People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
The real kicker is I don't even know that I've heard a proposal to make them taxpayer funded. I've only heard the proposal to tax them like bandages or toilet paper instead of cosmetics.
Neither bothers me in the slightest, but the people getting upset about fixing an obvious tax misclassification are just contrary assholes.
You just need a marketing spin appropriate for America.
They aren't "period products", they are first aid for gunshot wounds. Free gunshot wound first aid in bathrooms as a "solution" to the shooting problem.
Maybe if we told them it's to bomb cities with tampons?
Spoonfull of sugar and all that?
Spoonful of sugar is far too British. Going to need a more American catchphrase to get this to catch on. Hmmm
spoonful of ranch?
Access to period products literally gives girls and women more freedom to access education and career opportunities.
Why do that when we can fund bombs that kill hundreds of school girls in one blow?
It’s more efficient
Only gotta allocate funds to 1 thing instead of 2 or more
Helps when we don’t fund education either and people have trouble counting
We spend more on making people bleed than stopping them from bleeding.
Sorry no money for healthcare, education, regulations or decent wages.
We CAN use that money to lock you up for being poor/undesirable where we will ironically give you free healthcare.
Unless you're trans. Please just die.
What a wonderful world.
What a wonderful world.
Country.
Don't lump the rest of us into that.
Then they complain that people aren't having kids anymore.
"Oh, I'm sorry, these seem like ideal times to raise a child? With people like you in the world? Weren't you just complaining about how young people ruin everything? Don't get younger than 'baby.'"
I’m definitely down with making period products free of charge for every person who menstruates. I’d rather pay for food, housing, health care, and a yearly vacation for everyone in the country than spend another dime bombing people.
The time Nasa sent 100 tampons to space
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250905-the-women-who-broke-nasas-glass-ceiling
That story always makes me a little "harrumph". They act like the engineers were totally clueless when you get that number by looking at the box, applying their normal redundancy rules for consumables, and then weighing one and determining that it's easily within their per person weight budget.
The box says one every 4-8 hours. It's a six day mission, menses typically last six days but can go longer. The ratio for consumables is 1.5 to 2 times expected need.
Expected usage is 36, with 60 being a possibility with a mission delay and atypical period. Redundancy takes you to right around 100.
Then they asked.
Of the things they did wrong with dealing with women, the tampons are the least of it, albeit easily the most amusing.
I am more amused that they worked on and developed make up for the women astronauts to use while on mission.
I can get that one, but it's definitely a bit more cringy.
Women often wear makeup for important photos in our culture, and they knew this was an important mission where photos would be taken. Same reason they gave the men shaving kits once they had more confidence.
The silly to me is that we as a society expect anyone in space to look super proper.
Also: they gave the women shaving kits too.
I believe now they just tell you to pick your preference of mandatory hygiene products like soap and toothpaste, and let you pick what you want for your the rest of your self care budget. I think most people fill up on lotion and hot sauce, if I recall.
I would also fill up on lotion and hot sauce
We can't even talk a third of the country into agreeing to feed children.
I agree with this argument but you probably won't convince a conservative with it. Though facts and logic probably wouldn't work either...
We need to make a machine that make them change sex temporarly, then when they can't get tampoons or will have to spend a lot, they will understand
Many people operate primarily on the emotional level. That's a polite way of saying they're stupid. Idiots. Like a child who'd rather have 4 shiny pennies than one tiny dime.
If we're not going to round them up (which, give me the infinity gauntlet and...) then we need to appeal to their idiot emotions. Find something they consider in-group, and frame whatever reasonable policy they're opposing so their benefits are foregrounded.
This is a game you won't win long term. Authoritarians and idiots go together like peanut butter and jelly. And there are so many idiots. You'll never outdo a fascist demagogue talking to idiots. They don't give two shits about lying to the idiots to get their way. And the idiots will never question the lies because they are fucking stupid. And this is the quintessential tension: The people smart enough to engage the fascists have so much better shit to do with their lives than accumulating political power by lying to idiots. So essentially politics becomes keeping the fascists out instead of whatever else it should be.
I have this really conservative uncle(doesn't everyone) who said at a family dinner once that we should just deal with it because it "happens every month" and we should be "used to it". This was in regards to the idea of schools providing them for students.
It's been around 5 years since that happened and I have not, and will not ever forget it.
These people are assholes. It's who they are and we need to find ways to get rid of them because you cannot convince them to care about others.
Get rid of them?
I work closely with a woman who describes herself as conservative. She is staunchly against benefits like free school lunches and period products. Her argument is that it is the responsibility of the parents or the woman herself to work hard and buy those things themselves instead of taking from others.
She absolutely believes that being poor is an indication of laziness and lack of work ethic.
It’s the most infuriating to hear her speak about these things as if her middle-class white ass didn’t get built in societal benefits that allowed her to succeed despite her worth ethic or lack thereof.
Swede here, a few years ago, I read that my local municipality would not provide legally mandated special assistance for students with special needs, and the family had to move to get the help they needed.
I am a former special needs student, I got the help I needed and am now a well adjusted adult working and paying tax.
When I learned about the issue with the students, I got embarrassed, it is fucking embarrassing to not be able to provide basic services your citizens need.
Now, we have one of the lowest municipality tax in the country, and I will be voting to increase the tax so we can provide the help these students need.
Same goes with issues like these, remember, it is fucking embarrassing to not be able to provide basic supplies for your citizens.
I am a man, and I'll gladly help my fellow sisters in my community to get basic supplies they need.
If the taxes needs to be raised slightly to do this, then do it, I snd many more are able to pay for it.
Let's just ignore the fact that "special needs" accommodations are just a way to degrade and dehumanize minority students and rob them of educational opportunities.
Also: Autistics aren't idiots and we deserve to be treated as the intelligent people we are. We also need accommodations which aren't provided by labeling us as retarded and withholding human rights which the special ed services in practically all countries do. Other minorities can speak for themselves, since I'm not speaking for them, but I will advocate for myself and call out bullshit when it needs to be called out.
At a bare minimum they should not be subject to sales tax
Oh, knowing the US, tampon brands will just skyrocket in price because it's free unregulated money.
3 generations from now, Americans will travel overseas mindblown that tampons aren't $60 / 16 pack and along with things like insulin still being dirt cheap.
"Why's it so much cheaper here?!"
"Now, I know you're not gonna believe this so easily, but..." explains
"Well I'm glad the government pays for it and not me."
"Yeeeeah. I think you're still not quite getting it..." explains more
"Noooo. That would never happen in the US."
"Okay, so..."
Or they’ll make the cheapest ones possible and give those away and girls in school will get made fun of if they’re seen with them
Ah, building on the social tier anxiety. A classic.
I just don't have the knack of turning everything into a way to make money. I watch Mad Men like, "That would never fucking wor- oh... Ooooh, okay... Jeez... And they made a highly successful show about it. Fuck, they're good."
It helps to be a cynical misanthrope
poor kids will get made fun of regardless
i see nothing wrong with this option
Sales tax shouldn't exist, period (pun very much intended).
Yep. Its terribly regressive and gives car dealers too much power.
Late stage capitalistic greed and inhumanity
When are they going to give the tax payers what they want - bombing people with tampons.
Used or unused? Dirty Bomb?
Dealer's choice, but I'm partial to the used variety. It's important to think about the environment.
Free bleeding it is. That way everyone gets to suffer!
we can cover some tampons
That's a great way to put it.
Military budget: $961.6 billion for FY2026 (wikipedia) Period products: $11.5 billion yearly (https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/4/619)
"Some" really puts it in perspective.
I can't believe this number. 11.5 billions per year for period products??
$20-30 per month x 12 months x the number of post-puberty pre-menopause people is a lot
I mean, it makes sense. We don't want $900 billion in tampons. They are talking about buying tampons for the US, not for the whole world and then some. "Some" makes sense.
/jk
The way these people talk about giving benefits to supposedly undeserving recipients makes it sound like they alone are shouldering the burden of paying for all of it.
Because equity matters and is a moral duty to people who aren't shit.
I want to see more nationalised non-monopoly industries competing for public services and basic needs. That is to say, a government-owned producer/seller of sanitary products that private industry is welcome to compete with but who ultimately is under no obligation to deliver growth or dividends to shareholders.
They want people to get bombed.
Your tax dollars are paying for rich European MAGA aligned groups
https://www.ft.com/content/e2addd88-4361-43f1-94e2-9f0a808dd6a9?syn-25a6b1a6=1