A thought on economic incentives for having kids
As I sit here finishing up the final edits of my Master’s thesis, I had this thought:
The Right tends to argue that our social welfare system provides incentive for single women (a.k.a. “welfare mothers”) to pop out children left and right. This constitutes an abuse of the system.
I’m not saying that’s at all true (and actually the stats on this “phenomenon” are rather skewed: the number of kids women on welfare have is about the same as the general population), but take their argument and consider this…
Yet there are a slew of tax breaks for families with children. Does this not also constitute an incentive to have kids in order to receive unearned money (one could call it welfare, sure!) for those kids? Yet I don’t hear anyone on the right complaining about those..in fact, they usually want to raise them! Yet why should “we” subsidize “their” children?!
Curious, huh?
I guess so-called “incentives” are OK for the “right” kinds of families…
(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)
posted by lindabeth at
8:00 PM
2 Comments:
Those who would describe the USA as a "police state", have never lived in one.
By
Anonymous, at 3:58 PM
I assume you meant this comment to apply to my "Bush Police State" post...
And I will respond thusly: It's relative. No, the U.S. is not North Korea, nor is it the sort of police state that existed in, say, Eastern Europe under the Soviets. And I have been critical, highly critical, of illiberal regimes: Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
But just because the U.S. isn't North Korea (or Cuba or Venezuela) doesn't mean it isn't, in its own way, a police state. And, under Bush, it's moving in that direction: domestic surveillance (and the Patriot Act generally), extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, denial of habeas corpus rights, etc.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 3:03 PM
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