Two Is Enough Why large families don't deserve tax breaks.

Slate ^ | March 29, 2004 | Dalton Conley

[Un Canadien Errant]

The U.S. government encourages families to have children, as many of them as possible. Child tax credits, child-care tax deductions, and family leave policies all reward parents with big broods. The pro-child policies are based partly on romantic notions about mom, family, and apple pie, but they also have a rational goal: We subsidize kids so that our next generation of workers is ready to win in the global economy.

[jihadjim]

But where would we get the taxpayers of the future to fund all the programs?

[Texasforever]

Most of the kids I see that are from large families are on medicaid.

1st question is how do you know that? And 2nd question where are the stats to back that claim up?

[Spell Correctly]

Seeing that Mohammedan women in Europe have 7 or 8 children, it's simply a matter of time before they become an Islamic continent (with nuclear weapons).

[Quix]

most of the large families I've known

Did much better at rearing kids than those with smaller families. Not sure why.

In any case, I'd be happy to allot my 2 to someone wanting a large family who demonstrated quality parenting!

[ex-snook]

"We want to be just like German or Italy, who are failing to reproduce themselves, and will starve in their old age due to lack of children. "

Nah, Europe is importing Muslims and we are importing whatever illegals can make it across the border to replace children.

Of course, these newly arrived can vote the olders off the dole when they see the tax rate for old age support and the interest payments from today's spend and borrow politicians. Their children, if any, will have to support them. What goes around comes around.

[Jeff Gordon]

One's income must be of certain levels to take advantage of multiple child decuctions. You can only deduct to the point of zero tax. Deductions beyond zero tax do nothing for you and provide no encouragements for anything. The people referred to in this article clearly do not have the income level where they would benefit from multiple child deductions.

Contrary to the point of the article, we DO want to engourage larger families for those families that can afford to be larger.

[freeangel]

I have only personal experience at a day surgery center in metro Atlanta. I see the "insurance" on every patient and much of the family comes along--some to act as translators.

[Un Canadien Errant]

Excellent point. For all the article's talk about giving oversized deductions for children beyond the first it fails to realize that many of these go unclaimed.
Oh to have a flat tax. The liberals would hate it of course because it show average man just how much money the government steals.

[patent]

I found the paragraph where he described his methodology to be remarkably telling:

Here's where my research comes in. I deploy a natural experiment: I examine which sexes parents get for their first two children—a seemingly random event. The key is that families with two kids of the same sex are 17 percent more likely to go on and have a third than those with two kids of the opposite sex. As it turns out, no matter what most people say on surveys (or when their kids pop out), many parents desire at least one of each kind. So my research strategy boils down to the following: comparing children from families in which the first two were of the same sex ("treatment group") to those in which the first two were of the opposite sex ("control group") in order to see who fares better educationally. In other words, while only some of the variation in who goes on to have a third child is accounted for by the sex mix (that 17 percent), that variation is "pure"—that is, unbiased by all the other factors that determine family size and determine achievement—since it is a result of the random event of the sex mix. Its lack of bias is bolstered by the fact that it does not matter which sex the first two are—either way, parents are more likely to go on to have additional kids in search of a complete set.

He starts with assumptions based on a parental attitude that children are hood ornaments. He formed his study and control groups around parents who want one of each sex so they can maintain proper appearances with a matched set of the “child” accessory to go with their other accessories. He then bases his research around these “accessorized” families that had a third kid to round out the set, and he wonders why those families have a harder time educating all three kids?????

News flash: the kid is practically an accessory to them, and if that accessory takes too much time, they won’t bother. Just like the boat, or the lake cabin, or the Jet Ski. It’s easy to care for one such accessory, especially when it’s the first: its novel, new, interesting, challenging. It starts to get old and boring by the time you have to fix up the second one, whether it’s the “boat” accessory or the “kid” accessory. When you have kids for your needs, rather than theirs, you are far less likely to put the time THEY need into them. When it is new and interesting, you find the time because YOU want to. When it starts to get boring, you move on to other accessories. So of course these kinds of parents find it easier to fully educate two than three. Those last two have to compete with the boat for a very small amount of attention, and only a small part of that attention will go to the latter born kids, whether its one kid or two.

This is how social engineering works. You change how folks view families and kids into mere accessories and encourage them to have only a couple. Some parents develop a faulty and debased attitude about kids. Rather than having kids for moral reasons and focusing on what the kid needs, they start to think of kids (in part) as things the parent “needs” to round out the parent’s life. So, once you’ve changed parental attitudes you use that debased attitude’s results to design a new study that more kids are bad. It’s using a flaw to expand that flaw. Its like pounding a hole in a dam and then complaining that water is flowing through the hole, and we should make a bigger hole to better manage the flowing water.

What they should really compare is how parents who had two same sex kids, and then had a third, raised their kids when compared to parents who had one boy and one girl, and then had a third child anyway. In the latter case that third kid is far more likely to have been wanted for who or what it is, rather than to round out the “child” accessory.

patent

Note: I recognize that many folks in the past had kids for their own purposes as well, kings to have heirs, farmers to have slave labor, etc. I just think the kid as a hood ornament attitude is even more debasing to the worth of the kid, and even more likely to cause a situation where the kid is uncared for, except when he needs polishing before a big event.

[ArrogantBustard]

This butthead is whining about "large families" at a time when Western Civilisation is in the process of contracepting, aborting, and buggering itself out of existence. I think what's really scaring him is that it's "right wing" folks in general and Christians (of various sorts) in particular that are reproducing. Demographics are destiny.

[ArrogantBustard]

I'm sure you'll find this dude's "analysis" absolutely fascinating.

[biblewonk]

Well, the thousands I get sure make it seem like the government is rewarding me for having a lot of kids. I know there have to be an awful lot of people out there that really resent that.

[No Truce With Kings]

Well, let's see. Take a country, any country. Remove all the DINKs, SINKS, gays, and those singles that will never have children. Come back in a 50 years. That country about is the same population as it would have been with those that are never going to have children.

Now take the same country. Remove all those that intend to have three or more children -- and their children while you are at it. Come back in 50 years. That country is on its way to depopulation.

Because a significant percentage of any country will chose to forego children -- and that is their choice -- large families are necessary if that country is not to depopulate.

Any country that discourages large families is headed for the dustbin of history.

[Antoninus]

On motherhood as the true source of progress, Teddy Roosevelt said:

"A more supreme instance of unselfishness than is afforded by motherhood cannot be imagined."

Before an audience of liberal Christian theologians in 1911, he said:

"If you do not believe in your own stock enough to see the stock kept up, then you are not good Americans, you are not patriots, and ... I for one shall not mourn your extinction; and in such event I shall welcome the advent of a new race that will take your place, because you wil have shown that you are not fit to cumber the ground."

On the centrality of the child-rich family to the very existence of the American nation:

"It is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests....The nation is nothing but the aggregate of the families within its borders."

On parenthood:

"No other success in life, not being President, or being wealthy, or going to college, or anything else, comes up to the success of the man and woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up to call them blessed."

On out-of-wedlock birth versus practiced sterility:

"After all, such a vice may be compatible with a nation's continuing to live, and while there is life, even a life marred by wrong practices, there is a chance of reform.

In another place, on the same subject:

"...[W]hile there is life, there is hope, whereas nothing can be done with the dead."

On the behavior of 90% of those who practice birth control:

"[It is derived] from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the unimportant."

On the "pitiable" child-rearing record of graduates of women's colleges like Vassar and Smith who bore only 0.86 of a child each during their lifetimes:

"Do these colleges teach 'domestic science'?... There is something radically wrong with the home training and school training that produces such results."

For the record, Teddy Roosevelt had seven kids of his own.

[Oberon]

Subsequent generations will benefit from Freepers having as many children as possible. =]

So go to it, Freepers! Do your duty!

[cherry]

I think that a goodly portion of all our "problems" today wouldn't be IF we had a strong birthrate among the working class citizens of the country....

now, we have unlimited immigration, diluting American values as well as driving up health and welfare programs to the verge of collapse...

Fact is, if every decent American couple had larger families, we wouldn't be seeing our economy OR our American values in the gutter....

not to disparge immigrants....we are afterall a nation of immigrants....but people used to have to get PERMISSION to come into our country....now, its a freeforall....

[Olydawg]

Two Is Enough Why large families don't deserve tax breaks.

... unless of course they are on wellfare then I'm sure this douche is all for giving them more and more.

[cherry]

"a society with no children "

Horrid to even imagine life without the little ones around.....

I always think that a baby is like a message from God....that we must always continually maintain and improve our societies for these little precious ones....

you see, THAT is what separates people with children from people without children....parents are always looking at what kind of life their kids will have when they are grown and are constantly trying to improve....

[hopespringseternal]

most of the large families I've known Did much better at rearing kids than those with smaller families. Not sure why.

It is because raising children is a selfless act. The more children a couple can handle, the more selfless they are. A lot of folks stop at two because with that second one you realize you are spending all your time pleasing two little tyrants.

However, one of the great secrets of life that few people act on is that you are happiest when you aren't getting your own way. People who spend their time trying to make themselves happy are the most unhappy and depressed.

Children are ultimately the most joyful thing you can have in your life because they give you a mission and a purpose outside of yourself.

[Quix]

I THOROUGHLY AGREE.

Thanks.