Redefining the term "nanny state."

Fortunately for us dimwits in the rest of the country, President Obama, the Democrat leadership and the gentle hands of the federal government intend to save us from that most imminent disaster, that most frightening calamity, possibly even the greatest danger to the very survival of the human race -- raising children.
From the so-called "health care reform" bill in the House for which President Obama is relentlessly campaigning, H.R. 3200, we find a provision that will relieve us all from the fear and loathing and constant ingestion of antacid tablets that we who do not have access to magazine subscriptions, bookstores, a library, the internet, or even parents and friends, experience upon the blessed arrival of a brand new little bundle of doom.
We are all totally freaking out here!
The bill features a provision, Section 440, titled "Home Visitation Programs for Families with Young Children and Families Expecting Children." Its purpose is "to improve the well-being, health, and development of children by enabling the establishment and expansion of high quality programs providing voluntary home visitation."
Sure, every parent wants to improve the well-being, health and development of their children. Yes, the bill stipulates its voluntary nature. Consider, however, what the term "voluntary" could mean in the scope of the entire bill. With the very much increasing involvement of the federal government in the nature of health care in the bill, especially the focus on preventative health and promoting a healthy lifestyle as part and parcel, how long will it be before voluntary becomes mandatory?
Part of the grant application to receive funding for home visitation programs is a report of a statewide needs assessment that details the "number, quality, and capacity of home visitation programs; the number and types of families who are receiving services under the programs; and the sources and amount of funding provided to the programs."
The language is vague. It is hard to tell whether these are state run programs or programs serviced by other charitable organizations as well. The bill stipulates "the State will promote coordination and collaboration with other home visitation programs (including programs funded under title XIX) and with other child and family services, health services, income supports, and other related assistance."
Also as vague are the intended benefactors of these programs, although the bill does indicate a preference for serving underserved communities. According to the bill, "the State shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families or a high incidence of child maltreatment."
Certainly high-need communities will receive preference, but are these programs intended for everyone? And just how invasive might these "statewide needs assessment[s]" be? Who will perform these assessments? Will these assessments be performed as part of census collection data? There are several unanswered questions throughout this bill.
One question answered in detail, however, is the content of these home visitation programs and their purported benefits to the aforementioned dimwitted parents. These programs intend to:
"provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains (including knowledge of second language acquisition, in the case of English language learners);
knowledge of realistic expectations of age-appropriate child behaviors;
knowledge of health and wellness issues for children and parents;
modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices;
skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development;
skills to recognize and seek help for issues related to health, developmental delays, and social, emotional, and behavioral skills;
and, activities designed to help parents become full partners in the education of their children."
I visited my brother and his wife last week, and their brand new baby boy. I found something supremely intriguing there -- a parenting magazine! In fact, they had several of them! And, even more surprising, my sister-in-law has siblings who have many children! I wonder if the thought ever occurred to her to ask them for advice... No, that can't be. Only a behemoth as unwieldy as government is capable of truly advising new parents.
Instead of spending more taxpayer dollars to install immense new government parenting programs, why not save all that money and buy everyone in the country a subscription to a parenting magazine? I ran some numbers. A subscription to "Parents" magazine for three years for every single person in the country, all 300-some million, would cost around $3.6 billion, or a mere .36 percent of the health care bill's estimated $1 trillion price tag.
How incompetent have we become that the "smart" people in government think they need to reach into our homes and help us raise our own children? Is this "Brave New World" and we are so preoccupied with our "soma" that we need a whole fleet of government babysitters to help us do what parents, after thousands and thousands of years, can apparently no longer do?
Not to mention something that parents have been doing without taxpayer assistance. The bill appropriates $50 million for the first year of the program, 2010, and increases funding to $250 million by 2014, an increase of 500% over five years.
No, we are not incompetent. We still raise our children well. Government has become incompetent, arrogant, and highly disrespectful.
Although, given the cost of all those magazine subscriptions, $750 million over five years and a government provided babysitter does sound like a pretty good deal...