Posted on 06/09/2004 7:40:42 AM PDT by blam
Bonking for the bonus - not for the babies
June 09 2004 at 08:54AM
Sydney - Women are getting pregnant not because they want a baby but to get hold of the cash bonus the government has promised, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) said on Wednesday.
Under a programme intended to help raise the birth rate there is a bounty of Aus$3 000 (about R12 000) for every child born from the start of the financial year on July 1.
The lump-sum payment, to rise to Aus$5 000 in 2008, is tax free and goes to married and unmarried, rich and poor alike.
Queensland AMA president David Molloy said the baby bonus was bad social policy because it was sparking pregnancies that were not genuinely wanted.
"We're getting these anecdotal reports, particularly from some of the more disadvantaged socio-economic areas, of pressure building to have a baby because of the payment," Molloy told Australia's AAP news agency.
"There was a particular story yesterday of a grandmother saying that her young teenage granddaughter was having a lot of pressure put on her by her partner to have a pregnancy so that they could afford a holiday."
Australia has a birth rate of 1,73 percent, which means that without immigration the 20 million population would be declining.
Treasurer Peter Costello, who announced the baby bonus in the annual budget tabled in parliament last month, famously told his listeners to go forth and multiply.
"One for your husband, one for your wife, and one for the country," was his advice to reporters, enjoining them to "go home and do your patriotic duty tonight". - Sapa-DPA
Ahem....anything I can do to help?
Bump. Wow.
Sounds like a smart plan. Japan and Italy should try it too.
I would imagine that the AMA thought of this when they made this offer.
Government-sponsored social engineering is ALWAYS bad. Naturally, this silly scheme will disproportionately cause the births of babies who are not only unwanted, but who are also from the lowest (read dumbest, unhealthiest) segment of society.
Better than no babies at all, isn't it?
Breed, you damned cattle! The herd is getting thin and the farmers aren't pleased.
Not necessarily. Hordes of incompetent people tend to demand (and get) outright socialism, essentially resulting in the enslavement of all the competent people in the society in question. It really is urgently important to keep the competent people in control, and taxing them yet more heavily, in order to bribe the incompetents to have more babies, is not moving in the right direction.
This demographic topic is a longstanding interest of mine.
Japan does have such policies, and I wouldn't be surprised if Italy does too. Japanese parents get cash bonuses for having kids, and further bonuses when they enroll in school (at least private school). It hasn't worked so far, as the Japanese TFR continues to decline. Similar policies failed in Sweden. A big increase in the French subsidy (which also takes the form of taxpayer-funded child care) has caused a current uptick in the TFR, but in Sweden in the early 1990s the same thing occurred, but only for a few years. I suspect that people who were going to have kids anyway simply moved them up to take advantage of a subsidy that might not last.
Clearly subsidies affect behavior, but I wonder whether they will affect them very much in this case. The declining birth rates in prosperous societies are due to social changes of such magnitude that I suspect the amount of subsidy needed to raise them would be well beyond what taxpayers are willing to tolerate.
But for any middle class person (or even just about any working person), the baby will cost more than the cash payment (just as in the US the cost of a child is higher than the tax savings), so the partial subsidy for the baby is not going to lead to unwanted babies for such people, it will just make it a bit easier to afford a wanted baby. (The same goes for other baby subsidies, such as free public schools, and tax-subsidized for employer-paid health care)
Five large for dropping a brat? Down payment to poverty, IMHO...
"Government doesn't solve problems, it subsidizes them."-Ronald Reagan
The Australian program might be improved by making the subsidy something more like 'government will pay for all of the college education of second, third and fourth children.' The promise of subsidy would be most compelling for those who are future/goal oriented (i.e., not the underclass), and in particular those who figure their kids would be going to college.
Birth rates among competent people would no doubt increase substantially if governments would stop taxing them to support the incompetents.
It has more to do with tax policy than one may think,IMO. In the 50's, according to Grover Norquist, the tax deduction for each child was much higher adjusted for inflation than it is today. Of course tax rates were much smaller to begin with, but if you had 4 kids you pretty much didnt pay any taxes at all. Thats obviously not true today. People are disuaded from having 4 kids today because of the cost, to a huge extent.
If govt keeps redistribution from young to old in check, then "society" will respond in kind. I dont want to have kids if its going to cost 3 times my annual salary to send them to college. And subsidizing college thru taxes on workers is not going to do it either; stealing form Peter to pay Peter (and a cut to Paul!) The productive person will become poorer, just look at Europe.
Naturally, tax policy isnt everything, but its a big factor. If sclerotic Old World nations want to grow again, they have to dismantle the welfare state.Good luck with that.
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