to it. And so let’s give that a listen.

[34:57] Life begins at conception. Thoms, 119, says Your hands made me informed, me being from the biblical side of it, I’ve always believed that life does occur at the point of conception. As a Catholic, I do believe life begins at conception that is built into our legislative findings currently in law. Someone had mentioned yesterday that this is unconstitutional separation of church and state. Well. Fact of the matter is, I know of no greater way of affirming the natural rights of man than to declare that they are a gift from our Creator. God doesn’t give us a choice in this area is the creator of life and I, being made in his image and likeness don’t get to choose to take that away no matter how that child came to be. And what makes you valuable is that you equally share the image of our Creator. You are his work of art. For me, life begins at conception and my God doesn’t give that option. You have inherent dignity protected by the Constitution and inherent dignity provided by God.

[36:00] I rise to offer an amendment ending in .18 h. It has been distributed. I move for its adoption. The only question I have is a rhetorical one, and that is how many of our constituents agree with the statement that God is the author of human life. That statement itself is in violation of the separation of church and state. It’s a it’s an anti-constitutional statement in and of itself. And I asked the body to oppose the.

[36:20] Music.

[36:29] And so the clergy lawsuit is the Reverend Traci Blackmon et al, versus state of Missouri. And it challenges House Bill number 126 for unconstitutionally enshrining religious beliefs. And this is in direct they believe it’s in direct violation of the Missouri state constitution, because a lot of these state constitutions are more direct about church and state separation than the First Amendment. And and the interpretation that some conservatives give the First Amendment.

[37:02] At issue is not just what lawmakers and the governor believe. The law itself declares that Almighty God is the author of life language that sparked a warning at the time from an opposing lawmaker, as we heard, who called it a violation of separation of church and state. Missouri legislators have enshrined in law a narrow religious view that does not reflect my own beliefs or views of the Episcopal Church. That is a violation of my religious freedom and the separation of church and state, explained the Reverend Diane Johnson, one of the plaintiffs and a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri.

[37:38] Another plaintiff, Barbara Reverend Barbara Fifer, who’s a retired United Methodist minister and as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Now, she agrees with the claim about Almighty God, but argued it shouldn’t be part of state law. She added it’s not the purview of the state of Missouri either to arbitrate between the richly diverse beliefs of our people or to impose one religious belief on all of us. The Missouri ban on abortion rests firmly on one religious belief. And so, you know, a lot of the states that are that are challenging their abortion bans are going that route, too. But like I said, some of these states, they actually tried to make the reasons behind the bill sound like science and sound like medical science, even though they got it totally wrong. And and in some cases, they they totally falsified some information saying that the abortions were actually the most dangerous medical procedure and which it’s not and things like that. So so to have a state that just didn’t care and just said, you know, God said this, God said that we’re putting in the law.

[38:55] It’s possible that they might lose this, lose this case. Who knows? It depends on when it gets gets there. I mean, if they’re going by intent, if they’re trying to decide church and state laws by intent, that I’m saying that they’ve got a good case. So not only is abortion a problem for church and state, church and state separation, there’s also the economic factor. The Economic Policy Institute had a tweet up yesterday or the other day this week where they talk about the economics of abortion bans. And the takeaway from it was states with abortion restrictions or bans have lower wages, weaker labor standards and higher levels of incarceration compared to states where abortion is protected. And so abortion rights are economic rights, which is true because if you’re forced to give birth to a child and you can’t afford to raise them, that’s just going to cause a cascading issue with your economic viability.

[40:06] And so kind of they have a study about that on the Economic Policy Institute. In the introduction, it says abortion has long been framed as a cultural, religious or personal issue rather than a material bread and butter economic concern. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, more economic policymakers have been emphasizing the issue as a pressing economic concern, and perhaps the first public comment on the issue by a major political figure. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen noted eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades. This direct connection between abortion and reproductive access and economic rights is critical. This report argues that abortion access is fundamentally intertwined with economic progress and mobility. Specifically, in states where abortion has been banned or restricted, abortion restrictions constitute an additional piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.

[41:12] And so that sounds like a good report. And I hope, you know, because you get basically lower minimum wages. Union unionization levels are half as high. I mean, because if your wages are lower, you’re less likely to want to join a union. Because you don’t want to lose your job and there’s lower rates of Medicaid expansion in those states. And so the introduction on this report further goes on that says the consistent pattern of state abortion bans and negative economic outcomes shows how abortion fits into an economic and put, into into an economics and politics of control. Abortion restrictions are planks in a policy regime of disempowerment and control over workers autonomy and livelihoods, just like deliberately low wage standards, underfunded social services, or restricted collective bargaining power. Economic policymakers must prioritize this issue as widespread abortion bans will contribute to a loss in economic security and independence for millions in the current and future generations.

[42:20] So I really agree with that. I haven’t read the full report. I’ll be honest with you, But it sounds like a good thing. And there’s plenty of tables and and show the numbers. And that’s great. And I’ll have that link to that report up in the show notes for today. And so that’s just going to be an interesting year, 2023.

[42:49] Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used in our show notes on our website. At secular left us.

[43:03] Secular left is hosted, written and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content.

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