You touch on a truth here.
For the population to grow, MOST couples have to have THREE children. Children only come in whole numbers, and given infant mortality, celibacy, fertility problems, etc., most people who have children have to have three, not two, to balance the couples who have 2 or one or none, and pull the average up to 2.2.
The median family of 5 in America earns just shy of $51,000 a year family income. That means that there MUST be public schools, and there MUST be medical insurance programs or safety nets for people to have the number of children they have to have for the population to remain stable and to grow.
Truth is, poor Hispanics, especially, have kids because they have the social safety net, but the middle of the middle class? To have three kids would leave them POOR.
So, we either redistribute wealth to help the middle have children, or we die out. Hoping that the race will not die out because npeople will do their part and provide the children, but society not do its part and provide the support: this is naive economics. We don't economically support large families in a world of expensive housing and expenive schooling, and so we don't get large families.
It isn't hard to see, it's just hard to square with what conservatives say they want economically.
Good analysis. I read an article on NRO last week calling for more taxation of the lower and middle income earners and less taxation on high incomes.
Unbelievable....
Things get expensive when people have more money to spend on stuff. The median price of a house would be lower if there were more demand for affordable housing. Why do you think developers are focusing on building McMansions? Cuz that's where the demand is (because the leisure culture takes its free schools and drops junior off at the free school in an SUV he/she cannot afford).
Know why medicine is expensive? Because, in a culture of leisure, insurance policies have to cover Viagra as well as flu shots. Because people of leisure worry about every little ache and pain and want to be poked and prodded by a doc at your expense.
Veblen was right.
Sorry if you are being pulled along in the tide of the culture so that, even if you want affordable housing or medicine, you can't find it. If you want to know how to reverse this, start by wanting to fight the cause, which is a self-absorbed materialistic West. And be ready to fight more and whine less.
"That means that there MUST be public schools, and there MUST be medical insurance programs or safety nets for people to have the number of children they have to have for the population to remain stable and to grow."
Uhhh, no. Most of the large families I'm familiar with home educate their children. While I'd agree that Government schools are necessary, that's in the same way that I'd argue that prisons and lunatic asylums are necessary. Not desirable, but a fact of life.
As for medical insurance, we're already 3/4 the way to socialized medicine. We just aren't seeing any of the alleged benefits.
As for safety nets, the fact that we are paying the level of taxes we do and have so little to show for it speaks volumes about why socialism does not work.