They forgot:
High taxes
Supporting endless litters of illegitimate children
What benefit do I have if I have three or four kids, get married and stay married?
At the end of the day, if I have no children I might pay a little more in taxes, but nothing that even nearly approaches the real cost of having them. Yet when I'm older I will reap all the benefits from those children even if I choose to have none, which would not have been the case 150 years ago, before we became so advanced, progressive, cultured and with a social/safety net.
If I gave you a trillion dollars and it were all in a huge pile but you were the only person left alive on this planet, what would that money do for you other than warm you as you burn it? Money is nothing more than an abstract concept of human capital/labor/creativity. It always has been and it will always be that the young feed the old. In our system today those that choose to have no children and live hedonistic into the day can live out their wildest fantasies, and in the end those with kids who self sacrificed will have their kids pay for the savage in his old age.
We have created a system that punishes having children. That punishes being married in its tax code. That gives the institution of marriage no status or privilege legally other than having a spouse being able to make a claim against one for alimony in case of a divorce. Try getting information on your married spouse when the doctor’s office calls that you wish to relay. Not even the most basic powers are assumed present when married; no you need to get a power of attorney for that. Divorce by the way is very easy and near consequence free……..
Most people will follow the path of least resistance and are outright hedonists (maximize pleasure). We have de-incentivized and devalued marriage in every respect. In the arts and entertainment, legally where it brings nothing other than risk if separated, in costs were the tax code essentially punishes people, granting anyone essentially the same privileges and perks of being married (i.e. gays), where those with kids won't even be the ones reaping the benefits of those kids when they are old and their kids are providing to sustain the system but those who chose to not have kids will still benefit...........
What do people expect? Seriously!
The American people have never learned and never will, I suspect.
I agree with you. Out of wedlock births are a disaster. Here in Texas Medicaid (for the destitute) makes up 25% of the state budget. One half of all children are born at public expense, and two thirds of those in nursing homes are paid for by the state. I’m sure other states are just as bad. Our governments engender this type of social dysfunction and the Democrats exploit it to the max. Capitalism is a great system but it wasn’t meant to make these type of people members of the middle class. The Democrats would have you believe that it is greedy Republicans at the root of our dissolution. I know better.