BUT GROUPS ARE STILL MOOCHING OFF S.C. TAXPAYERS
A faith-based abstinence only organization based in Charleston, S.C. has raked in millions of dollars of government grants in recent years as part of a failed effort to prevent unwed mothers from having babies.
From 2006-2010, Heritage Community Services has received nearly $12 million – most of it in the form of government grants – to promote abstinence education across the state of South Carolina. So … how’s that taxpayer-funded investment paying off? Not well.
According to statistics provided by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC), the percentage of live births to single mothers in the state of South Carolina continues to climb. In 2005, 43.4 percent of all live births were to single mothers. Five years later, that percentage had increased to 46.9 percent.
Look … we have no problem with single mothers. Like the great Rod Tidwell told Jerry Maguire, “a single mother is a sacred thing.” Nor do we have a problem with abstinence only education – so long as taxpayers aren’t being forced to subsidize it.
“South Carolina has no business whatsoever funding any sort of sex education – abstinence-themed or otherwise,” we wrote last year in addressing this funding.
Why not? Because sex education is not a core function of government. Seriously … even if unwed births were declining in South Carolina as a direct result of the outreach of some politically connected Holy Roller, that doesn’t mean taxpayers should be picking up the tab for the program.
HERITAGE COMMUNITY SERVICES TAX RETURN (.pdf)
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20 comments
Faith based abstinence programs are the biggest waste of money in government. You can’t pray away hormones.
Unless you are Tim Scott or A. C. Green.
Biggest waste? Really?
So this one isn’t worse?
The Department of the Treasury’s 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government has a short section titled “Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position,” which explains that these unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003.
Or maybe this one?
Medicare wastes more money than any other federal program, yet its strong public support leaves lawmakers hesitant to address program efficiencies, which cost taxpayers and Medicare recipients billions of dollars annually. Medicare’s payments for 24 leading drugs were $1.9 billion higher than they would have been under the prices paid by the VA or other federal agencies. the most expensive examples of Medicare’s inefficiencies. Basic payment errors-the results of deliberate fraud and administrative errors-cost $12.3 billion annually. As much as $7 billion owed to the program has gone uncollected or has been written off. Medicare contracts claims processing and administration to several private companies, 19 cases of contractor fraud have been settled in recent years, with a maximum settlement of $76 million.
Or maybe this last one?
The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount-nearly one-third-is wasted in overpayments.
I agree. We need to quit supporting their babies. They can take care of their own offspring. No points for being stupid.
Dynomite!
Faith-based abstinence-only education isn’t working?
Imagine that!
Lol…and they call themselves a “think tank”!
Yes but in Jerry McGuire, the mom was single because her husband died, not because the Mom was blithely fucking away without any thought of birth control, unwanted pregnancy, or who would pay to take care of the kid.
The best way to tackle teenage pregnancy is to make sure these girls have a future and a realistic plan and positive outlook on life and what it could be. You don’t need a baby to be important to someone. This is the root cause of unwanted pregnancy.
If we are going to spend oodles on this problem, the dollars ought to go where they can get to the root cause if the problem. Yes ignorance plays into it, but knowing where babies come from and how it can fuck up your life saves everyone money in the long run.
Read Freakonomics – easy access to abortion reduces the crime rate – shocking, troubling, but true.
Wow! You must have had a great liberal resource for this one! Heritage Community Services is not faith-based – so major inaccuracy there. It also is the ONLY proven effective abstinence education program in the nation. See HHS list of 31 proven-effective programs – http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/oah-initiatives/tpp/programs.html.
To blame the entire state’s pregnancy rates on a program reaching 3500 students a year (because of the small amount of money it currently receives since federal funding was cut by Obama) is just stupid. Also, our state’s teen pregnancy rates in the area targeted by this type of program have been consistently falling over the past decade.
Last, that money was for the most part federal money that Heritage competed for and WON – would you rather it had gone to a different state?
Do some fact checking. You are way off on this!
Yeah, the problems with connecting this particular program with SCDHEC stats jumped out at me, too. In order to judge the success or failure of this program, you would need to study the kids who actually went through it, and what happened to them. You can’t just take the entire state’s stats and try to directly link them to this program.
Interesting….their website says they aren’t faith based, yet their tax return says that they are.
Black women have plenty of access to eugenics clinics and will continue to do so. This will not cause crime to drop because the real culprit behind the high crime rate is a broken family structure and not the by the fallacy that there are less theives conceived.
Them’s is home grown and NOT store bought!!!
In my opinion, it looks like some of you are missing the point. Faith Based is not the point of the story. It is not even ancillary to the byline.
The story is that this is an area that should not be touched by any government agency. It is the responsibility of the parents to teach there children how to behave. If a private party teaches this to anyone, they should do so with PRIVATE funding.
As a side note, and with no disrespect to the writer of the article, why does it fail to mention how many of these people also participated in the very well funded eugenics and condom programs offered by the state under the guise of ‘secular’ prevention measures?
Have a Great Day!! :) There won’t be many left with the Demlicans and Republicrats in charge.
Frank Pytel
Of course, sex education should be taught in public schools! Whether it gets taught in Biology or in a Health Studies class. Of course, sex education should be about science and not religion though. It’s up to parents and churches to teach the “morals” of sex. It’s up to the state education system to teach children the scientific facts about sperm, eggs, gestation and birth control.
To all the girls out there, make sure the one with the pleasure stick has a job and a car. If he doesn’t have one or the other (or both), keep your legs closed.
This whole thing just knocks me out (up).
I see from its website that the board of directors is a bunch of honkey white folks.
Including the rabid Cyndi Mosteller, who, last time I checked, hasn’t adopted any of the unwanted children.
All rich, sanctimonious, white hypocrites.
Board of Directors
Preston Hipp, Chairman
Ted Jones
Cyndi Mosteller
Smith Podris
Chris Union
Rodney Williams
Officers
Anne M. Badgley, Founder/CEO
Jerry Raymond, COO
Tammy Bryant, CPO
Sexual immorality is one of the MOST-DAMAGING diseases in America…It Ruins children, when Selfish parents are so weak, immature and irresponsible, they choose wanton sluts over being an adult….
FITS, a married man w/ children, BRAGGED about Who he “BANGED.” on a forum, for ALL to see…even his children…
If I were FITS’ Dad, I’d Whip his @$$…Just like I’d slap the $#!* out of FITS’ Master, the weakling Mark Sanford, who left his sons for his Ho.
Bad character is an epidemic. Children are being BROKEN by it…yet the Liberals and Libertarians, like FITS, are Too Stupid and Too weak to figure it out…
With little-hung Punks like FITS trying to be an authority, is it any wonder the Black community has about 90% abandonment by Fathers…and the Liberal Community (Sanford) ain’t much better…
Our foundation has invested nearly $20 million from private-sector funding — zero public dollars — in unintended pregnancy prevention in SC. The core problem is not SCDHEC or Heritage Community Services (the abstinence-only-until-marriage organization mentioned in the article): SC high schools basically stopped teaching science-based reproductive health education in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, teens’ sexual activity has continued. The withholding of preventative information (censorship) for nearly two decades has caused nearly 250,000 unintended pregnancies among girls 10-19. In the high-poverty high schools where our foundations has invested, typically half of the 9th-graders arrving in August have already been sexually active; about 10% report having had first intercourse before age 13. And to those whose comments imply that this is a race-based problem, think again: The ignorance about basic health information crosses all socio-economic groups and ethnicities. To the publisher: Public health has always been and should be a concern of state and federal government. If there were an outbreak of smallpox, you likely would want your government to take the lead on prevention, even if this meant sending health workers door to door. Unintended pregnancies cost the state and its taxpayers hundreds of millions, and yet many could be avoided with improved public health education.
“The withholding of preventative information (censorship) for nearly two decades has caused…”
How many of these were caused as a result of teens and young adult participating in the “Safe Sex” movement passing out condoms like candy and being told that it’s ‘safe’.
BS reply.
“In the high-poverty high schools …about 10% report having had first intercourse before age 13…”
Where are the fracking parents. Maybe we should be jailing those parents that let their children run the streets, unsupervised. Forced sterilization of morons is not an unreasonable approach to solve the problems of poor parenting. I’m fine with allowing the both sexes to store some of there genetic materials in order to become parents when they get there act together. If they’ve got money for drugs and booze then they can pay for the storage.
I agree that Public Health is a concern. Irresponsible parenting should not be, unless as stated you want to start removing these freaks right to parent. Smallpox and parenting is apples and oranges.
Have a Great Day!! :) There won’t be many left with the Demlicans and Republicrats in charge.
Frank Pytel