I've got a bad headline habit. I know my weakness and try to keep temptation behind me when I have have other obligations.
Thus I should not have seen it. If I had been strong I wouldn't be shaking my head or writing this piece. I still may have the shred of belief in mankind I assembled on waking this morning. But...
"Bush launches $1.5 billion initiative in support of marriage."
I was able to stop myself before I got to the inevitable paragraph announcing Britney Spears as the spokesperson for the program.
I have nothing against married people. Some of my best straight friends are married. Even I got it right the last time. But $1.5 billion dollars to promote a product that already is an obscene windfall for the divorce bar?
I'm obviously missing something here.
Perhaps it's the $643 bill I just paid for a trip to the ER to have a small cut glued (not stitched, we're talking about a hot gun here) when I knocked myself in the forehead with a car door. Considering that was my "high option" insured share of the cost I have to assume some of the proceeds from my 3.5 minute visit/ hour wait covered the dozens of people ahead with no medical coverage whatsoever forced into the ER for basic care. Thinking about the wailing babies and the open wounds, I'm pretty sure most of the adults looked pretty married. It didn't seem to help.
I live in a state that has Puerto Rico to thank for being 51st in just about everything relating to primary education. One regional high school expects that less than half the freshman class will make it to graduation and the others in the area aren't much better. But if we simply subsitute bridal gowns for cap and gowns...
An adminsitration that has already selected against my reproductive rights and gay marriage apparently believes that the (politically) right kind of union is worth a couple billion.
Could it be an economic incentive package disguised as a moral mandate?
My daughters are 11 months apart in age. My husband and I are mentally (if not financially and emotionally) prepared for the idea of possibly paying for two weddings in a brief period of time.
While the idea of government subsidy of champagne fountains, quilled pens and organza has a transitory personal appeal, even I can see the greater advantage of a supported senior prescription program.
Due to hard work and poor planning, we paid enough in federal taxes last year to pay for two wonderful weddings only slightly behind TV's "Reality" brides in grandeur. Ariana Huffington paid for a couple six-packs and a bag of chips.
Maybe the headline is just a fabrication of the liberal media to force Democratic voters to get serious about the primary and come up with a better way to spend $1.5 billion.
I could go for that.