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Yesterday it was announced that President Clinton will be promoting a national program to subsidize child care. In today's news was an article revealing that the US Conference of Mayors was bemoaning the increase in homelessness, hunger and poverty in these United States. It is instructive to examine the relationship between these two events.
First, let's consider poverty and homelessnes. The principal symptomatic causes of poverty and homelessness, according to the Conference of Mayors, include:
- Increased substance abuse.
- Mental illness.
- The high cost of housing.
- Low-paying jobs.
The two principal underlying causes, however, are rarely discussed. These are:
- There are too many parents who are unable or unwilling to raise emotionally healthy children. This increased the frequencey of mental illness and substance abuse in their offspring.
- There are too many people, period. This results in:
- A demand for housing that exceeds supply, which in turn leads to an increase in the cost of housing.
- More people than are necessary to produce all required goods and services, which in turn leads to an increase in the number of low-paying jobs.
Now let's consider the President's planned taxpayer-subsidized child care program. (And while we're at it, let's not forget the recently-enacted tax legislation that increased tax deductions for dependents (aka "children".) What are the principal effects of these initiatives?
- First, they promote additional child-bearing by reducing the financial disincentives associated with bearing and raising children. In fact, to those who are not able to accurately estimate in advance the real costs of raising chldren (which group includes a substantial minority, if not a majority, of the adult population), these programs will appear to create an incentive for child-bearing. Herein lies the co-dependence1 that I referred to in the title of this essay.
- Second, the initiatives actually penalize those responsible people who elect not to have children by causing their tax rate (along with that of all other taxpayers) to be increased in order that those with children can enjoy the aforementioned subsidies.
- Finally, because the outcome of these initiatives is likely to be an increase in the number of children born to incompetent and under-capitalized parents, they will also ultimately result in an increase in the number of people who abuse drugs, the number of people with mental illness, and the number of people, period. The last of these will, as we have seen, further increase the demand for housing and jobs, which in turn will further increase the cost of housing and the number of low-paying jobs.
All in all, the President's proposed child-care subsidy, together with recent changes in the tax code, can be expected to accelerate the growth of poverty, homelessness and hunger in this country. Where is the President's Analyst when you need him?
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1 Co-dependence is a personality disorder involving a tendency to place the needs and wants of others first and to the exclusion of acknowledging one's own; continued investment of self-esteem in the ability to control both oneself and others; excessive worry about how others may respond to one's feelings; and undue fear of being hurt and/or rejected by others, among other things. Signs of co-dependence include:
reacting to a person in such a way as to shield him from experiencing the full impact of the harmful consequences of his behavior. Enabling behavior differs from helping in that it permits or encourages the person to be irresponsible.