Obama Stimulus Package Includes Funds for Expanded Medicaid Family Planning Services

San Francisco Chronicle: Economic stimulus or just more pork?, by Zachary Coile:

As Congress rushes toward what leaders of both parties predict will be a speedy passage of an $825 billion economic stimulus package, critics from GOP lawmakers to government watchdog groups are questioning whether key parts of the bill will spur economic growth or whether they're wasteful pork....

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized a part of the bill's $87 billion package to help states with Medicaid costs that would allow states to expand their family planning services. Leaving a White House meeting with Obama on Friday, Boehner said, "How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, defended the spending. "The family-planning services reduce cost," she said. "The states are in terrible fiscal budget crisis now, and part of it, what we do for children's health, education, and some of those elements, are to help the states meet their financial needs."