But it won’t be imitated in the US.

The CBC notes that $81 a month buys a healthier baby:

When pregnant women were trusted with $81 a month in prenatal benefits, no strings attached, their babies’ physical health did better, say Manitoba researchers, who would like similar income supplements to be offered across Canada.

The Healthy Baby Prenatal Benefit offers support to families with a net household income of less than $32,000, on a sliding scale.

They give the money to the expectant mothers and let them decide how to use it. In the US there are programs for low income women, like WIC [Women, Infants, and Children] but they are very specific as to what the benefits can buy, and none of them include soap or diapers. Canada has single payer health care, so the women have access to prenatal care, but the US would rather pay $100K/day for neonatal hospitalization than about $500 for the standard series of prenatal medical visits.

A opinion writer in Australia notices that We’re being sold the trickle-down economics con.

You remember “trickle down” where they told you that “a rising tide tide raises all boats”, ignoring the reality that it only helps people rich enough to own a boat and the poor people drown. The awe inspiring Revelation of the Cocktail Napkin of Laffer™ – as tax rates approach zero, tax revenues approach infinity. Back in the 1980 this was government policy and delivered none of benefits claimed.

Conservatives keep trying the same policies, and those policies keep providing the same results. When are people going to realize that conservatives want the results they get: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

This Saturday, May 14^th, is the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive of the Postal Workers. I participate every year by filling a bag with non-perishable food items and putting it on the mail box Friday night. The food pantries need the help, because they are serving an ever-increasing number of people.

If you don’t have a mail box, most post offices have a collection bin.