Posted on 09/04/2007 6:08:36 AM PDT by madprof98
Analyze this, the first sentence of an account of a Michael Bloomberg speech to the National Press Club last week, and then take the quiz on why notable public opinion leaders are reluctant to weigh in on the sensitive question of fathers, marriage and child poverty:
"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a divorced, billionaire dad, said Tuesday that unwed fathers increase poverty and the government should take steps to get them back with their families."
A divorced, billionaire dad. Meaning what? A gratuitous insertion in a wire service account, it's clearly intended to convey a message. But what? That because Bloomberg is divorced, he lacks moral authority to urge that tax laws be amended to entice the absentee male back into children's lives? That because Bloomberg is rich, he lacks legitimacy to speak of poverty?
The gratuitous reference to his wealth and marital status —- both matters unrelated to the issue he addressed or content of his remarks —- are noteworthy in that they are warnings to public figures to avoid topics where they risk being accused of hypocrisy. Topics like the epidemic of births to unmarried women and the disadvantage and poverty that results.
Bloomberg wasn't approaching the hot-button issue at the heart of the problem he addressed. He was, instead, proposing financial incentives to buy men back into their children's lives, including "a substantial expansion and reform" of the earned income tax credit.
"Why should we expect young mothers to work and not young fathers?" he asked, a reference to the 1996 welfare reform law that, with the EITC, "led millions of people into the labor market, where they attained the dignity of work and a chance to rise out of poverty." With that, he said, the welfare caseload in New York City had dropped by a third over the past five years.
"Right now," he continued, "fathers are missing from our strategy to drive down the poverty rate. The gains that we've made over the past 10 years have been fueled by mothers. ... If we are going to achieve another round of substantial gains ... we have to do more to connect fathers to jobs and to their families. We have to increase the rewards for work. ..."
Among the changes he suggested is eliminating the EITC "marriage penalty" for families with and without children. "Marriage increase a family's chances of rising out of poverty —- why would government discourage it? It shouldn't. ... The EITC should be a catalyst for fathers to fulfill their obligations as responsible spouses, parents and citizens."
No hot-button cultural rhetoric there. Dry. Nuts-and-bolts.
To the extent that influential voices are dissuaded from addressing vital issues, such as the consequences of the missing father, because they themselves aren't poor or have failed marriages, everybody loses. Imagine the treatment had Bloomberg chosen to talk about the real dynamic driving poverty, the creation of babies without bothering to marry.
Bloomberg started his conversation with the usual pabulum about education as "one of the best ways to fight poverty." It is of course true. No question. But when 69.3 percent of black children, 46.4 of Hispanic and 24.5 of white children are born to unmarried women, the die is cast long before the first schoolteacher enters their lives. And even then, it's fantasy land to believe any public school system anywhere in America can backfill the hours of guidance and teaching the walkaway father might have provided.
When the War on Poverty was first launched in 1964, single women headed 30 percent of the poor families with children. Today it's double that. The Brookings Institution, to which Bloomberg delivered the same speech, noted in 2002 that in 2000, 40 percent of the children in female-headed families were poor, compared to 8 percent of the children in married families. Only 20 percent of children in families with incomes of less than $15.000 a year live with both parents.
Marriage reduces poverty. Now, because we're reached the tipping point where the crisis of out-of-wedlock births is so deeply rooted, few public figures who wish to cultivate a following dare mention it. So they walk around it and talk around it.
But sooner or later, leaders rich and poor, married and divorced, do have to start the conversation. And we have to encourage them.
> Jim Wooten is associate editor of the editorial page. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
jwooten@ajc.com
Which also means there is one clear means of ending it completely, wrenching though it might be. Stop feeding it external resources.
“And there always seems to be enough dirt in a politician’s background to make that charge plausible.”
Yeah, well, what goes around, comes around. I’m thinking the socon bashing of Newt.
Why indeed. I've been asking this question for years, since the welfare to work program came out (which I support).
BOTH parents should be responsible for children they sire ... not just one.
Agreed. But we cannot show that a US minority is as good as or better than Whitey, because that would indicate that it didn’t matter that Whitey was a bigot.
The leftists have made clear as day: Any politician who tries to discuss a “family values” issue from now on will get branded a hypocrite. And there always seems to be enough dirt in a politician’s background to make that charge plausible.
_________________________________
Yup. You can defend perversity, even if you are a family man that doesn’t cheat (that isn’t viewed as hypocrisy), but you can’t defend family values unless you’ve been squeeky clean since puberty.
It comes down to a lack of moral education among the public. If no sinner can condemn sin, no one can condemn sin, because all of us are sinners. That’s the human condition. Condoning and encouraging sin is always wrong, regardless of your own past.
Tell that to Tom Brady.
I doubt that 'white-guilt' had anything to do with the New Deal.
That’s why I said “partly”.
Men’s moral character is the other half of the equation.
If you accept that we are complex beings with minds, bodies and souls, and accept that the training of the mind and body is mandatory throughout society, then why is the training of the soul such a bad thing, why is it discouraged and prevented by government and so many families?
Could this be the answer??
Points from ‘The Naked Communist,’ 1958:
17. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures and TV.
18. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as normal, natural and healthy.
19. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with social religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a religious crutch.
20. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principles of separation of church and state.
25. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
26. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.
They’ve been working on this for over 40 years now. And they’re winning.
Vicous cycle would be better.
One cannot cut good lumber from bad timber.
The plague of illegitimacy produces - as its natural result - "bad timber".
With seven out of ten black babies are born illegitimate, and nearly half of the Hispanic ones as well, it creates a millstone around our society and culture's neck that cannot be overcome through either goodwill or funding.
It was back in 1993 in a seminal essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled "The Coming White Underclass" in which Charles Murray warned about rising illegitimacy rates amonst whites, as well.
There is only one way to end this madness: to simply cut off all benefits and money to females who bear illegitimate children. No help - NONE - not even for the newborn. When mothers who insist on living outside cultural rules must suffer along with their "innocent children", then and only then will we see a return to the once-historic norm of a [roughly] five percent rate of illegitimacy.
Of course, this will never be undertaken as a matter of public policy.
So the plague of black and Hispanic illegitimacy is with us to stay, I'm afraid. In many black areas, it has become the "new norm" - it is now _marriage_ which is the social oddity. Does anyone here seriously expect this to change?
- John
Exactly. Why put the fathers name down? They know they can't get any money from him. If they put unknown, then Uncle Sammy will give them whatever they need compliments of the people who work and pay taxes.
Same principle applies to Je$$e Jack$on and why he won't race pimp in Sudan, where they still have slaves. Sudan won't give him any money, so he does it here instead.
But the best thing about it all is that I save time. Every time I get paid, I don't have to walk through the inner city and hand out money. Theres plenty of people who already do that for me.
I am sure that is partly the case. It is all part of the social fabric that ties one individual to another and makes the individual resonsible for his/her actions.
This is far too simplistic. Marriage is a lot of things, and not all marriages are created equal. Just saying "marriage reduces poverty" does nothing actually to address the issues that really inform the problem.
If you forced marriage on the types of folks who spawn the vast majority of illegitimate children, I seriously doubt that the poverty rate would change much. The divorce rate would go up, certainly.
Ultimately, illegitimacy is a byproduct of loose sexual mores. Girls who put out, and males who spread their seed indiscriminately. It's a cultural issue. And, like so many cultural issues, changing sexual mores will depend on the women.
There is that issue of financial interest: right now, there's no particular incentive to name the father; and there's plenty of incentive for the fathers to want to remain anonymous.
Raising the costs for both parents might help to reduce the illegitimacy rate somewhat, by increasing the abortion rate. But when the heat of the moment arrives, the girls will spread their legs without thinking about the welfare issues they'll face in 9 months.
If you want to attack the problem, you've got to convince the girls not to put out unless they're married. It's a difficult fight, made more difficult by the presence of a huge and pervasive media push to convince them otherwise.
That may be so, however I do find it hypocritical for a divorced man to speak to the importance of family bonds (unless he is speaking to repentance for his bad choices). It obviously was not a high priority for him or his wife.
Unwed women are among the Democrats’ most reliable constituencies. They have no incentive to reduce their numbers.
. . . and what does that mean about the government check? It means that, to the extent that the guy who becomes a "deadbeat dad" wants a long-term relationship with his girlfriend who becomes the "nondeadbeat mother," the government is a serious competitor. As far as he is concerned, the government is the problem.Let's not be so cavalier about poor men's problems. Because their sons are the next generation of the same syndrome - you cannot actually help a boy by any device which assures that he does not grow up respecting his father.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.