Love and Logic for Government

Parenting With Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Faye is hands down the best parenting book ever written. I feel qualified to make this assessment because I have read A LOT of parenting books. If you are a parent and have not read this book…go buy it! If you are not a parent yet…you’ll need it eventually!

Love and Logic parenting teaches responsibility by using the natural consequences of a child's behavior and actions to do the teaching. Parents should let children make choices and mistakes in the early years, when the consequences of the inevitable less-than-perfect choices are not too severe or damaging. By the time the child reaches adulthood, he is equipped with the decision-making skills needed for adult life. Parents can rob a child of the ability to grow up making good, responsible decisions. If a parent is constantly BAILING OUT their child, the child never learns from his mistakes. The mistakes will just keep getting bigger.

Earlier this week Aiden forgot his assignment notebook and math homework. My first thought was to BAIL HIM OUT by running it up to the school. I stopped myself, thinking “natural consequences”. Aiden knows that it is his responsibility to put his things in his backpack. If I had BAILED HIM OUT, would he have learned anything? His teacher made him redo the math homework during recess. And boy am I glad she did. Natural consequences. Hopefully he learned from this experience, and will be more responsible in the future.

You’re probably thinking “hey, I thought this was Aubrey’s political blog. Why is she reviewing parenting books?”

I’ve decided that every member of Congress needs this book!

I was very young during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980’s. But I believe very strongly that the taxpayer-funded BAILOUT related to mortgages during the savings and loan crisis encouraged lenders make the same mistakes again by making similar high risk loans over the last several years. That was a $160 billion bailout…if they had suffered natural consequences rather than being BAILED OUT, perhaps we wouldn’t have the much more expensive mess on our hands today.

So have we learned our lesson? Are we going for the natural consequences this time around? Oh no.

Congress is like a really bad parent. They have completely screwed everything up. Congress hasn’t set rules and standards for their “children”. They have given them free reign, and then bailed them out of their mistakes.

Bottom line…Congress is at fault. The crazy part? Congress is in charge of fixing the problem!!! So they came up with this stupid bailout plan.

Our economy is in the toilet, our national debt is soaring, and our currency is weakened. Basically, the credit score of the United States stinks! So…let’s take on $850 billion dollars in MORE DEBT! Great plan. The bailout started as a $700 billion idea. By the time it made it though the two houses of Congress, $150 billion dollars of pork had been added. Seriously.

Here are a few highlights of the pork:

• Makers of wooden arrows for kids. Cost to taxpayers: $2 million over 10 years.
• Speedway owners (yeah…NASCAR). Cost to taxpayers: $100 million over two years.
• Rum-makers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Cost to taxpayers: $192 million.
• Companies that do research in the U.S. Cost to taxpayers: $19 billion.
• Movie and television producers. Cost to taxpayers: $478 million over 10 years.
• Wool producers and makers of wool clothing. Cost to taxpayers: $148 million over five years.
• Businesses that encourage their employees to commute by bicycle. Cost to taxpayers: $10 million.
• Corporations and producers that donate food. Cost to taxpayers: $149 million
• Groups that donate books to schools: Cost to taxpayers: $49 million.

Regardless of whether you think these are good things…they did not belong in this “rescue” bill. That’s what they’re calling it now. ”Bailout” sounds so negative. Oh, and this is such a positive thing!

I hope I can raise four responsible adults, even though the government is setting a horrible example. Maybe I can get some pork of my own added to the next big rescue bill. How about $10,000 to buy each member of Congress a copy of Love and Logic.