Texas Gov. Abbott Slashed Mental Health Budget To Help Fund Border (Culture) Wars
Let’s see if the MAGA hillbillies elect this guy again in the midterms (spoiler- they will)
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/05/30/gov-ab…
UVALDE, Texas – “We as a state - we as a society - need to do a better job with mental health. Anyone who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and do something about it.”
Those are the words of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott just days after an 18-year-old high school student massacred 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Abbott has doubled down on his stance that mass shootings are an issue of mental health and not gun access following the Uvalde massacre.
However, in April, Abbott slashed nearly $211 million from the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), which oversees mental health services in Texas.
Abbott diverted the funds to add to his effort to send National Guard to the Texas-Mexico border, currently known as Operation Lone Star.
No other Texas agency received a more significant cut than the HHSC when Abbott slashed funding.
The massive cut comes as Texas ranks 4th in the U.S. for the prevalence of mental illness and ranks last out of all 50 states in access to mental health care, according to the 2022 State of Mental Health in America report.
The Texas Legislature has spent billions in the last decade funding DPS’ so-called border security mission, even though few metrics exist to measure its success.
Guns aside, this is a very sloppy take. The budget for HHSC is ~$43B annually, and appears to be up $1B from 2020 in 2021. So, a reduction would not be unreasonable as the pandemic comes to a close. Now, I could be wrong because I have better things to do and only took a few minutes to Google this, but in your “gotcha” journalism, you should have considered where / if that funding was related / dedicated to mental health, year-over-year spending increases / decreases, and the amount reduced as a percentage of overall spend. Otherwise, this is just a boring take with a complete lack of nuance.
To be clear then, the genuine humanitarian crisis going on at the border then should just be allowed to flow unabated? Did he just arbitrarily choose to increase spending regrading the border or is there something going on? Is that no one's fault? The idea that State-provided mental health treatment would've fixed this maniac's situation is laughable (and for all we know what those cops were waiting for was a social worker to get to the scene to talk the man down). What's even more laughable is you trying to draw some connection between Abbott attempting to address an actual ongoing crisis created by the geriatric in the White House and this recent shooting. The funding for the program is still growing at reasonable levels with the pandemic subsiding, meanwhile the crisis at the border is getting progressively worse with 0 attempt to address it by the Feds.
If you want to blame Abbott for something and have a reason to not vote for him, blame him for being a pathetic excuse of a man and folding to the police unions immediately and praising the officers involved for their bravery. If anyone was the ultimate enabler of the massacre in Texas it's the officers that were on the scene. There is NO excuse for them to not have engaged the shooter (except for the fact that cops have no duty to protect anyone) let alone allowing him to enter the building and continue uninterrupted FOR OVER AN HOUR. All while simultaneously preventing other bystanders trying to step in to either save their own children or stop the shooter from doing so, there's video footage of them tazing and cuffing parents. That is squarely where the blame lies for now because literally everything else about this case is entirely speculative with new details coming out by the day.
lol "border crisis". he slashed the national guards budget for educational benefits for political brownie points. They are actually doing fuck all, all it done is waste tax dollars and lead service members to kill themselves. Also who the fuck do you think picks the fruits and vegetables in the country? try hiring an American to pick strawberries in 100 degree heat and let me know how that goes for you.
Lol over a million illegals crossing in a matter of months, subsequently rising local crime rates, and the ever increasing influx of human trafficking and drug smuggling as a result. All effectively encouraged and enabled by our Federal government which has decided it's more important to protect the borders and sovereignty of a non-ally country that happens to be one of the most corrupt nations in Europe with American tax dollars. What a hilarious an issue.
So to be clear, you're perfectly fine with the illegal exploitation of labor and blatant breaking of federal law when it's convenient for your wallet? Nice moral thought exercise. Now after the fraction of these people who come in pick fruit finish that and go back across the border, what about what the other 90%+ do as they spread across the country in a non-fruit-picking capacity? None of that matters? Great take, really bravo. I didn't think it was possible to find someone vocalizing dumber ideas than Dumpfy on this forum but you might just give him a run for the honor if you keep working at it with comments like these.
The US is not the only developed country with mental health issues but it is the only developed country with more guns than citizens. Furthermore, media coverage of mass shootings is probably making mental health issues worse. A loon killed lots of kids in Texas and Parkland and even if you were not killed, your life is probably never going to be the same.
financeabc All of these mass shootings are a tragedy. However, even if we were to somehow get rid of the 2nd amendment it is probably damn near impossible to get rid of every gun or even enough of them, to make any measurable impact on shootings in general. Estimates I just read from a bbc article have the gun count in America at 390 mm in 2018. There is definitely well over that now. So that’s issue #1 for everyone that is anti gun, anti 2nd amendment, and just thinks through authoritarianism the government can just come sweep them up.
Problem #2 is that everyone on the left that wants the government to do this and lock up anybody who refuses to give up their gun, doesn’t understand that by trying that you will likely start a Civil War. Especially at this point in political division. That would be a blatant, and likely final, attack by the left on civil liberties that the right will not stand for.
Lastly, I see a lot of people on here talk about how owning guns are just a sort of masculinity flex and wanna be tough guy thing, yada yada. That literally has nothing to do with our belief in the second amendment and owning firearms. We believe in the second amendment as our founding fathers did and have carried that belief through until today. We believe it is necessary to protect all other human rights given by God (not gov’t) that our constitution stands for.
If you have no experience with firearms and they’re big bad and scary, I understand. But those on the of the left of this issue need to understand the rights perspective and stop with this nonsense of stripping all Americans of their second amendment. That is dangerous rhetoric.
I’d understand the civil liberties argument of republicans weren’t trying to make voting as difficult as possible for certain groups
I will give you credit for a well written reply but not for the quality of the reply. The republican answer to the gun problem in the US is to do nothing. which is basically what you are saying. I do not know if a civil war would ensue after a buy back or something similar. Well, IF, guns would be outlawed, there should be severe penalties for selling or owning one. Of course, there would be exceptions. For example, I can appreciate how business owners might need a gun for protection.
Conservatives and dems have differences that cannot be resolved, including restrictions for firearms. If the parties can't work together, do we really have a United States? May be dem states should live by a different set of rules than republican states.
Regarding masculinity, your comments are not based in reality. Sure, there are other reasons to be enthusiastic about guns, including the second amendment which was written hundreds of years ago. Having conversations about using guns is mostly a male thing, especially in the north east. Last night, I ate dinner with a distant relative who was wearing a gun ( a dem) and he was constantly flexing about what he would do to someone if he felt in danger. Women do not usually flex about things like this, even if they own a gun.
Your comment here is kind of condescending because the issue is not whether liberals "understand" the rights issue. There is high correlation between liberalism and higher education. The vast majority of students at target schools are liberal (especially at the ivys) and are more than capable understanding rights. Some people might disagree with your take but that is not based on a lack of understanding the issue. I do not see how trying to search for and provide possible solutions is dangerous rhetoric. Here is what I think is dangerous: having more guns than people in country that has, in some situations, unaffordable access to healthcare.
How exactly would the funding of mental health services have stopped the Uvalde shooting? It just seems like a vague take and I’m not really able to connect the dots.
While I disagree that the border issue is simply a culture war, I agree that the Texas neocons have not done anything substantial with the money and in fact enjoy open borders as they will continue to use the issue to get elected. $1 billion worth of wall material still exists on Texas land that was supposed to be used to complete the wall (before Biden ceased the project). Abbot won’t use the material or even purchase it through eminent domain intentionally because he and his neocon buddies will milk as much power and money they can get out of the border crisis without solving the problem.
Unfortunately, Abbot will win again because his opponent “take away your AR-47” Beto who advocates for open borders is so far to the left he has 0 chance of winning Texas. A great analogy here is white supremacist Larry Elder (and yes he really was one I’m not using this term simply) trying to run against Newsom in CA. Anyone who doesn’t believe in controlled opposition, needs to seriously open their eyes and critically think about why the candidates on both sides of the aisle are routinely terrible.
A wall is just a waste of resources. Most undocumented immigrants come in legally and over stay their visas. Their economic impact is neglible at the very worst
There are multiple avenues that illegals come in to the country and the way to start fixing the problem is to tackle each avenue one by one rather than just sitting down and doing nothing. A wall is an incredibly easy solution to fix the problems at the southern border.
>Most undocumented immigrants come in legally
The Wall just got 10 feet higher!
If we could deport the top 5% alt left part of the population to another failed alt left state like Venezuela, the rest of the country would be so much off. Don't deport by skin color / religion / gender etc -- just indiscriminately dump the AOC & Bernie's of the world in another state that's already failing so that everyone else can have rational discussion
A debate about mental health or a debate about video games, or doors, or trenchcoats. All of these are Republican-made distractions so that all the focus moves away from the one common element in every mass shooting since Columbine - high powered weaponry made for the battlefield that is now in the hands of private citizens with minimal oversight.
I could have bought the "mental health crisis" after Columbine. But hundreds of school shootings later, there's one obvious problem we need to fix, and we're the only developed country in the world who hasn't done it. Enough.
Tell me you don't know what an AR15 is, without telling me you don't know what an AR15 is...smh
AR dOeSnT sTaNd FoR aSsAuLt RiFle...
I know that for some reason AR-15s are the preferred weapon of choice for nearly every mass shooting in recent years (which have exploded since Republicans let the assault weapon ban expire in 2005). I don't need to know anything else.
You used to be able to mail order full auto machine guns to your front door. Guns are more restricted today than they ever have been at scale in the US. Mass shootings, particularly school shootings, are a recent phenomenon in this country's history having popped up in the past 40-50 years. Kids used to be taught about guns and gun safety IN SCHOOL. As much as 94% of mass shootings today occur in "gun free zones". The overall rate of gun violence has been steadily declining from its peak in the early 90s. The only reason you think mass shootings are a big and growing issue is because the media plasters them all over the TV. All because it catches people's attention and subsequently fuels copycats or other maniacs to do the same in search of infamy. Notice how in this most recent shooting in Texas for example, almost every story has the shooter's name front and center but gloss over the identity of the hero who took him down. They (the media) elevates the shooter as the "star" of the event.
By every logical metric you care to approach this from, it is definitively not a gun problem and arguing that it is makes you look foolish as heck. Trying to ban guns does nothing in a world where 3D printing and 80% build kits exist. The only people regulations stop are law abiding citizens, not someone who already intends to break the law by committing mass murder. If anything, less of these events would happen if more people are armed and shooters are aware of the fact they will be shot by citizens on the spot if/when they try to carry out these crimes.
Perfect example - A woman with a pistol in WVa kills an attempted mass shooter as he open fires into a crowd at a graduation party with his rifle
If that's so, then why did the Uvalde shooter wait until the exact day he turned 18 to legally go buy his weapon?
I know the absolute numbers. I also know that all schoolchildren, including my own, now practice school shooter drills and worry that they're going to be shot at school. This is domestic terrorism, and the non pre-check/Clear chumps still have to take off their shoes at the airport because one guy tried to detonate a shoe bomb 20 years ago. But nothing we can do! Just one more gun will solve the problem, bro. Just one more. I promise. We only have 500 million guns in this country, just need a few more and this will all go away!
Also, is there a single issue facing the country that conservatives won't somehow blame on the media? Weak.
Liberal elites like to pretend they're on the side of righteousness but it's authoritarianism when it suits them and then they call it "democracy." Should there be some gun control laws in places? Yes, absolutely. No one in American needs an automatic weapon as a civilian. That said, are guns at the genesis of America? Yes, they are literally in our Bill of Rights and part of the founding DNA of this country. This is a fundamental God-given right and central to the freedom we have.
It is also -- for good or for ill -- a check on the government's ability to take away fundamental freedoms. Fundamentally it is one of the checks and balances built into our system. If the country becomes overly authoritarian as the left wants, people will rebel and we will see a path to assymetric warfare. This is not an outcome anyone wishes for of course. But it limits government over-reach beyond a certain point. Army definitely outguns civilians with guns, no question -- but guerrilla / asymmetric warfare means the impact will be outsized on the government if they try to seize all guns are the far left wants and impose their vision on America even though >40% of the pop disagrees.
Oh look, someone who actually understands the purpose of the 2nd amendment. Too rare a sight these days.
The far left likes to attack the shooters but gives 0 thought to why this is happening. Wokeness & favoring multi-cultural societies is literally tearing America apart at the seams. There's a reason why the U.S. is the most divided developed country in the world. No hate on any ethnicity group here to be clear but it's undeniable that this leads to a more fractured society
The left totally abandoned poor whites and is now only helping poor blacks. What do you think will be the result? AOC should expect these outcomes
Fun fact, know why corporations support workforce diversity? It's not because it has any significant improvement for the organizations performance, it's because ethnically diverse workforces are magnitudes less likely to unionize. Amazon had internal docs leaked showing their heat map tracking of "diversity indices" for stores after they acquired Whole Foods because they know workers won't collectively bargain if they do not feel like a collective.
Wow that is fascinating, did not know about this. Knew that the reason corporations in the 2nd half of 20th century supported women entering workforce was purely selfish, to double their capacity of workers. But this takes it to the next level
Crazy how many Dems pretend South just doesn't exist and is getting in the way of their country. In that case, why not cordially separate into two unions? It's only when these single men with no prospects for job / marriage force themselves to be known do the Dems take notice and the immediate reaction is to condemn and blame vs. put their heads together and figure out how to solve the structural issue.
You literally cannot reason with these people, anything that goes against their ultra liberal agenda is dismissed and demonized
They always talk about "threats to our democracy" and they quite literally mean "their" democracy. They believe that by virtue of representing 51%+ of the country that gives them the right to run roughshod over the other 49% and completely ignore their wants/concerns when it comes to politics. Checks and balances mean nothing to them, hence all the talk of court packing and eliminating the filibuster.
WallStreetOasis.com Is there any way to stop people from commenting under multiple accounts? Not only do they comment under different accounts but they get around the monkey shit system/banana system by using these multiple accounts.
Lol wut? Classic lib behavior to try and de-platform people because you don't like their opinions. Have you considered that your MS is from people that think you're a moron?
Dude it is so obvious...Anyone who is reading this topic could easily figure out who has multiple accounts. MS is an issue for people with multiple accounts but so are bananas. Why would I expect a site in which the vast majority of people are conservative would agree with a lot of what I say. I would expect that they would disagree with many of my points. In the real world, most of the people who I interact with agree with my views. Would you like to take a guess as to why? This is not rocket science.
Not just don’t like but can’t come up with a good counter argument.
The border crisis is a combo of economic and cultural warfare and your hatred of poor white people is noted.
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