Important economic trend: Efforts to limit women’s access to health care are beginning to show success. Births are down and more women are unable see OB/GYNs while pregnant.
If this trend continues we’ll be able to create the Handmaid’s Tale for real.
Prohibit access to abortion and contraception, would help reverse that trend.
Steve…did see “The Boys From Brazil”.
And abortions have also gone up in, oh the last couple years, so the bans haven’t worked as well as they should have:
Pete
Some would say that “proves leaving it up to the states doesn’t work”.
Steve
Ohhhhhhhhh, yeah.
Pete
Or some would say, the best of both worlds.
DB2
Tax law already favors families with children. Making life easier for working moms would be a good idea. Low cost available child care. How about school districts offer child care for free or greatly subsidized?
Some places pay parents bonuses for having children. But how do you get middle class babies who enter the work force rather than welfare moms.
But that violates the principle of equal protection under the law, by the government subsidizing certain personal, private, decisions, and punishing others.
Meanwhile, free day care would be Communism!!!, as well as “undermining the traditional family unit”, by enabling women to work, instead of staying home and minding the spawn.
As we know, the “welfare moms” have time to stay home with the spawn. When Michigan tried to impose a work requirement for Medicaide, they wrote in an exception for women with young spawn, because day care would cost more than mom could make at a menial job.
Staying home with the spawn is not an option for middle class women, because many of them work, but can’t afford day care.
Of course, men of a certain ilk say women are supposed to stay home with the spawn, regardless of economic class, but those men are members of the class who took away pay and benefits from working men, over the last 40 years, so their wives need to work too, to maintain a middle class lifestyle.
Steve
What ways does tax law favor families with children?
The deductions and credits surely don’t offset the cost of raising a child.
Just like free public education is Communism. That is one of our most successful programs and I doubt that anyone would dispute that.
Making it easier to raise children is an investment in our future.
Project 2025 advocates shutting down the Federal Dept of Education.
In principle, I would not have a problem with that. If the voters of a state refuse to tax themselves enough to provide a decent education, then that should not be the Federal government’s problem. Let the people of that state wallow in ignorance and superstition, and wonder why no companies want to locate there and hire their illiterate spawn at a decent wage.
But that is not what would happen. What would happen is education would be rationed by ability to pay. Everyone gets a voucher for what little the state allocates for education. People who can pull a few thousand, per year, per kid, out of their own pocket, add the voucher to it and send their spawn to private school. People who don’t have thousands in their pocket, have only the voucher, and, for that, they get bantu education.
Steve
Isn’t that a lifestyle choice? Is there some reason the government should offset the total costs of child rearing through the tax code?
Yes, raising children is costly. And full compensation is out of the question. But making it easier for working moms is a plus.
It violates the principle of equal protection under the law. I applauded the walking back of the local tax deduction on Federal income tax. Why is it the Federal government’s problem, if someone makes the personal, private, decision to live where state and local taxes are high?
This is the problem looking at screeds like “plan 2025”. Sometimes there is something in there that I can agree with. Things I would lump in with the position on the Dept of Education: the Feds handing out money for state and local police departments, blight clearance, road maintenance. If the people of the state will not tax themselves enough to cover these costs, why is the Federal government required to whip out it’s infinite credit card, and pay the bills the taxpayers refuse to fund?
Steve
I do not share the view that nothing can be done. Improvements are needed.
It depends on the time period of “equal protection”. If you mean “immediately and for the short-term future”–without considering anything further–then your thinking might make sense. However, looking further–and planning farther–into the future means maintaining a population able to provide those same (similar/comparable) services in the future. Otherwise, given a declining population, the US will not be able maintain a capable military–and a lot of other things the US population takes for granted because the current US population is able to (barely) meet those expectations. Given a longer time frame, which is not unreasonable, it makes sense to offer benefit(s) to the reproduction-age population to have children. Over the years, it will also mean people being reasonably available to perform a variety of other jobs as older workers retire and leave the workforce. What happened when a lot of boomers began to think about retirement? Management looked at ways to do without as many workers–because it became practical to do so with modern technology. That desired choice may not be available in the future–or it MAY. As someone says, “You will see my wonderful plan in 2-3 weeks.” Years later, NADA. Reminds me of FSD–which is #^!@#$%^&().
There is no need for the population to decline. People are clamoring to come here.
Steve
Denying massive numbers of potential migrants because they are “not from Norway” means minimal numbers of migrants moving to the US. Norwegians are not particularly interested in moving to the US (for some reason). Thus, the US population will decline because the available “replacements” are being denied access. Choices have consequences.
Plus experts tell us birth rates are declining everywhere. The global population is near its peak. That supply of immigrants may be adequate for our lifetimes but the future looks bleak. Then maybe automation will become more acceptable.
Except Africa, IIRC. Nigeria, for example, should be adding another 50 million people every 10 years.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nigeria
DB2