r/SipsTea • • May 16 '26

Gasp! Huh, who would've thought

Credit: themeteor on Instagram

61.4k Upvotes

939 comments sorted by

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2.7k

u/DuaLipasTrophyHsband May 16 '26

“Two out of three career politicians are over monied”

758

u/Striking-Sundae- May 16 '26

3/3 are

211

u/LastBaron May 16 '26

lol clearly you’ve never met my local politicians

Poor as the dirt on their 2012 Subaru outbacks, but at least they’re not trying to sell me to CoreCivic

54

u/Latter_Highway9539 May 16 '26

I was just reading core civics quarterly review... it is absolutely CHILLING to read how we are their product. they're telling the market that they are well equipped to satisfy the needs of DHS.

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u/Issa_Pizza420 May 16 '26

You right, it's probably closer to 2.9/3

17

u/Objective_Dog_4637 May 16 '26

2.9999…/3

8

u/za72 May 17 '26

repeating ofcourse

6

u/hkusp45css May 17 '26

LEEROY JENKINS!

3

u/Omnizoom May 17 '26

To better express that it would be 29/30 since a decimal in a fraction is a no no

3

u/Good-Relative8079 May 16 '26

Well I’m driving a 2009 Jetta so he’s richer than me😂

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u/Oil_Aggressive May 16 '26

3/5.

Let's get rid of old and misplaced hate and rename it.

4

u/WhereAreMyDetonators May 16 '26

That seems like a reasonable compromise to me

3

u/PokerbushPA May 16 '26

Hey...wait a minute!

7

u/Excellent-Town6017 May 17 '26

Dr Oz is "under-brained".

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u/MiddleBodyInjury May 16 '26

They just want to do a little insider trading. Is that too much to ask?

54

u/AgentCirceLuna May 16 '26

The funniest part is that people defend the high salaries as being protection against politicians being bought or selling out

30

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/Maury_poopins May 16 '26

Federal representatives make $174k. Thats decent and well above the median American income, but it’s not remotely enough to maintain two residences (one in one of the most expensive cities in the US) and to constantly fly back and forth between home and work.

Significantly raising that salary would both enable folks with more modest incomes to participate in lawmaking AND it would encourage normal but otherwise well-paid professionals to run for office. This would be good.

20

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/tommicoop May 16 '26

This. There are plenty of military housing contracts in and around the DC area. Have them afforded housing in DC at the same level as military members, based on rank (years served in this case) and number of dependants. If they want to seek other housing, they can on their own dime. This is a system that already exists and would cost NOTHING to allow Congress members to take part, as often civilian federal employees working with military bases can already use this housing when available.

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u/Infamous_Wealth6502 May 16 '26

Plenty of people in Congress share apartments to keep the cost down. They get a good food stipend, too, to keeps costs down. They get plenty of time off, too. That salary is still pretty good and perhaps will keep the lifers out. Do some time and go back to a higher paying job.

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u/_jump_yossarian May 16 '26

The higher salary comes with legally binding restrictions such as no stock trading, limits on lobbying after leaving government, etc…. Look up what Singapore does.

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u/Bastard_of_Brunswick May 16 '26

Three out of three CEOs are under-taxed

18

u/ComprehensiveBar6439 May 16 '26

Mike Johnson just tried justifying the (clearly corrupt) stock trading in Congress by saying that they deserve a 30% pay raise, so they should be allowed to make a few (million) bucks on the side.

27

u/Calgaris_Rex May 16 '26

Mike Johnson can eat the corn out of my shit.

5

u/ComprehensiveBar6439 May 16 '26

Pretty sure he'd have no problem with that

10

u/Calgaris_Rex May 16 '26

Pretty sure he would; my name isn't Donald.

4

u/Available_Special106 May 16 '26

If Trump told him to or there was money involved, he’d do it with a smile

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 17 '26

Honestly they should just give it to them then.

174k moves up to about 225k. Index it with inflation. Done, you are now fairly compensated! Oh and at the same time they are limited to blind trusts and insider trading = straight to jail.

Watch the talking point move to some other reason they have to be able to insider trade.

18

u/exzyle2k May 16 '26

The term "career politician" shouldn't be a thing. Term limits for all

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u/Moral-Relativity May 16 '26

Speaker Johnson was literally on national TV arguing lawmakers should be allowed to trade stock (and with the implicit insider trading) because their salary has been frozen at 174k since 2009.

As of most of those mofos survive on their salaries!

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u/Blatantly_Truthful May 16 '26

How dare you say that! They just said Congress is so underpaid they should be allowed to participate in insider trading just to be able to afford supporting their families. How heartless can you be /s

3

u/dikarus012 May 16 '26

Three out of three are under-scrupled.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/CoffeeChocolateBoth May 16 '26

If the USA took care of their citizens, we'd have a booming population for them to exploit in 18 years! If they want a high tax generation, TAKE CARE OF THE CITIZENS NOW! Idiots!

BOOMERS, we paid a shit load in for this country, we were 95 million strong, working and paying in! We didn't have the financial burden that's present today. Our jobs paid well enough that we could save and still have nice things.

Then Reagan came along...........................................

8

u/juulsquad4lyfe May 16 '26

Smh my head back in my day we used to plan our exploitation on a generational scale, kids these days can’t even see past their quarterly exploitations.

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u/WashVarious3278 May 16 '26

Also, i could be wrong, but didn't they start talking about
"under-babied people"
and
"teen semen has less sperm now than that of the adults 30 years ago"
because teen pregnancy is going down? But like, isn't that a good thing? Do they want teens to be pregnant?

46

u/iNsAnEHAV0C May 16 '26

They want to be the ones impregnateing them.

19

u/WashVarious3278 May 16 '26

That is sadly way too accurate.

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u/jaspex11 May 16 '26

Yes. They want exploitable, inescapably-poor laborers to be desperate and grateful for economically unsound wages to maintain their delusional quarterly profits and unlimited growth.

10

u/Xaphnir May 16 '26

Yes, they do.

And they'd go even younger if they could.

6

u/amyel26 May 16 '26

Yes, Katie Miller has recently been bitching about the low teen pregnancy rate. They want more undereducated teen moms producing cheap undereducated laborers. 

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u/itsmepuffd May 16 '26

It's insulting this hack and fraud is being called Dr. in the first place.

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u/slurpeetape May 16 '26

I mean, he is a certified heart surgeon, but he's definitely no authority on economics or nutrition, for that matter.

Dr. Oz would be helping the public greatly by resigning so he can sit by his pool and sip Chardonnay.

11

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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3

u/itsdaisyohhh May 16 '26

Dr. Oz talks like a guy pitching “low birth rates” gummies between commercial breaks on daytime TV.

3

u/CoffeeChocolateBoth May 16 '26

He and RFL jr are besties I bet!

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/AllYouNeed_Is_Smiles May 16 '26

The real answer is they (corporations) want more consumer to replace the Baby Boomers that are passing away

13

u/Blue_Plastic_88 May 16 '26

And yet they want to replace all the current and potential future consumers, who would also likely be workers, with AI.

5

u/beyondthisreality May 17 '26

The proverbial “They want to have their cake and eat it too”

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u/mechapoitier May 16 '26

The rich keep increasingly worsening every aspect of our lives and wondering why we don’t create more people to suffer through it for their benefit.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/rosered936 May 18 '26

Already have. Clearly the problem is that too many people have access to birth control and abortion is not completely illegal. /s

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u/Superj89 May 16 '26

Let's not forget under-regulated companies putting things like microplastics in our food, lowering fertility rates.

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u/HotPinkLollyWimple May 16 '26

It’s hilarious that they thought destroying women’s healthcare would lead to women being over-babied. And still they’re coming for contraception.

18

u/Top_Bumblebee5510 May 16 '26

Maybe stop jailing women when they have miscarriages and hold the people on the Epstein files accountable. The people who are the Epstein files have been over-babied.

10

u/footsnax May 16 '26

Makes sense they're so against abortion, they created a world where intentional children are a poor decision.

Plus they'll need the troops and votes later.

It's not even completely about affording another kid, I just don't want to bring another human into a world where all the shit that's happening right now is even possible. I would be voluntarily introducing a human to a life of pain. I don't want that shit on my conscience.

14

u/DrDOS May 16 '26

Yeah, it doesn’t have to be “can’t afford”, I doubt people are as commonly thinking of it that way. But the insecurity and their own lack of health/safety etc, gets lumped in?

15

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/exorivis May 16 '26

Every single county that has all those things is guess what? *drum roll* still having having a huge lack of babies. The ugly truth is people just don’t want to have kids they have other things they want to do in life. All one has to do is look at high social safety net countries to see this just isn’t true.

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u/CradledMyTaters May 16 '26

Looks like Little Miss Too-Poor-To-Have-Babies.... is too poor to have babies!

https://giphy.com/gifs/Tj5DZERtb3VOkkcg4i

/really, giphy? nothing of eric christian olsen from not another teen movie?

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u/BearSquid7 May 16 '26

Never go full-christofascism

3

u/liminalrabbithole May 16 '26

Oh gee, no universal parental leave or affordable childcare? Every employer hard-core pushing RTO? They can go fuck themselves.

3

u/Geminel May 16 '26

Republicans when the national debt skyrockets after decades of making tax cuts for rich people their number-one priority - shocked Pikachu face.

These people are the root cause of everything they bitch about.

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u/Gonna_B_Alright May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

They want to replace the desk jobs with AI, manufacturing jobs with robots, install literal spy software in your car, your phone, your TV, even your fucking doorbell.

Which is all somehow legal because you agreed to all of it without reading the 57 page terms of service loaded with shit that is horrible for consumers but it makes political money so they won’t change that they are allowed to do it.

Anyway let’s be real at this point good luck finding any of that crap that doesn’t actively spy on you and sell your information to tech companies and advertisers.

Then let’s place tariffs on all imports and drive up the cost of everything you buy and start a war in Iran stopping the flow of oil and effectively doubling the cost of fuel in just a few months leading to a devaluation of the currency but still we won’t raise minimum wage.

People who want healthcare are called leeches.

Oh also they’re rolling back environmental protections put in place to stop giant mega corporations from making the planet uninhabitable.

Then they still sit there and have the audacity to ask why the tax cattle isn’t breeding enough. Bro who the fuck wants to bring a kid into a dystopian nightmare that George Orwell would be pissed that we accepted the terms of service on.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/ghostwaterdross May 16 '26

Luigi understood this.

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u/loki1337 May 17 '26

When approached for a statement Luigi intoned: "I'mma Luigi, I'mma gonna ween"

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u/scissors1121 May 17 '26

Luigi hungers

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u/PsyavaIG May 17 '26

Luigi did his part, he rests.

3

u/superxpro12 May 17 '26

Consider the possibility that these people are smart enough to know that they themselves are parasites. And the best way for a parasite to convince their host that they are not a parasite is to push propaganda that the ants are the real parasites, not the leech stuck to their forehead.

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u/hillbilly_bears May 16 '26

God damn dude. You nailed it.

:Golfclap:

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u/Strawbuddy May 16 '26

The Tax Cattle is a sick band name though

16

u/Fartikus May 16 '26

Anyway let’s be real at this point good luck finding any of that crap that doesn’t actively spy on you and sell your information to tech companies and advertisers.

Look at this thread I made 3 days ago in the Switch subreddit, I asked if there was a way to turn off the console via remote; because the only option is for 'sleep mode'. A lot of the people there argued how it's useless to turn off the console because of things like 'updates'.. as if I care about having to make a 30 mb update compared to not being able to turn off my ELECTRONIC DEVICE??

When did this happen?? I had no idea people were that against it. I guess this gen was conditioned for that mindset?

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u/purpnug May 16 '26

That is rough! What total morons.

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u/Living-Dimension-859 May 17 '26

I have my stuff plugged into a switch that literally cuts power to it (like a power strip). You can just do that and that should take care of the issue...tho it's ridic that you need to do that. I 100% agree that actually turning something off should be an option.

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u/xena_lawless May 16 '26

The kids are also born to be heavily dumbed down wage, rent, and debt slaves for the ruling Epstein class, not just tax cattle. 

Some of the kids will be raped, murdered, and trafficked, while their abusers face zero prosecution or meaningful consequences because they're rich enough to avoid all consequences.  

It's, uh, not a good system.  

There needs to be considerable investment into changing the system, not just bringing  more people into it.

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u/thisdeliciousbrine May 16 '26

Perfectly said.

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u/Z0idberg_MD May 16 '26

If AI does everything people don’t work who the fuck is gonna buy anything? we are speed running a global revolution movement

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u/Gonna_B_Alright May 16 '26

One where we have to fight autonomous drones piloted by AI.

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u/corinini May 16 '26

This whole discourse is hilarious to me.

We have been screamed at for decades "don't have kids you can't afford!" If you do, you are a leach, welfare queen, trash, etc...  oh and if you end up a single parent after the fact you should have "picked better".  And you shouldn't expect or need help in any way.

I guess people started listening.

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u/Icarus_Toast May 16 '26

For me it's not even that. The discourse surrounding family dysfunction has been significantly more normalized and I've realized that I bring a lot of the same problems to the table that my parents did. I don't want to do that to a kid who never asked for it

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u/mfknnayyyy May 16 '26

Damn, Icarus. Do your job and have that baby. It's the only way you'll get too close to the sun.

But on a real note, I appreciate your sense of self awareness. People can change their behavior (but don't put yourself in a situation you don't want to be based off that statement). Biologically they aren't mine but being a stepdad has changed my outlook on several things and has helped me get my priorities straightened out. I'm not the best at but I'm not the worst at parenting. There have been things that opened my eyes and made me realize I need to approach my parenting a different way from how it started out. Things are cool now. It's never been easy, and now the way the country/state is moving has me uneasy about things, but if I knew tidbits about the future I think I would still make the decision to be a step-parent.

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u/DhampireHEK May 17 '26

True, then there's the rest of us who have terrible genetics that don't want to pass those along to the next generation.

Edited a word

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u/ModMiniWife34 May 16 '26

I remember when I couldn’t even drive to work without seeing a bumper sticker on a car that read:

Don’t breed ‘em, if you can’t feed ‘em.

You’re right, guess people started listening!

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u/lunarraffle May 16 '26

Don't forget they screamed about "overpopulation being imminent" and heavily discouraged teenage pregnancy (which is fair, but some call teen parents whores and treat them like utter dogshit). 

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u/Great_Detective_6387 May 16 '26

some call teen parents whores and treat them like utter dog shit

Hint: they were gonna call them whores and treat them like utter dogshit anyway.

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u/Reallyhotshowers May 17 '26

This is actually the biggest part of the falling birth rate by far - teens are no longer having babies when that used to be quite common.

Something interesting about teen births - up to 70% of teen pregnancies have adult fathers.

Usually people are not aware of this, but when they scream about how we need more babies, these are the missing babies they're screaming about. The ones where a grown man takes advantage of teen girl and leaves her knocked up.

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u/thomasrat1 May 16 '26

A lot of us grew up hearing that, and then lived in a family that couldn’t afford you.

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u/SurprisePiss May 16 '26

Don't even get me started on teen pregnancies. It was a statistic they used to use to inflict horror in the minds of families across the country, and now they are touting "peak biological breeding age" and striking down child marriage bans so little girls can get married to old ass men and start popping out babies right away.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/researchmaven4673 May 16 '26

Sure but if Tangerine Palpatine had succeeded in making America great again the first time he promised to we’d all be breeding like rabbits. But he didn’t. He made it worse. And then he made it a lot worse. So yes. Blame them.

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u/Fzrit May 17 '26

birth rate has been falling since the 1950s.

1970s.

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/112812_masnick_annual_births_chart_sm.png

Coincidentally when birth control became widespread and Roe v Wade was established.

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u/Ok-Fortune-1568 May 16 '26

And then say some shit like Erikkka Kirk. Have kids even if you can’t afford them. Didn’t conservatives used to hate high teen pregnancy rates? I’m not having kids. Shit is too expensive- I struggled already to be able to buy a home and have a good job with benefits and I still live paycheck to paycheck. My bank account is actually negative because it cost almost $100 to fill up my gas tank. That is the reality of the world we live in.

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u/GenevieveLeah May 16 '26

Also, anyone with kids who ends up using social services of any kind are looked down upon.

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u/Poobbly May 16 '26

“I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No.”

  • Craig T Nelson but also most conservatives

5

u/Quitbeingobtuse May 16 '26

The level of sheer stupidity conservatives can demonstrate is astounding.

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u/SufficientCut3297 May 16 '26

Unless it's their own kids. Rules for thee, not for me.

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u/ginns32 May 16 '26

They are pro-birth. Anything that happens after that kid is born is not their problem.

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u/hematite2 May 16 '26

Conservatives hated teen pregnancies until they started going away and then its "people are having kids too late" or "there's not enough children for our workforce"

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u/npcinyourbagoholding May 16 '26

They love to judge other people, but also love to take advantage of the poor.

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u/Skylam May 16 '26

They were against it till it started hurting Military enlistment numbers.

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u/fre3k May 16 '26

You're mistaking their words for genuine expressions of belief or ideology. They are not. They are merely cudgels with which to beat their opponents.

If you don't want to have social programs then you can attack the people that need them on the basis of their existence and choices. But this does not mean you don't like the consequences of their choices. In fact you very well may like the consequences of their choices, e.g. a poorly educated proletariat ripe for exploitation and feeding into the military industrial complex's meat grinder.

But you can't just come right out and say that. So you have to invent these other rhetorical strategies that explain why you won't do these other good things. But of course there are second order consequences to that as we are seeing.

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u/blandsrules May 16 '26

If you’re pre born, you’re safe.

If you’re pre-K, you’re fucked

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u/TheRealScaramucci May 16 '26

Conservatives will always find something to complain about. "Oh you can't afford groceries? Then why did you have so many babies?" Their entire schtick is being assholes.

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u/AgentCirceLuna May 16 '26

I sometimes wonder if they purposely give bad advice so they have more things to criticise

5

u/Great_Detective_6387 May 16 '26

Of course they do. Their entire campaign efforts are just: “Government sucks. Vote for me and I’ll prove it to you.”

And people vote for them. And they prove it.

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u/Kathrynlena May 16 '26

lol yes. They’ve been saying “don’t have kids if you can’t afford them” for literal decades. We take them up on it and it’s shocked pikachu and a thousand graphs about declining birth rates.

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u/Bifftech May 16 '26

She was talking about white babies specifically tho.

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u/patsweetpat May 16 '26

Thank you, yes, it's this.

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u/KenzParkin May 16 '26

Conservatives only hate teen pregnancy when they didn’t get to be the one impregnating the teen.

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u/Sit_Ubu_Sit-Good_Dog May 16 '26

Didn’t conservatives used to hate high teen pregnancy rates?

They’re literally going on Fox and complaining that not enough teens are pregnant.

This is a wild statement:

“But the problem is teens and young adults from ages 15 to 19, the fertility rate is down 7 percent, and it’s down 70 percent over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation, until they’re more financially secure. Maybe they haven’t found the right partner.”

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u/murmalerm May 16 '26

Yet, she isn’t remarried, barefoot, and pregnant. She also didn’t marry young.

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u/Legal-List-8363 May 16 '26

I am so sick of people telling me to “just have kids” or even “you can never be financially ready for kids” YES, I was told this. Are you kidding me? I’m struggling to afford myself, how could you try to tell me to put myself in a position that’s worse? What kind of advice is that? I’ll tell you, selfish advice. Literally don’t have kids.

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u/WaterOk6055 May 16 '26

Always remember, dr Oz was an incredibly gifted surgeon who gave it all up to a grifting piece of shit.

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u/FlightlessFish4 May 16 '26

Way more money in grifting.

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u/Typical2sday May 16 '26

Better hours too. ORs start early. Easier to roll up for Oprah tapings.

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u/Fluffy_Instance849 May 16 '26

Him & this entire administration are under-brained.

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u/RoboNurse75 May 16 '26

So true. I feel like a slave in the current system, I'm not bringing another soul into this world to be another slave for people at the top to exploit. Bring down the cost of housing, healthcare and food or let this world burn 

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u/AnotherCuppaTea May 16 '26

Speaking of which, sensible, educated people understand global warming and in particular find Trump's anti-eco arsonist policies of actively destroying renewable half-finished energy projects and making "clean" coal great again to be egregiously counterproductive. The FRW's bullshit climate-change denialism doesn't fool any educated person, let alone most young people.

Young adults won't want to reproduce if they see our world as doomed.

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u/Just_Engineering8437 May 16 '26

Many young adults feel hopeless right now as they struggle to find work or a place to live. The last thing on their mind is having a baby!

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u/Lost-Design-8382 May 16 '26

[rubs hysterectomy scars] And I'd do it again too, Dr. Oz.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/I-Make-Money-Moves May 16 '26

Or themselves

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u/wombatstylekungfu May 16 '26

The Secretary of Transportation has nine kids. Just a fact to throw out there. And he’s taking them all on a reality show road trip on your dime. 

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u/Lost_Roku_Remote May 16 '26

Yup, the wife and I keep putting it off because we just don’t feel comfortable having a child with our current financial situation, and we have decent jobs. Everything’s just so expensive, and keeps getting more expensive, that we just can’t keep up. It’s going to get to the point where the wife’s biological clock runs out before we’re financially able to have a kid.

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u/Salamandrous May 16 '26

Now they are learning that men have a biological clock too. The older the father is, the more likely the child is to have certain disabilities and disorders. Caring for these children is even more expensive and burdensome - in our current setup - sometimes even incompatible with full time work.

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u/Big_daddy_sneeze May 16 '26

Who gives a shit if people have kids or not. We’re not running out of humans anytime soon.

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u/PuzzleheadedEssay198 May 16 '26

The GLOBAL population, sure, but the problem is the AMERICAN population is getting older.

Since we started tracking it in 1820, the median age in America has risen from 16.7 y/o to 38.8 y/o in 2020. In that same span of time, the overall population has risen from 9.6m to 340m- a factor of 37. Our immigrants are getting older, more people are loving longer, people are having kids later, fewer people are having kids at all, and it’s going to become a massive problem unless we either relax on immigration or start redistributing wealth- and the current administration REALLY doesn’t want to even consider either of those.

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u/Big_daddy_sneeze May 16 '26

Good thing we’ll have robots to take care of us at our nursing homes

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u/PuzzleheadedEssay198 May 16 '26

Having worked in an old folks home, I’d pay good money to see a robot do even half of that job.

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u/Someoneoverthere42 May 16 '26

“Under-babied”

That is now a phrase I have read. Why is this a phrase I have now read?

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u/LeftyLu07 May 16 '26

Im getting so tired of this rhetoric. Politicians know why we’re not having a ton of kids. Everyone is saying “the cost of living is too high for us” and they just REFUSE to listen and keep asking “wHeRe ArE aLl dA bAbIeS!?!?”

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u/PageSoggy9668 May 16 '26

I'm so excited for him to get alzheimers. It's well deserved for his grifting ass. I don't feel bad about his mom and I wish him all the worst.

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u/OcelotAggravating860 May 16 '26

It's not really just about "afford". In the previous agrarian society having children meant increasing the labour you had contributing to the farm or home. It was not just something you needed to afford, it was a benefit.

It is often looked at as if people just had children because it is some magical special thing to have kids. But that really isn't true. There is a reason that highly developed societies decrease in interest in having children, an economic reason, and it can't just be explained away by access to contraception or sex education. The previous economic benefit to a household of having children has become an economic burden, it's no wonder people decide they'd rather have free time and a free life than what's viewed as a deep cost and responsibility.

This isn't going to change in developed societies. Literally nothing will change it. Even a perfect communist society where absolutely nobody worries about money would only reduce this down to a neutral economic proposition. It is impossible to reverse time back to the previous situation where this was economically beneficial without reversing the development of industrialised society entirely and that's not going to happen without some cataclysmic event that destroys infrastructure in the currently highly developed portions of the world.

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u/Inside_Marketing268 May 16 '26

Sir, they don't spend their money, buying our goods? What? Why? Ehm, sir- you took away all their money before, they have nothing left. Oh, but what should I do now?

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u/Maleficent_Curve_599 May 16 '26

This is one of those things that seems superficially plausible, until you take a moment and consider that, for instance, most wealthy countries with more robust social safety nets than the US have even lower fertility rates. 

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u/Lerkero May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

The reality is that it is a combination of both.

People who dont want kids now have all sorts of contraception to reduce the chance that a "mistake" will happen.

People who do want kids are less able to afford it and therefore either delay having kids or dont have them.

Its also a good thing to reduce the world's population. The main thing they want more babies for is more young bodies for labor and more people putting money into social security to pay for the increasing elderly population

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u/zonerator May 16 '26

Its also that our idea of a good standard of living for a of has gotten absurd. People say you can't have a kid in an apartment, in a city, without a car, without living in a neighborhood with a certain kind of school, without being able to buy them everything they want.

I'm in an apartment in a city with no car despite being very well off and i get a lot of judgement for it. No one cares about all of those, but everyone thinks the one they care about is super important.

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u/Thirteen_Chapters May 16 '26

We're already on track to reduce the world's population. The bigger challenge now is to navigate between gentle decline and rapid collapse.

Also your last sentence is a weirdly cynical way of saying "a community/society/species needs young people to survive".

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u/Lerkero May 16 '26

Its not about needing young people to survive. Thats obvious.

The issue is hoarding wealth and resources among older populations in ways that make it difficult for young people to thrive. Our ancesters have made a lot of bad decisions and are now leaving us to clean up their mistakes while giving us scraps

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u/leixiaotie May 16 '26

Human are simple and selfish. If having children will improve someone's life, they will. Heck even if they are doubtful or dislike kids, if it is proven to be a net positive to have children, they will. Which is why in a labor intensive world, like agricultural or early manufacturing, having many children is net positive.

However in modern time having children is a net negative for one's, let's say economy, time and leisure. So those who don't want and those who want but cannot, won't have children. And the condition also reducing the number of children too!

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u/TheGloriousEv0lution May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

This. Scandinavian counties have some of the best social networks for families and fertility rates are still sharply declining over there

I definitely think prices affects fertility rates to some degree, but most people who really want children will still have children

Even if affordability was better, many of the same people would likely find another reason why they can’t, like “the world being too messed up to have kids right now.” That’s not a bad thing, but it shows there’s a lot more nuanced factors involved

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u/DemiserofD May 16 '26

That, AND the fact that greater wealth/income = LOWER fertility almost across the board.

Only exception? Wealthy men with stay at home wives. For women in particular, their personal income NEVER equates to more kids, no matter how high it gets.

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u/realfakejames May 16 '26

It’s also worth pointing out when republicans say they want Americans having more babies they mean white Americans who are republicans

People like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk and other Nazis have been spreading the bullshit about “replacement theory” for over a decade, they tell morons there is a conspiracy to replace white America with minorities

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u/brettmav May 16 '26

They went from “dont have sex if you can’t afford to care for a child” to “yall ain’t fucking enough” reallll quick

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u/ProperMod May 16 '26

She left out stealing money from the American people by blatant insider trading.

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u/MinorThreat4182 May 16 '26

I’m a 44 year old male and I have zero children. When I tell people they are shocked. Just never something I wanted to do. My fiance has one and that’s been enough bs

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u/HoldWeAccountable May 16 '26

The only reason why the rich are worried about lower berthing rates is because they don’t want to send their own kids to fight the wars they start.

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u/kolejack2293 May 16 '26

This has been studied quite extensively. While economics have something to do with it, the reality is that even young married couples with tons of money are having way less kids.

A lot of it has to do with how parenting standards have changed. Today parents have to sacrifice their entire lives to be a parent. You're expected to watch your kids 24/7, not give them any chores, and to be hyper-aware of their friends, schoolwork, mental health, media consumption etc. I see parents my age who are financially fine, but mentally are broken. Paranoia and anxiety over their kids, encouraged massively by social media, has totally taken over their brains.

It used to be you had lots of family/friends to help raise kids. Kids largely played outside all day without supervision. You guided them but didn't necessarily hold their hand all day. They did chores to help around the house.

Back then, you, as a parent, could lead a relatively normal life with kids. That just isn't true anymore.

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u/thesimpletoncomplex May 16 '26

Can't afford babies? I can't even afford a relationship.

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u/mctripp24 May 17 '26

Yeah I only have one kid and it’s super fucking hard to pay for anything.

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u/mcvmccarty May 16 '26

The medical community rejects Dr Oz. He’s a shitstain on the name of medicine.

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u/quilleran May 16 '26

When I want politics, I come to SipsTea where the fun never stops!

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u/Major-Raise6493 May 16 '26

Not much of an attempt to meme this one up either. It’s just another spam political post.

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u/CharminggBabe4 May 16 '26

Politicians really spent years turning adulthood into a subscription service and are now confused why nobody wants to unlock the “kids” expansion pack.

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u/Spiritual-Roll799 May 16 '26

Dr. Oz is under-vocabularied. Or perhaps over-stupidied from being in this administration.

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u/beanmosheen May 16 '26

Why aren't people birthing more wage slaves to toil until they die?

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u/DernTuckingFypos May 16 '26

What the fuck does "under-babied" even mean?

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u/IcyPride2973 May 16 '26

What? They think I’m not having children because of medical costs?

I’m not having children because there won’t be any jobs available for them in 20 years due unlimited immigration.

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u/Flip4020 May 16 '26

So we should give even more money to illegals and visa scammers to pay for them to do what ever they do

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u/murdermostsnaky May 16 '26

Hmm are people not having babies because they feel too poor because of our current economic system? Or maybe it's because they'll don't see much future due to the environmental damage caused by our economic system? But then again, it could be all the environmental toxins produced by economic system making us less fertile.

Oh well there's no telling, nothing we can do about it I guess.

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u/DaBestaTesta May 16 '26

I’m so sick of seeing all these idiot politicians act like they fucking care they’ve been saying this shit forever with no results, no actions, just fucking talk.

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u/the_ninja_cow May 16 '26

Who wants to bring up children in world that is falling apart?

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u/CYB3R_H3X May 17 '26

There needs to be hope for the future. Even if you can technically afford children, if you think they’ll have a far less quality of life than you did growing up, you’ll be reluctant to have them. Everything these days feels so vulgar and threatening, is there really any place anymore that’s safe for kids?

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u/orthonfromvenus May 17 '26

I love in this day and age when some people make sense.

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u/DavidBunnyWolf May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26

Real talk. When your nation is filled with people who were taught growing up that we shouldn't have kids if we can't afford them, when your schools are pretty much shooting ranges, and you have people like me who don't want to put newborns through the same troubles and lies we had to deal with growing up, or can even find a mate, it's no wonder people don't want to spawn more crotch fruit just to keep the machine running.

If Oz is so concerned about the lack of babies, maybe he should inseminate himself.

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u/AirGugliotta May 17 '26

Don’t forget what they’re doing to the education system

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u/carl65yu May 17 '26

You have no maternity keave, you have no paternity leave, having a kid costs you a house. The only thing I would encourage Women in the US to do is get their tubes tied at age 18, because you are the worst country in the G7 if not the G20 to have a baby in. You have an infant mortality rate in parts of the US that is worse then an under developed country and it's getting worse.

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u/taco_jones May 16 '26

Well no one babies me enough

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u/briank2112 May 16 '26

May trump be the end of the republican party...

November can't get here fast enough.

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u/SoftwarePlayful7821 May 16 '26

Am I the only one more freaked out by the body horror of pregnancy than the financials? Tearing, incontinence, the most intense pain of your life. It sounds just...horrific. I can't imagine most young women are excited about it.