Posted on 02/08/2008 12:52:43 AM PST by a_chronic_whiner
Two trends bedevil America. One is taxes. The second, more important, is marriage.
Those who pay no taxes have no check on their appetite for services. If somebody else is paying, nothing’s unaffordable.
At the federal level, 41 percent of the U.S. population is totally outside the income tax system, according to the Washington-based Tax Foundation. Since 2000, the number of filers with no tax liability, zero, has increased from 29 million to 42 million in 2005. Of 132.6 million returns filed in 2005, only 90.6 million paid taxes. The rest got back all they’d paid in — and more.
The second and more important concern, largely because of its impact on children, is the rise of single-parent households. Over the past 25 years, the percentage has grown from a quarter to a third. In Georgia, 35 percent of children live in single-parent homes and 39.2 percent of births in 2004 were to unmarried women, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Almost 70 percent of black children, almost half of Hispanic and a quarter of white children are born to unmarried women.
The liberal polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research singled out unmarried women and their potential impact on future elections. What it found should chill the spines of those who wish to reverse, or even slow, the growth of government — not so much because of its cost, but because Big Government steals the initiative and enterprise and independence of its wards.
“Because of the often stark economic reality of a single-income family, they [unmarried women] support an active government that will give all Americans a chance to get ahead, not just the affluent,” the organization reported.
As the nation discovered decades ago with welfare policies that pushed men out of the lives of poor women, except for procreation, women who previously found security in marriage turned instead to government. As Greenberg Quinlan Rosner find, unmarried women are a rich vein to be mined by Democrats. From its findings:
• “Marital status is playing an increasingly defining role in elections. For the 2006 congressional elections, the ‘marriage gap’ was 32 points, far bigger than the gender gap, which was just 9 points. Among women, the marriage gap was an even bigger 36 points … unmarried women tend to vote like other unmarried women, regardless of other powerful demographic variables such as age, income and education.”
• “Unmarried women are easily the largest segment of the Democratic base — bigger than Hispanics and African Americans combined.” And the second most loyal, second only to blacks. They favor Democrats over Republicans by a 70-24 margin, and Hillary Clinton over Rudy Giuliani by 66-30.
• “From 1960 to 2006, the percentage of the voting age population that was unmarried grew from 27 to 45 percent … If this trend continues, the unmarried will be a majority of the population within 15 years.”
• Their top economic concern is health care. “This group strongly supports fundamental reform to provide universal coverage that can never be taken away.”
• “In total, there are over 53 million unmarried women of voting age, a number that dwarfs the percentage of seniors, people of color and even union members.” Of those who voted in 2006, two-thirds chose Democrats. Some 20 million, however, did not vote. That’s 41 percent of the unmarrieds. Among the married, it was 29 percent. But “2008 could be very different if progressives see the opportunity before them.” Unmarried women “emerge as the largest contributor to the Democratic vote in 2008.”
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner views them as the “Democrats’ evangelicals.” opining that “if progressives turn them out, unmarried women can be as important to Democrats in 2008 as evangelicals were to Republicans in 2004.”
Combine the two: fewer people who pay taxes and a growing bloc of women who rely on government for their financial security and their household’s well-being.
The challenge for the nation is to rebuild the traditional two-parent family — primarily for the sake of children, but also as a balance to more and bigger government.
Yeahhhhhhhhhh...good luck with all that. And your issues with the ladies, too.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my non-fat a$$ up to make my fabulous, content, non-bitter, husband a stellar dinner. Buh-bye.
You went off on me as if I were the cause of all of your ills. You were insulting and it was unprovoked.
I made the comments I did because you said it was pretty much a problem of men and women.
I stand by that.
And while I agree with that, you folks don't know why men are very leery of long term relationships.
I never made any criticism about men being leery of long-term relationships. I think you're confusing me with another poster.
I still say that if you had to face what men do going into a marriage you'd probably opt out.
I have opted out. I'm single and happy. I wasn't going to have children without a father and Mr. Right tarried. I'm a tad picky and wasn't going to "settle" only to get into that whole divorce thing.
Please tell me what you think compares to the alimony and child support network set up for women? And please remember that about 70% of the women wind up with the children.
I never supported any of that. Never even mentioned it. You just went off on me as if I had.
I will state further, that my comments in post one were overly broad. And I think you folks should have taken me to task for it.
We did. And you insulted me and made assumptions.
Hey, I even made up with the guy who somehow (I have no idea how) found and posted a personal pix of me from the Internet here to try and show all how ugly I am and “prove his point” that I was “just jealous” (another all-too-typical strawman canard on these kinds of threads).
But I still got back at him by posting a good pix of myself. ;-)
This thread isn’t so personal as that!
Exactly.
Susan B. Anthony expressed the holistic nature of the feminist attitude in an 1869 editorial:
"Much as I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder, earnestly as I desire its suppression, I cannot believe . . . that such a law [prohibiting abortion] would have the desired effect. It seems to me to be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains. We want prevention, not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the evil, and destroy it."
Founded in 1972, FFL is a national non-sectarian, grassroots organization, which continues the efforts of the early American feminists including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to eliminate the causes that drive women to abortion by giving practical solution. FFL has emerged as the link between the pro-life and pro-choice worlds, working on efforts such as the enforcement of child support and, the Violence Against Women Act.
Besides, are you talking about “single women”, or about “single MOTHERS” (i.e., I presume, never-married breeders).
Because the gist of this story sure seemed to focus on welfare queens, even if they dare not say it as such.To be honest, I'm not sure why that figure stuck in my mind. I think it may have had to do with the 33% births out of wedlock. I am sorry to have quoted an inaccurate figure. Here are quotes from the article that are cause for concern along the same lines.
The second and more important concern, largely because of its impact on children, is the rise of single-parent households. Over the past 25 years, the percentage has grown from a quarter to a third.
In total, there are over 53 million unmarried women of voting age, a number that dwarfs the percentage of seniors, people of color and even union members.
To be clear, I don't make the case that this substantiates my eronious statement. It is none the less cause for concern. Thanks for the correction.
Well I do believe this does certianly address the problem of welfare queens, but we are seeing a rise in the numbers of young white women who are bearing children out of wedlock.
My wife and I were on vacation about seven years ago and during the afternoon she wanted to watch one of the afternoon talk shows. She worked and generally didn't get a chance to watch, so I wanted her to tune in and enjoy herself if she wanted to.
The topic for the day was mothers who were encouraging their young girls to have a baby. Here were mid thirty moms who were encouraging their daughter to get pregnant and bring a new baby into the home. It beat anything I had ever seen. It wasn't limited to what you could consider the welfare queen type of people either. And the girls were in the range of 14 to 16 years old. There may have been one or two in the 13 year old range, but I can't remember now. All I remember was they were shockingly young.
There seems to be an acceptance of out of marriage wedlock these days. If we're not careful, we're going to wind up with 50% out of wedlock births.
This is such a vitally important issue, that I wouldn't mind some sort of legislation to help bring these numbers back down. And if men get caught in that trap, so be it.
Thanks for the response.
Ouch. Now that is Mr. Right huh. Sorry.
Der Prinz can watch out for trucks! My wine consumption is down, too. I need some new Fundamentalist Frump Frocks and the kiddle are all looking ragged. (Fortunately, it’s fashionable :-).
It’s all penance!
Thank you for expanding on your comments.
You’re welcome.
This is why I get worked up concerning these matters.
Thanks for the link. Ream job!
Years ago, I was walking home one evening. I lived in an apartment complex at the time and took a shortcut across the lawn. A girl who lived in the complex was working in a little flower bed she had made out front. It was getting dark and she didn’t see very well. She saw me coming straight toward her, didn’t recognize me, and started to run in the house. She then recognized me, and apologized, saying that it frightened her when she saw a man veer off the sidewalk in the dark and head toward her. It didn’t anger me, and in fact I apologized because it hadn’t occurred to me that with her somewhat poor eyesight she might not recognize me.
Anyway, I could’ve gotten all bent out of shape and lectured her for stereotyping “all men” as rapists or assailants. But that would have been silly because the truth is, a large number of women are attacked by men each year. Her concern wasn’t unreasonable under the circumstances.
And our concern over women’s voting habits isn’t unreasonable. It doesn’t mean that every female in the world casts an uninformed ballot, or sees the voting booth as a place to vote herself goodies at someone else’s expense. But it’s absolutely true that more women than men vote that way, and it has something to do with feminine nature. To suggest that this topic is off-limits for discussion is not only logically indefensible, but quite well proves the point critics of women’s suffrage often make.
Too late...Bush already spent America 3 generations into the future...He spent our money like a drunken lottery winner.
Secondly, where are the Dads of these single mothers? Could they be deat beat dads who won't support their children? I know of at least one case of this scenario and I'm sure this isn't unusual. You try raising a couple of kids with only a high school education and no help from the father. So don't go blaming all this on women!
Thanks for your comments. I agree with them.
The thread is about single women, not single mothers and not about families in any sense.
...related. ;-)
DRAFT CONDI RICE FOR VICE PRESIDENT? (Seriously)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1967327/posts
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