This is just plain stupid:
Suddenly, that joke is a lot less funny.
Michigan Republicans are now pushing a bill that would grant a tax credit to any fetus proven to be at least 12 weeks along by December 31st. Calling it an “advance” on the actual tax break the family would receive the next calendar year, the GOP frames the financial help as a chance to offset expenses with pregnancy.
Michigan slashed the child tax credit last year. Now Michigan Republicans want to give fetal tax credits. They also don’t want you to say “vagina.”
Stop the planet, please. I want to get off.
[via RH Reality Check]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Scott S.
Well, we know they only care about human life when it’s still in the womb. Of course the fetuses get the tax breaks — them and the billionaires are the only non-moochers in America!
kc
Let me be the first to call fetuses “womb-moochers.”
Alison
Hmm…and what if you get an abortion in January? Do you have to give the money back?
Also too, funny how the GOPers rail against all “those” women (read: non-white) having too many babies for the sweet sweet welfare life, but they want to push a policy that could be seen as encouraging women to get pregnant on purpose.
These people. It’s like God ran out of full-price brains by the time they showed up and instead he had to dip into the bargain bin.
? Martin
So, for the 10% of pregnancies that end in miscarriage after 12 weeks, does the IRS jail them for tax fraud if they don’t produce the fetus in a little mayonnaise jar?
I assume women can also ride in HOV lanes provided they had unprotected sex that morning.
Punchy
So how does one “prove” its 12 weeks along, and not….say….11 weeks? Woukd that require a doc’s note, and is the gubbmint gunna subsy that doc visit?
TheMightyTrowel
So many grifting opportunities! Under this proposed legislation, a hypothetical womb-american could get knocked up, get a tax credit, abort, get knocked up, get a tax credit abort at least three or four times a year!
Profit!
PeakVT
Fvcking Christianists.
Brandon
What if you miscarry on December 30th? No tax break for you?
EnfantTerrible
With legislation like that, Michigan steps up to be ground zero for our longed-for extinction event. Target acquired, meteor!
Jeff Spender
@EnfantTerrible:
That’s not fair. Not all of us are fucking crazy assholes, you know. It’s not my fault so much of the state resembles Bumfuck, Alabama.
Statewide elections usually go for Democrats (Rick Snyder probably won’t win reelection). It’s just that most of the Democratic population is clustered in the big cities. The rest of the state is dark RED.
Warren Terra
@Punchy:
This. The $160 tax credit might well manage to over the cost of its own documentation. Or it might not; certainly, it wouldn’t for someone not already receiving prenatal care.
Also note that this tax credit, like all tax credits, would inevitably be disproportionately taken advantage of by people of means. If you’re doing the 1040EZ, with a W-2 and no itemized deductions, you’re likely to miss available tax credits.
Villago Delenda Est
My suggestion: mass driver aimed right at Lansing.
Should do the trick, nicely.
Bob In Portland
What’s wrong with the first twelve weeks? If life begins at conception they should be able to apply for welfare for the child the next morning.
amk
peak wingnut IS a mirage.
Jeff Spender
@Villago Delenda Est:
I seriously don’t have any arguments against a mass driver aimed at Lansing. I grew up in Lansing and I’ve had to move back to this shitty city.
Can we just hold off for a couple of years, though?
amk
https://twitter.com/amk4obama/status/271097095824482305
El Cid
Never, ever trust conservatives with horrific dystopian ideas.
Instead of seeing them as nightmare visions to avoid, they see them as the power of positive thinking.
The Other Bob
Not only did Michigan’s R’s kill off the child tax credit last year, but they also killed off the adoption tax credit, which only cost the state $1 million per year.
Yutsano
It’s not a totally bad idea, as pregnancy can cause loss of income and can incur pretty high costs especially among the uninsured. Of course how in the world a fetus spends a tax credit is beyond my ken. But of course Jeebus wants it!
Ash Can
@TheMightyTrowel: This exactly. The Michigan GOP must love them some abortions.
The Other Bob
@Jeff Spender:
Hey man, I live In EL. I like it here. We have Dems for Reps.
Constance
Forty years ago my doctor told me that it takes a woman’s body three years to recover from a pregnancy, and only if she makes the effort to eat a lot of very good food and not get pregnant again during the three-year recovery period. I think that makes a fetus a first class parasite moocher and why should it get a tax break?
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff Spender:
There’s a problem.
The order was transmitted via sub-space 10 minutes ago, but then a trans-solar-flux-wackydo (don’t look at me that way, Commander Data confirmed that this is the proper name for it) is preventing us from issuing a belay on that.
You have 30 minutes.
Spaghetti Lee
Calling it an “advance” on the actual tax break the family would receive the next calendar year
Well, that kind of makes sense, I gue-
Michigan slashed the child tax credit last year.
Oh. Um. Well, it would seem we’ve reached the point where pro-lifers see fetuses as a higher form of life than humans. George Carlin was right!
Villago Delenda Est
@Constance:
You mean like the entire Rmoney clan, and all the hedge fund managers?
? Martin
So, if life begins at conception, then I assume all clocks start 9 months earlier. We can get voters out at age 17 and 3 months. We can get our old people mooching and looting the government at age 64 and 3 months. Good deal.
Ash Can
@Yutsano: No, it’s not a bad idea at all. Of course, in civilized nations, governments address the problem by making sure that all pregnant women have access to prenatal health care. Too bad all nations can’t be that advanced.
Jeff Spender
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, at least you tried.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Brandon:
Nope. But the Fetus Police will investigate the miscarriage as a potential homicide.
Punchy
Do triplets get 3X the credit?
Also. Too. Lemmie get this. Theres little/no child credit in Michigan, but a fetal one. So it behooves ya to get knocked up in April, but not before. Fucked up legy yo.
wasabi gasp
An Amazon gift card would be tempting.
Chuck Butcher
WEll cripes,
I just moved from Baker City, Oregon to Petoskey, Michigan. I’m still trying to understand how reasonably nice people can go along with a 6% sales tax and slashing the minimum wage of tip employees to $2.35 after coming from a state with no sales tax and a no exceptions minimum of about $9.00 …
I’m, ummm, perplexed.
I haven’t seen where anything is cheaper here – including self-serve gas that you can’t have in OR, either.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over my wonderment at how fucking stupid the American electorate is – almost all of it.
Felonius Monk
When Jebus read about this even He said: “Jebus Christ, what will these asshats do next”.
Jerzy Russian
@Chuck Butcher:
As someone once said (perhaps someone on this fine blog), look at the average intelligence of the American voter, then contemplate the fact that half of them are dumber than that.
El Cid
Wait — so now how large will that currently 47% of moochers grow to?
jl
I guess a program to deliver prenatal care to pregnant women of all income levels would be too narrowly targeted at the health of the mother and the fetus? Or what?
Weird proposal I do not understand, unless there is some legal gimmick in it to botch up reproductive health care.
Maybe it provides more opportunity for some Xtianist bad daddy to drink up the bigger tax refund, which would probably elicit a ‘heh heh, well he IS a man, heh heh” from people like Pat Robertson.
Beth in VA
@Yutsano: Women who need $ for healthcare during pregnancy would be much better given free medical care, which most insurance pays for. By the time a tax return is filed and refund received, wouldn’t that be way too late to help with prenatal healthcare?
EnfantTerrible
@Jeff Spender
What are you complaining about? You have the benefit of a direct hit. The rest of us will have to wait for the massive climate changes to kick in.
NonyNony
@jl:
What’s there to understand? Fetuses and tax breaks are “conservative” therefore “double plus good”, and therefore giving tax breaks to fetuses is very nearly the Platonic Ideal of Conservative Thought.
The only thing that could be a more solid example of conservative ideals would be to give tax cuts only to the “deserving” fetuses in the top 2% while calling the other fetuses moochers and demanding that they get a job.
Ruckus
@Alison:
Naw, his assistant had a cold that day and heard drains instead of brains on the assembly order. That’s why anything that goes in just runs right out of a fundies head and that no lurnun will be allowed.
hells littlest angel
What can I get for sperm, per head?
The Republic of Stupidity
You gotta stop saying that, ABL…
It’s OUR planet, not theirs…
THEY need to leave, not us…
Wolfdaughter
I’m quite sure this dolt thinks that he can cut down on the number of abortions. Since $160 doesn’t begin to cover decent prenatal care and birth expenses, but might go a fair way toward the cost of an abortion, this law would probably have the opposite effect this idiot intends.
snarkyspice
You don’t need to stop the planet – just move somewhere other than the United States. I moved to the UK last year and it’s so refreshing to live among sane people.
Joel
This one is easy to understand if you interpret this proposed law as a tax penalty for abortions. Or miscarriages, for that matter.
FreeAmerica2013
@Alison: the federal government defines a pregnant woman as having a “dependent” in federal financial aid, giving her “independent” status, which means she doesn’t have to report her parents income on her federal student aid application (if under age 24, must report parents income unless you meet “independent” criteria by having a “dependent,” or by being married, or about 6 other criteria to have “independent” status. So, the federal govt is defining a fetus as a “dependent” and giving MORE financial aid to a woman who is pregnant. I think YOU are the one (along with many others who commented here) who didn’t get a full deck of cards in your brain formation argument. The Left’s hypocrisy is unbelievable. And the Left’s blatant disregard for human life, advocating for the pre-meditated murder of tens of millions of lives to date, is pure evil. Oh the hypocrisy is endless. How do we now identify human beings? By DNA. The same DNA present at conception! The Left’s argument of “choice” isn’t valid, it all started as a campaign for population control by eugenicist Gates (yes, Bill Gates’ father) who founded Planned Parenthood. Do you Leftists understand what a eugenicist is? There has certainly been a “dumbing down” of people, however you are inaccurate in who has “dumbed down. The evil secular progressives at the highest levels (aka the billionaires like George Soros, Bill Gates, etc) have spent billions in an effort to brainwash millions of Americans. They, obviously, have been successful. You people need to get it together and learn the truth. You need to understand you are all in bondage of school of thought proliferated ultimately by a very few who have ungodly agendas in America and all over the world. They have one ultimate agenda. You on the Left need to understand you are all aiding and abetting those who OPPOSE God; you are all working for Satan and you don’t even realize it! Are you all atheists? I ask because every major religion WARNS people about the very things that are happening, the very ideologies the Left is promoting. You, the Left, are destroying America and the world! There will be a Judgment Day; the question is, are you that evil, that feeble-minded that you are willing to continue to work against God in this world? God, please help bring back basic, good and godly common sense to our people. Amen.
1badbaba3
Okay, now they’re just fuckin’ with us.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeff Spender: So we put in for force-field protective domes over the, say, 10 largest population concentrations. Then can we order the meteor?
I met some nice folks & made some fond memories in two weeks I spent in Lansing as a consultant late in the last millennium. Then again, the rest of the two years of that stint were about as enjoyable as an abscessed tooth. I say leave a hole in the force-field right above the State Capitol, & bring on the big fast sky-rock!
graves007
I’d bet this is just another means to gain leverage to push their pro-life agenda.
If a tax credit is granted to any fetus proven to be at least 12 weeks along, this would mean the fetus must then be considered is a person, and anyone aborting (murdering) this person could then be subject to applicable criminal charges.
roc
@Joel: I think it’s just nonsense thrown at the wall to provoke a response. They throw up a feel-good idea with obvious rational flaws to bait liberals into pointing out the problems. This is then spun and “messaged” into making the liberals look like enemies of families and heartless hardline defenders of high taxes.
None of that would be true, over here in objective reality. But it doesn’t have to be.
bcw
So, the state government wants to pay for sex? kinky.
ottercliff
My sperm is more than 12 weeks old, so I assume I am good for the break?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Wait – how exactly is this worded?
Because, you know, if you fertilize an egg and stick it in the freezer, it’s still technically viable – once it’s been on ice for 12 weeks, does it suddenly become a tax deduction?
Elias
Honestly, why don’t we take them up on this offer? A targeted tax break aimed at expecting mothers?
I don’t really care what their stupid, bullshit reasons for pursuing this policy are, none of which are coming from the right place, but it’s a policy we’d normally have to fight for as liberals.
Accept it, say thank you, and smile as taxes go down for a lot of younger and poor ladies.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Felonius Monk:
When Jebus read about this even He said: “Jebus Christ, what will these asshats do next”.
Go read The Second Coming. God fucking *hates* Christians – and Jesus rants about the Pope.
mainmati
@Jeff Spender: The long-standing description of my home state of PA is Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West and Alabama in between so, yeah, I get what you mean.
Tommy D Cosmology
Fetus Freaks