Lately, President Bush has been obsessed with throwing a frenzy of darts at hard-to-hit popularity targets. Now he’s proposing to spend $1.5 billion on marriage counseling for low-income couples. But once again, Bush misses the bull’s eye.
While the operative word here is low-income, you have to admit there is a great deal of irony in this new initiative. How many poor people do you know who are married? And if they are, what’s the source of the majority of their arguments? That’s right, money.
I’m a single 21-year-old who has had a whopping total of three boyfriends, and it took me only two seconds to plan a better healthy marriage initiative. I have come up with 1.5 billion other ways to use that same $1.5 billion that’s being proposed to get couples to kiss and make up.
For starters, $1.5 billion could be allocated to the nation’s utility companies to fund customer assistance programs to help low-income families pay their bills. The $1.5 billion pot could be used to create scholarships for large families. A $1.5 billion check could be signed away to states to revitalize low-income communities without forcing people to move out. I will not even get started on health care.
Most importantly, a visit to a low-income household will reveal that these families really need better-paying jobs.
A plan worth $1.5 billion could create better job training and employment for supposedly “unhappily married” poor couples.
Even though it has been said that “money doesn’t buy happiness”, money sure can ease the financial strains put on a relationship.
The next time Bush comes up with one of these genius ideas, he needs an adviser to step in and say, “Look here George, how about you take this box of crayons, this sheet of paper and don’t say anything else until we’re done.” I nominate myself for the position.
Monica Harden is a senior magazine production student from Hockley, Texas. She is an assistant opinions editor for The Famuan. Contact her at mharden82@aol.com.