The Washington Post's Susan Levine has some good news concerning teen pregnancy rates in D.C.
Teen pregnancy and birth rates have dropped sharply across the Washington region in the past decade, with the District cutting its numbers by more than half to historic lows.
Wow. Historic lows! I am guessing that there were times when the rates were lower than they are now. But I am being peevish.
"We think kids are making better choices," said Donald Shell, health officer for Prince George's, where the birthrate for females age 15 to 19 fell by nearly a third between 1996 and 2005. "Our efforts finally are bringing forth some fruit."
The District has accomplished dramatic improvement. In 1996, its pregnancy rate for the same age group was 164.5 per 1,000. Appalled by the triple digits, a coalition of nonprofit groups and city agencies began reaching out to various communities, holding public discussions and trying to teach parents how to talk to their children about love, sex and relationships. ...Advocates vowed to reduce the rate to the mid-70s by 2005. Instead, as statistics released this month show, it plunged to 64.4.
The deliciously cheeky Mickey Kaus at Slate tilts his head and rolls his eyes toward the elephant in the room that Ms. Levine seems not to notice.
Did something happen in 1996? Might be worth mentioning! Not to take anything away from "coalitions of non-profit groups ... reaching out," but one of the post-1996 things they could "teach parents" to tell their children was "welfare won't necessarily be there for you if you have a baby."
What happened in 1996 was welfare reform: the end of welfare as an entitlement, guaranteed to anyone who qualified by having a baby without a legal husband in the house. Welfare reform was possible because of the unusual combination of Bill Clinton triangulating policy, and Republicans willing to sit at one corner of the triangle. I have frequently written that Bill Clinton was the most successful conservative reformer ever to land in the White House. Not only did he pass conservative policies that would have been nearly impossible for any Republican President (welfare reform, NAFTA, a balanced budget), but the policies were astonishingly successful. Clinton did this by grafting obedient Democrats to Republican majorities. That he did so not out of principle but for pure political strategy, well, that proves another point.
What Kaus points out is the blindness of a Washington Post reporter. It was inexcusable not to mention welfare reform, having focused on the year it was passed. I have heard it said that success has a thousand fathers, while failure is always an orphan. But in this case, a remarkably successful policy is loved only by its mother.
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