Two Is Enough; Why large families don't deserve tax breaks

Slate/MSN ^ | By Dalton Conley

[hsmomx3]

The U.S. government encourages families to have children, as many of them as possible. Child tax credits, child-care tax deductions, and family leave policies all reward parents with big broods.

[HungarianGypsy]

I know a single, childless dimwit who was whining the other day (he whines every day) that the poor do pay taxes because he had $144 taken out of his paycheck. I consider taxes like that to be a non-voluntary government savings account without interest.

[Vigilanteman]

I've always thought that social secutiry payments ought to be based on the multi-level marketing compensation system. Good productive kids who contribute to society would increase your payments. Criminals and leeches would decrease them. I know a family who has eight kids-- all home-schooled, all great kids. If anyone needs help, they are the first to volunteer.

[BMiles2112]

Exactly. I suppose this clown pays gas taxes, sales taxes, and possibly cigarrette and liquor taxes, too.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Contrary to the point of the article, we DO want to engourage larger families for those families that can afford to be larger.

Using taxation-and-redistribution to produce behavior that wouldn't otherwise be engaged in by free citizens isn't something THIS conservative/libertarian wants to encourage. My local school district now spends $20,000 per year per student in its socialist indoctrination centers, where nearly all many-child families send their children. This is being paid for with tax revenues confiscated largely from families with few children, who are struggling to pay for private school, or to keep mom out of the workforce to homeschool, and from young professionals who are putting off having any children due the high cost of private school combined with heavy tax bite. Let's not pretend that these large families with kids in public schools "can afford" all these kids -- the only way they "afford" it is by taking other families' money.

[Triple Word Score]

Children are cheaper in bulk.

The cost per kid goes down. That goes for school districts, families, states....

It's the only child who has to have one of each of everything who really trashes the environment....

Hand-me-downs rule. If you plan well, have sons first--girls can wear their big brother's clothes. :-) And you'll have the bonus backup on hand when she starts dating, too!

[valkyrieanne]

Rarely do we get such a chance to look pure evil so squarely in the face. Of course, look at the venue: MSN, funded by Microsoft, whose head honcho spends huge amounts of money on population control programs worldwide. Wonder if Microsoft funds his research, too?

[Jaidyn]

THANK YOU!! I'm one of ten kids and none of us have ever been on the dole and all of us had worked and paid into the system since we were children. Most of us have three kids a piece who are also producers to the economy. Those who are on welfare now, have parents and grandparents who did the same. As me and my siblings followed my parent's pattern, so did the welfare queens follow theirs.

[LizardQueen]

The thing that this article doesn't take into account is that families with "big broods" end up supporting smaller "childless" couples in their old age because all the children in those "big broods" end up working, working, working to meet their Social Security and Medicare contributions.

To be fair, though, it needs to be acknowledged that the childless couples end up working working working too, to pay for all kinds of taxes that they either don't get a break on (income tax) or don't use (school tax). It's not all one-sided.

Frankly, I think we should get rid of the SS ponzi scheme AND ditch all tax breaks for all the social engineering and go to a flat tax. Apartment dwellers shouldn't be subsidizing my mortgage by me getting a tax break from it, my sister shouldn't be subsidizing other's day care expenses via the childcare credit while she stays home with her kids, etc.
Once the gov't takes its (preferably small) cut it's none of their business what we do with the money or how we live.

LQ

[meenie]

As government intrudes into more and more things, people argue over more and more things. It is no wonder that we are such a divided nation.

[Jaidyn]

You are right about us becoming divided. Bureaucracies do that because they lump people together with a one-size-fits-all, which I don't believe in. To some extent, we are all guilty of that. We have been conditioned with a group mentality and ignore individualism. That's not a good thing.

[Jaidyn]

You are right about us becoming divided. Bureaucracies do that by lumping people together with a one-size-fits-all, which I don't believe in. To some extent, we are all guilty of that. We have been conditioned with a group mentality and ignore individualism. That's not a good thing.

[gusopol3]

every human being of whatever age gets the same "tax break"--i.e. the personal deduction. The money is NOT the government's. A whole lot of us would be working a lot less, thereby having less income to tax, and for a lot fewer years, were it not for the lifetime project of raising (Dear Abby would have always insisted, "rearing") a family. There would be a much less diverse world, where this author-dork would be unlikely to have a cushy academic position to carry out his "research." This guy is a Margaret Sanger clone, and just a short step in his narcissism from the worst of the Nazi ubermenschen. What a distorted world we live in for him to be taken seriously by anyone, let alone on FR.

[LizardQueen]

I don't like the authors position either - it's just another version of social engineering via the tax code, only his argument is to tweak it to discourage having kids, rather than encourage there.

What I still believe is that once the gov't takes it's cut its not their business how many kids we have, or where and how we live, etc. Put in some version of a flat tax (and eliminate that personal deduction) and get rid of the IRS.

BTW, one of the reasons I don't support the national sales tax idea is that it's punishing to parents - parents buy more stuff, therefore would pay more tax. But a flat small percentage off the top of each wage-earners gross I would support.

LQ

[Tailback]

How about a HUGE tax break for productive people that have children.

Combine that with a small one-time cash payment to any woman on welfare that volunteers to undergo sterilization surgery.

[JustTheTruth]

Check out this link - it demonstrates factually (and probably not offensively to most) the enormous - and often un-noted magnitude of the abortion holocaust in America since Roe v. Wade. The truthful reality of abortion and the pro-abortion agenda has for decades been artfully and slyly disguised and foisted upon a naieve American public that is too eager for rationalizations that seem to justify the commission of the selfish act of abortion. In my view, the author of this article is representing that same anti-family, anti-child view point from a slightly different and more subtle angle.

http://www.htmlbible.com/abortstats.htm