Gay Marriage

[kandrathe]

You forget that poor people don't pay taxes, so tax breaks mean nothing to them. Rich people make enough where the paltry deduction is also meaningless, and generally the sterotype is also that they have fewer if any children. The person who most benefits is the union wage blue collar (possibly Catholic to reinforce that stereotype) or middle management single wage earner where one works, and the other tends the household and raises the kids. That tax boon is aimed squarely at the majority middle to upper class voting block and only when someone talks of eliminating it do we hear cries of crippling poverty. I dunno, but I think the answer to that one is pretty simple. Give the able bodied dead beats free birth control and jobs working for the state, and if they don't show up enough times for work you contemplate putting the kids up for adoption. And to the other extremists here who advocated sterilization, No! But, you can offer an incentive for using something like the long lasting subdermal one.

If the state and federal governments really wanted to give a boon to families they would work at making high school gradation rates 100%, and college tuition as low as possible. This is one area where I come down on the side of state subsidy, and that is educating all the people who seek it. A good education for a bright and willing mind should not be a capitalist enterprise only available to those who can afford it.

But really do you see the state of federal government doing anything to help clueless parents raise children? The area where I live (which is affluant) is unique in that they have a very active community involvement in ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education). Odd, since the program is free for poorer people, but scaled for upper to high income levels. The local ECFE group here is constantly trying to prevent legislators from cutting the program, and going around raising money to keep the program going statewide.