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Thread: Reducing Births

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    Default Reducing Births

    It can be frustrating that childless people and people with only one kid wind up subsidizing families with more kids (by way of child tax credits, benefits that are more available for people with more kids, and higher payments for things like public schooling, etc.) Yet, at the same time, we don't want to punish innocent kids by letting them sit in functional poverty just because their parents decided to have a "quiverfull" without an income to afford that without help.

    So, here's an idea for a solution: give parents an option of whether or not to claim any benefits for kids beyond the first two (e.g., whether to claim them for child tax credit/welfare purposes, whether to send them to public school, etc.) If the parents opt-in, then they get those things the same as today.... but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.

    So, if you want to claim four kids for tax purposes, and send four kids to public school, and so on, that's fine and is your choice. However, you'll effectively pay back the rest of society for your disproportionate take by way of postponing retirement. You'll work until 77 before the government gives you full SS benefits, where most get then them at 67. Want 6 kids? Fine, we'll help out with that, too -- but expect to work until you're 87 (or dead). It sort of takes the form of a loan, where the extra benefits your kids suck up when they're young wind up being partly reimbursed by you in your elder years.

    That would discourage people from burdening the environment by overbreeding, but would ultimately leave that decision to the individual. It would avoid punishing the kids. And it would help to prop up SS and Medicare funding.

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    So kids are takers ? And when the kids grow up they fund this country with taxes , going forward there is going to be a labor shortage, And who will fund SS

    Not many families with a lot of children as there once was

    There is a demographic now that is dying faster then they are replacing
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    Quote Originally Posted by guno View Post
    So kids are takers ?
    Of course they are.

    And when the kids grow up they fund this country with taxes
    And when they grow up they'll also continue to take in the form of benefits.

    going forward there is going to be a labor shortage
    If that were to wind up being true, then we could remedy that simply by boosting immigration -- which has the benefit of not creating an additional population burden on the global environment.

    And who will fund SS
    Those workers who have their retirements postponed will help. If we wind up needing more young workers, as well, then we can address that with boosted immigration, which doesn't increase overall planetary population burden.

    Not many families with a lot of children as there once was
    Yes. For most, my policy idea wouldn't be any kind of hardship, since they weren't going to overbreed to begin with. But, for those who do choose to have a bunch of kids, this would cause them to pay society back for the disproportionate burden that placed.

    There is a demographic now that is dying faster then they are replacing
    I'm not sure what you're saying.

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    Is this just another subtle “Cadillac Welfare Queen” attack masqueraded in supposed concern for “kids sitting in functional poverty?”

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.
    So the more kids you have to support the Social Security system, the more you are punished? How does that make sense? Remember, kids grow up to be the workers who will support us directly, or indirectly in our old age. If we punish the production of such workers, we are destroying retirement for everyone.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    It can be frustrating that childless people and people with only one kid wind up subsidizing families with more kids (by way of child tax credits, benefits that are more available for people with more kids, and higher payments for things like public schooling, etc.) Yet, at the same time, we don't want to punish innocent kids by letting them sit in functional poverty just because their parents decided to have a "quiverfull" without an income to afford that without help.

    So, here's an idea for a solution: give parents an option of whether or not to claim any benefits for kids beyond the first two (e.g., whether to claim them for child tax credit/welfare purposes, whether to send them to public school, etc.) If the parents opt-in, then they get those things the same as today.... but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.

    So, if you want to claim four kids for tax purposes, and send four kids to public school, and so on, that's fine and is your choice. However, you'll effectively pay back the rest of society for your disproportionate take by way of postponing retirement. You'll work until 77 before the government gives you full SS benefits, where most get then them at 67. Want 6 kids? Fine, we'll help out with that, too -- but expect to work until you're 87 (or dead). It sort of takes the form of a loan, where the extra benefits your kids suck up when they're young wind up being partly reimbursed by you in your elder years.

    That would discourage people from burdening the environment by overbreeding, but would ultimately leave that decision to the individual. It would avoid punishing the kids. And it would help to prop up SS and Medicare funding.

    I'm not sure that consequences would discourage folks from their actions.

    They don't seem to grasp the role played by intercourse in the process of becoming pregnant.

    Why they would grasp the role played by delayed Social Security in retirement age seems optimistic in the extreme.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    It can be frustrating that childless people and people with only one kid wind up subsidizing families with more kids (by way of child tax credits, benefits that are more available for people with more kids, and higher payments for things like public schooling, etc.) Yet, at the same time, we don't want to punish innocent kids by letting them sit in functional poverty just because their parents decided to have a "quiverfull" without an income to afford that without help.

    So, here's an idea for a solution: give parents an option of whether or not to claim any benefits for kids beyond the first two (e.g., whether to claim them for child tax credit/welfare purposes, whether to send them to public school, etc.) If the parents opt-in, then they get those things the same as today.... but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.

    So, if you want to claim four kids for tax purposes, and send four kids to public school, and so on, that's fine and is your choice. However, you'll effectively pay back the rest of society for your disproportionate take by way of postponing retirement. You'll work until 77 before the government gives you full SS benefits, where most get then them at 67. Want 6 kids? Fine, we'll help out with that, too -- but expect to work until you're 87 (or dead). It sort of takes the form of a loan, where the extra benefits your kids suck up when they're young wind up being partly reimbursed by you in your elder years.

    That would discourage people from burdening the environment by overbreeding, but would ultimately leave that decision to the individual. It would avoid punishing the kids. And it would help to prop up SS and Medicare funding.
    Nonsense! It takes a village to raise a child!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Defender of Honor View Post
    Nonsense! It takes a village to raise a child!
    Maybe, however it takes parents to raise a functioning adult who can contribute.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Damocles View Post
    Maybe, however it takes parents to raise a functioning adult who can contribute.
    That's a luxury for a lot of kids
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    It can be frustrating that childless people and people with only one kid wind up subsidizing families with more kids (by way of child tax credits, benefits that are more available for people with more kids, and higher payments for things like public schooling, etc.) Yet, at the same time, we don't want to punish innocent kids by letting them sit in functional poverty just because their parents decided to have a "quiverfull" without an income to afford that without help.

    So, here's an idea for a solution: give parents an option of whether or not to claim any benefits for kids beyond the first two (e.g., whether to claim them for child tax credit/welfare purposes, whether to send them to public school, etc.) If the parents opt-in, then they get those things the same as today.... but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.

    So, if you want to claim four kids for tax purposes, and send four kids to public school, and so on, that's fine and is your choice. However, you'll effectively pay back the rest of society for your disproportionate take by way of postponing retirement. You'll work until 77 before the government gives you full SS benefits, where most get then them at 67. Want 6 kids? Fine, we'll help out with that, too -- but expect to work until you're 87 (or dead). It sort of takes the form of a loan, where the extra benefits your kids suck up when they're young wind up being partly reimbursed by you in your elder years.

    That would discourage people from burdening the environment by overbreeding, but would ultimately leave that decision to the individual. It would avoid punishing the kids. And it would help to prop up SS and Medicare funding.
    How about screwing this whole social engineering thing and taxing everyone the same? From the first dollar to the last. No complicated deductions and a post card sized form to the IRS.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Defender of Honor View Post
    That's a luxury for a lot of kids
    And a lot of kids are raised to be children because of that. The goal shouldn't be to raise children. We should work to get children parents rather than pretend villages are enough to raise functioning adults.
    Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
    - -- Aristotle

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    - -- The Buddha

    It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    It can be frustrating that childless people and people with only one kid wind up subsidizing families with more kids (by way of child tax credits, benefits that are more available for people with more kids, and higher payments for things like public schooling, etc.) Yet, at the same time, we don't want to punish innocent kids by letting them sit in functional poverty just because their parents decided to have a "quiverfull" without an income to afford that without help.

    So, here's an idea for a solution: give parents an option of whether or not to claim any benefits for kids beyond the first two (e.g., whether to claim them for child tax credit/welfare purposes, whether to send them to public school, etc.) If the parents opt-in, then they get those things the same as today.... but, in exchange, the parents have their Medicare/SS full eligibility age postponed by 5 years for each such kid.

    So, if you want to claim four kids for tax purposes, and send four kids to public school, and so on, that's fine and is your choice. However, you'll effectively pay back the rest of society for your disproportionate take by way of postponing retirement. You'll work until 77 before the government gives you full SS benefits, where most get then them at 67. Want 6 kids? Fine, we'll help out with that, too -- but expect to work until you're 87 (or dead). It sort of takes the form of a loan, where the extra benefits your kids suck up when they're young wind up being partly reimbursed by you in your elder years.

    That would discourage people from burdening the environment by overbreeding, but would ultimately leave that decision to the individual. It would avoid punishing the kids. And it would help to prop up SS and Medicare funding.
    Nah. Far too draconian, and not in keeping with democratic ideals that we're all in this together. And what about all the states now banning abortion -- should someone who wanted one but couldn't get one be penalized? Besides, like most industrialized nations, our birth rate has been steadily falling.

    "Rather, the U.S. birth rate has continued a steady descent. As of 2020, the U.S. birth rate was 55.8 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, a decline of almost 20 percent from the rate of 69.3 in 2007. The decline in births cannot readily be explained by changing population composition."

    The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes.
    "Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain

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    Quote Originally Posted by Walt View Post
    So the more kids you have to support the Social Security system, the more you are punished?
    The more you burden the environment with excess population, the longer you work to make up for it. If you're worried about Social Security, that's easy to fix simply by admitting more young workers as immigrants.... which gives us the SS contributions without the added global population.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mina View Post
    The more you burden the environment with excess population, the longer you work to make up for it. If you're worried about Social Security, that's easy to fix simply by admitting more young workers as immigrants.... which gives us the SS contributions without the added global population.
    Social Security is not paid for by the environment, it is paid for by people. Environmental damage is a separate problem.

    Even there, reasonable population is good for technology, and therefore good for the environment.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Code1211 View Post
    I'm not sure that consequences would discourage folks from their actions.

    They don't seem to grasp the role played by intercourse in the process of becoming pregnant.

    Why they would grasp the role played by delayed Social Security in retirement age seems optimistic in the extreme.
    Possibly. But to the extent this results in them eventually taking less out of SS, and paying more in, through delayed retirement eligibility, that helps as well.

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