Replies

“Another nice diatribe.”

If you don’t like hearing tough answers, cease asking tough questions. If you want to discuss the moral and ethical reasons behind what is right and fair when it comes to taxation, be prepared to put on your thinking cap. Don’t just complain that you don’t like something or feel it is unfair.

“You believe you should be paid for rendering an essential function to society.”

That’s incorrect. That’s like saying that coupons are paying people to buy a product. Reducing the tax burden of those CURRENTLY raising children, is not PAYING them to do so. The net cost far exceeds any tax breaks parents receive. People still have children for many other reasons. It is generally NOT in order to grow one’s wealth. That has not been the case since we quit being an agrarian society.

Granted, there are the “welfare queens” you mentioned. But that is due to means-tested welfare, not income tax credits and deductions.

“You still have not answered the question. I didn’t not ask what are the taxes we pay given the current tax code. Are you saying that unless I give in all of the politically correct proscribed ways I should pay more taxes than someone who does?”

Families are a basic unit of society. Nothing “politically correct” about advocating for the priority and importance of family.

In an agrarian society, there would be no need to offer tax deductions or credits for children. In agrarian societies, more children means more wealth. At least that’s the case if you own land.

But it costs more to raise children in an industrial or information economy. (It’s about a quarter of a million to raise them in the USA. And you usually need to continue supporting them for part of their adult life also.) And a free market economy thrives on an increasing population due to the law of supply and demand. Socialism is optimized for a declining population in which wealth can be syphoned off the dying to redistribute to the living. It is based on death rather than productivity.

Would you prefer to import third-world laborers to keep up the demand? Or would you prefer depreciating assets such as real property by having a negative population growth?

Your ability to grow wealth depends on a family-centric economic policy.

Would you prefer for children to become the property of the state and we all become comrades?

Hillary and her ilk claim it takes a village to raise a child. I would argue that it takes strong families to build strong nations.

It’s not a matter of whether you should pay more, but that families should pay less. Large families should carry less burden of taxation.

You must think of this in terms of natural law. We have a government by the consent of the people whereby we collectively yield some of our natural rights to the government in order to provide for the common welfare (e.g. national defense). If you were born into this world where there were no other people but your own family, you could do whatever you wanted. There would be no government to tax you. But we derive an economic benefit by sharing our land with others to form a nation. There is specialization of labor and economies of scale, etc. Part of the benefit we derive is from families having more children. Those children are the customers who buy whatever good or service you provide to earn income.

Having children and properly raising them represents the greatest contribution people make to the society of which they are a part. This is more fundamental than work or taxation. Without children being born and raised, society would collapse. Civilization would collapse.

It is the responsibility of children to look out and care for their parents in their old age. Do you think other people’s children should look out for you and care for you in your old age? Why?

Be thankful that there will be someone to look out for you in your old age. Somebody has to do the work of having and raising those children.

Should you pay more or the same income tax?

I believe that income taxes should be replaced with something more productive. There are several alternatives.

“so does every welfare queen in the US. Have babies get money.”

Welfare is means tested. And that makes it destructive. It motivates people to be and remain poor in order to receive the incentive. Child tax credits or deductions do not give a negative incentive to keep people unproductive. If anything, having children encourages being more productive to earn more to take care of the ones you have.

Child tax credits and deductions are open to all tax payers. So if you feel this is such an incredible deal, then by all means avail yourself of them. Don’t sit on the sidelines missing out. Go get you some children. Can’t have your own? Adopt some. God knows we need more conservatives raising children today. If you don’t want to take on this responsibility, then stop complaining about the tax advantages parents receive while raising children. They’re benefitting society and you.

If you want to argue against means-tested welfare or billions of dollars being spent on compulsory public education with no parental choice, you won’t hear any argument from me. But, given that income tax is the primary way our federal government raises revenues to operate, a modest child tax credit that offsets a small part of the cost to raise a child is good policy. I’d rather change our overall way of taxation, but that is not on the table right now.