Tag Archives: Big Government

Polemics

The biggest driver of income inequality is single motherhood

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Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
Does government provide incentives for people to NOT get married?

Indian economist Aparna Mathur, whose work I’ve featured here before, writes about it in Forbes magazine.

Excerpt:

The fabric of our society is changing. In 1980, approximately 78 percent of families with children were headed by married parents. In 2012, married parents headed only 66 percent of families with children. In a new report, Bradford Wilcox and Robert Lerman explore the role of family structure with new data and analysis, and document how this retreat from marriage is not simply a social and cultural phenomenon. It has important economic implications for, amongst others, men’s labor force participation rates, children’s high school dropout rates and teen pregnancy rates. Since these factors are highly correlated with economic opportunity and the ability to move up the income ladder, this suggests that income inequality and economic mobility across generations are critically influenced by people’s decisions and attitudes towards marriage. Understanding the role of family structure is therefore key to understanding the big economic challenges of our time.

[…]Wilcox and Lerman document how the shift away from marriage and traditional family structures has had important consequences for family incomes, and has been correlated with rising family-income inequality and declines in men’s labor force participation rates. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the authors find that between 1980 and 2012, median family income rose 30 percent for married parent families, For unmarried parents, family incomes rose only 14 percent.

These differential patterns of changes in family income have exacerbated family-income inequality. Since unmarried parent families generally expand the ranks of low-income families, while high-income, high-education adults increasingly marry partners from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, inequality trends are worsened.

[…]The authors estimate that approximately 32 percent of the growth in family-income inequality between 1979 and 2012 is associated with changes in family structure. Other research, studying the period 1968-2000, finds that the changing family structure, accounted for 11 percent of the rise widening of the income gap between the bottom and top deciles.

So, what specific policies discouraged people from marrying, especially before they have children? Was it conservative policies or liberal policies?

Robert Rector explains in The Daily Signal.

He writes:

It is no accident that the collapse of marriage in America largely began with the War on Poverty and the proliferation of means-tested welfare programs that it fostered.

When the War on Poverty began, only a single welfare program—Aid to Families with Dependent Children —assisted single parents.

Today, dozens of programs provide benefits to families with children, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Women, Infants and Children food program, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, child nutrition programs, public housing and Section 8 housing, and Medicaid.

Although married couples with children can also receive aid through these programs, the overwhelming majority of assistance to families with children goes to single-parent households.

The burgeoning welfare state has promoted single parenthood in two ways. First, means-tested welfare programs such as those described above financially enable single parenthood. It is difficult for single mothers with a high school degree or less to support children without the aid of another parent.

Means-tested welfare programs substantially reduce this difficulty by providing extensive support to single parents. Welfare thereby reduces the financial need for marriage. Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, less-educated mothers have increasingly become married to the welfare state and to the U.S. taxpayer rather than to the fathers of their children.

As means-tested benefits expanded, welfare began to serve as a substitute for a husband in the home, and low-income marriage began to disappear. As husbands left the home, the need for more welfare to support single mothers increased. The War on Poverty created a destructive feedback loop: Welfare promoted the decline of marriage, which generated a need for more welfare.

A second major problem is that the means-tested welfare system actively penalizes low-income parents who do marry. All means-tested welfare programs are designed so that a family’s benefits are reduced as earnings rise. In practice, this means that, if a low-income single mother marries an employed father, her welfare benefits will generally be substantially reduced. The mother can maximize welfare by remaining unmarried and keeping the father’s income “off the books.”

For example, a single mother with two children who earns $15,000 per year would generally receive around $5,200 per year of food stamp benefits. However, if she marries a father with the same earnings level, her food stamps would be cut to zero.

I blogged recently about a study that was done to make sure that welfare programs really do discourage young people from marrying, and that’s exactly what the study found.

The authors of that study found that penalties to marriage “on the margin”, i.e. – at lower income levels where welfare could substitute for a husband – caused lower rates of marriage:

“The supposition that marriage penalties have an impact on decisions to marry gains credence from the simple fact that marriage rates are highest among higher-income groups that are less affected by them and for whom such penalties represent a smaller proportion of total income,” they wrote.

So you see, the thing the left complains about (income inequality) is actually the thing they do the most to cause. Their big spending on welfare programs for the poor makes it easier for them not to get married and stay married before they have children. This is true across all races, too. It’s an economic issue, not a race issue. People on the left are all about taxpayer-funded welfare programs and growing government to make more and more people dependent. They are causing the income inequality, and then complaining about what they have caused.

So what’s the answer? It seems to me that we should be paying people to do what is best for children – marriage. People do more of what they get rewarded for doing. Right now, we’re taking money from high-earning married couples, and paying people to have fatherless children. This creates more dependency, more poverty, and more income inequality. If we want to reduce income inequality, and for children to be happier, we should be encouraging people to marry.

News

Is government good at spending taxpayer money to stimulate the economy?

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Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue
Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue

I’ve been seeing a lot of talk up north in Canada from the substitute drama teacher they elected about how he wants to stimulate the economy by taking money out of the productive private sector and putting into the inefficient, wasteful public sector.

Here’s an example of how he intends to stimulate the economy, as reported by Life Site News. (H/T Kevin the Super-Husband)

It says:

The Liberal government is pledging $81.5 million to the United Nations’ Population Fund to fund “sexual and reproductive health services and rights,” International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced Monday.

And that could include access to abortion in countries where it is legal, according to a “senior government official,” who told iPolitics reporter Amanda Connelly that the individual countries in the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) are free to allocate funding to provide access to abortion.

“Sexual and reproductive health services and rights” is well-known UN-speak for contraception and abortion on demand, noted Campaign Life Coalition’s Matt Wojciechowski, who represents CLC at the United Nations.

The Liberals’ decision is a reversal of the Conservatives’ stated ban on abortion funding as part of international aid in the 2010 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal Health.

At that time, the Conservatives pledged $2.8 billion over five years towards improving maternal health and the lives of newborn infants in developing countries, but the initiative, including the Tories apparent refusal to fund abortion, was subject to ongoing criticism.

The Conservatives pledged a further $3.5 billion from 2015 to 2020 for maternal, newborn and child health care projects in developing nations in May 2014, at which time Harper was again criticized when he reiterated that his government would not fund abortion overseas as part of that initiative.

The Liberals promised during the October 2015 election campaign that they would “cover the full range of reproductive health services as part of the [Muskoka] initiatives,” which a Liberal Party official at the time confirmed included abortion where legal, reported Connelly.

“Canada is committed to universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights,” Bibeau stated in a press release Monday. “We also believe that programming decisions on these matters should be driven by evidence and outcomes, not ideology.”

Trudeau has been very energetic about how he is going to stimulate the economy by taking money from job creators in the private sector and spending it to “create jobs”. Well, this is what happens when Christians vote for government to “create jobs” by “infrastructure spending”. And they are going to be running budget deficits much worse than what they promised. This is what the vast majority of Canadians voted for in their last election.

But we also waste money down here in the United States, too. Do you ever wonder what happens to the cut that the government takes out of your pay for your private sector activities? The Constitution sets out areas where the federal government is authorized to spend money. But the Democrat Party doesn’t believe in the Constitution, they believe in buying votes and pushing the culture to the left.

Congressional Budget Office: Debt to GDP ratio
Congressional Budget Office: Debt to GDP ratio

Here’s a story from the Daily Caller to explain what stimulating the economy looks like in the United States. (H/T Dad)

Excerpt:

Academics at the University of Oregon have determined that glaciers and the science that studies them are deeply sexist.

“Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions,” reads the paper’s abstract. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Progress in Human Geography in January.

The study, by historian Dr. Mark Carey and some student researchers, was financially supported by taxpayer dollars. The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave Carey a five-year grant which he used to write his “feminist glaciology” paper. Carey has received $709,125 in grants from the NSF, according to his curriculum vitae.

“Most existing glaciological research – and hence discourse and discussions about cryospheric change – stems from information produced by men, about men, with manly characteristics, and within masculinist discourses,” Carey wrote. “These characteristics apply to scientific disciplines beyond glaciology; there is an explicit need to uncover the role of women in the history of science and technology, while also exposing processes for excluding women from science and technology.”

Carey concluded glacier research is intertwined with gender relations, masculine culture, geopolitics, institutional power and racism — these apparently led to to glacier-related academic and governmental jobs being predominantly filled by men. Damages from melting glaciers target women and ethnic minorities, who “are more vulnerable to glacier changes and hazards than are men,” according to Carey.

That’s a shovel ready project, right there. That will create jobs for sure. And no wonder that people in academia tend to support Democrats. They support Democrats for the same reason that people on welfare support Democrats – because that’s where they get their money for sitting around doing nothing. Private sector research into new products and services is more useful, and doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime.

Public Works

Henry Hazlitt’s book “Economics in One Lesson” explains the problem with taxing the private sector to build public works.

Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, chapter 4, entitled “Public Works Mean Taxes”.

Excerpt:

Therefore, for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them at work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing. But there are other things that we do not see, because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence. They are the jobs destroyed by the $10 million taken from the taxpayers. All that has happened, at best, is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project. More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, television technicians, clothing workers, farmers.

And consider Chapter 5 as well, entitled “Taxes Discourage Production”.

In our modern world there is never the same percentage of income tax levied on everybody. The great burden of income taxes is imposed on a minor percentage of the nation’s income; and these income taxes have to be supplemented by taxes of other kinds. These taxes inevitably affect the actions and incentives of those from whom they are taken. When a corporation loses a hundred cents of every dollar it loses, and is permitted to keep only fifty-two cents of every dollar it gains, and when it cannot adequately offset its years of losses against its years of gains, its policies are affected. It does not expand its operations, or it expands only those attended with a minimum of risk. People who recognize this situation are deterred from starting new enterprises. Thus old employers do not give more employment, or not as much more as they might have; and others decide not to become employers at all. Improved machinery and better-equipped factories come into existence much more slowly than they otherwise would. The result in the long run is that consumers are prevented from getting better and cheaper products to the extent that they otherwise would, and that real wages are held down, compared with what they might have been.

There is a similar effect when personal incomes are taxed 50, 60 or 70 percent. People begin to ask themselves why they should work six, eight or nine months of the entire year for the government, and only six, four or three months for themselves and their families. If they lose the whole dollar when they lose, but can keep only a fraction of it when they win, they decide that it is foolish to take risks with their capital. In addition, the capital available for risk-taking itself shrinks enormously. It is being taxed away before it can be accumulated. In brief, capital to provide new private jobs is first prevented from coming into existence, and the part that does come into existence is then discouraged from starting new enterprises. The government spenders create the very problem of unemployment that they profess to solve.

We need to realize that outside of Constitutional spending authority, taxes are a waste of money. We’re $19 trillion in debt. We can’t afford talk of “stimulating the economy” through government spending. It’s a lie. Government spending kills job creation. They can hide the impact by adding the spending to the debt, but eventually, we do feel the impact of wasting money. Especially the foolish young socialists, who are going to have to pay it all back.

News

Feminism triumphant: day care workers convicted of abusing children

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Children need their mothers for at least two years after birth, and five years is best
Children need their mothers for at least two years after birth, and five years is best

Northern Virginia is one of the wealthiest areas of the country, because so many rich government workers live there and work in Washington, D.C.. Housing prices are high, and women often join their husbands in the workplace, in order to afford more and better things to show off to the neighbors.

But what happens to the young pre-school children? No problem, say Hillary Clinton and the radical feminists: we can just hand them off to strangers to raise, because children don’t really need a mother in the home in order to do well. After all, we have to make men and women identical, because feminism! No gender distinctions, because that would be sexism, and sexism is bad.

NBC News reports on what happened next:

Previously happy children became aggressive, were afraid of water and even stopped talking after they were abused at a day care center in Northern Virginia, emotional parents testified Monday in Manassas.

The trial of Sarah Jordan began Monday. Jordan is one of two women accused of abusing children age 16 months to 2 years old at Minnieland Academy at The Glen in Woodbridge. Jordan faces 37 charges in the alleged abuse of 13 toddlers.

Ten parents spoke Monday, some in tears, about seeing dramatic changes in their children after they joined Jordan’s classroom.

One after the other, parents testified about troubling behavior that emerged when their little ones were moved into Jordan’s class of toddlers, nicknamed “The Monkey Room.”

Parents said their children became aggressive at home, stomped on their parents toes and became afraid of water. Some refused to bathe, their parents said, and most cried when they were dropped off at the center.

Police say the behavior is the result of Jordan and Kierra Spriggs, who also is accused of abuse, spraying children with a hose and encouraging them to bite and fight each other.

One father, Adam Smith, testified that his daughter “completely stopped talking” once she was in Jordan’s care.

And there are updates on the trials of the two women  who were accused of abusing the children.

This one from the Washington Post:

A judge on Wednesday found a former day-care worker guilty of emotionally and physically abusing seven toddlers who were in her care at the Minnieland Academy in Woodbridge.

Sarah A. Jordan, 31, of Woodbridge, was convicted of seven felony counts of child cruelty and six misdemeanors in a bench trial before Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Tracy C. Hudson.

She faces a maximum sentence of 41 years and is being held without bail until her sentencing, set for May 6.

Jordan showed no emotion as the verdict was rendered. Parents of some of the children wept in the courtroom.

Jordan had pleaded not guilty and denied all accusations that she sprayed children full force with a hose and pitted some children against each other to fight, among other acts.

Jordan worked at the day-care center until August 2013 and was arrested three months later.

Here’s the latest news from NBC News:

A Virginia daycare teacher accused of turning her classroom of 2-year-olds into a “baby fight club” was knocked out by a jury on Thursday.

Kierra Spriggs was convicted of child cruelty and other abusive behavior charges after a two-week trial in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

She was found guilty of four felony counts of child cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, according to NBC Washington. She could get up to five years in prison on each of the felony count convictions and a year for each misdemeanor count.

[…]At trial, witnesses described how Spriggs forced twin sisters to fight each other. They said Spriggs regularly mistreated the kids by stomping on bares toes, dunking them in cold water, and throwing them on cots.

[…]Shanna Greisen said she pulled her 21-month-old son out of Minnieland because dreaded going to daycare.

“He would just cry,” she told NBC Washington. “He would throw himself on the floor, you know. Just, ‘No mommy, no mommy.'”

Ah, but the show must go on, mothers of young children, so no use crying about it. The important thing is that mothers of young children keep on paying taxes to big government. Big government needs their tax money to buy other people’s votes.

Christians on board with feminism

The Gospel Coalition, which has embraced radical feminism for some time, celebrates daycare for 3-month-old children:

After 12 weeks of glorious (and delirious) maternity leave, I returned to my job. I worked out a solution with my boss to return in a capacity my husband and I felt would be wise for our family. While my work may look different than some other moms, I believe I am serving God faithfully in it, by his grace.

Three months, then back to work. All you have to do is claim that God is leading you to do it, (through your feelings), and poof! Divine approval for radical feminism.

My friend McKenzie, who sent me that article, wondered if the Gospel Coalition was just becoming Salon.com for Christians. All you have to do is take an article from a radically leftist publication, add a few Bible verses, and you have something to post on the Gospel Coalition. That’s how far radical feminism has spread, I guess. Once upon a time, women used to value men who had good practical degrees, good resumes, and good jobs – so that they could be stay-at-home moms and meet their childrens’ needs. Now, it’s just follow your heart. There’s no planning for the needs of children.

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