Posted on 04/15/2008 6:36:59 AM PDT by mombyprofession
NEW YORK — Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.
Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments — notably job creation — would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.
There have been previous attempts to calculate the cost of divorce in America. But the sponsors of the new study, being released Tuesday, said theirs is the first to gauge the broader cost of "family fragmentation" — both divorce and unwed childbearing.
The study was conducted by Georgia State University economist Ben Scafidi. His work was sponsored by four groups who consider themselves part of a nationwide "marriage movement" — the New York-based Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest of Redmond, Wash., and the Georgia Family Council, an ally of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family.
"The study documents for the first time that divorce and unwed childbearing — besides being bad for children — are costing taxpayers a ton of money," said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
More government inaction would be more appropriate. It was "Government Action" that is/was the major factor in weakening marriage in the first place.
The fact that they have been in prison gives us a clue as to what kind of person they are.
Stop handing out taxpayers’ money to family-fragments. Problem solved.
Stop subsidizing out of wedlock babies, the more babies the more $$. You get more of what you subsidize. Economics 101.
Ok, now I’m confused :)
I thought the big thing in schools is to teach kids marriage isn’t important, give them condoms at the school prom and if they want to have a passionate love affair with a sheep, that’s ok, too, just DON’T talk about a man and woman getting married and staying married.
I don’t know which is worse, the groups “advocating more government action to bolster marriages” or the fact $112 BILLION of our hard earned tax money is being spent on “out of wedlock childbearing”. It’s just a result of the liberal, hippie, take no responsibility for your actions mentality these same folks have been spouting since the 60s.
It takes a village.
:o/
Yep, like Rush says, you get more of what you pay for. So what do we do, give pregnant teenagers checks to have babies while our popular culture glorifies casual sex. A blind man could see that’s a recipe for disaster, but the average politician apparently can’t.
There is no social problem we face today that isn’t the result of some “liberal” policy.
Another truism about “liberalism” -
there is NO freedom that they support other than those related to consequence-free sexual activity outside of the context of marriage.
We don’t need new government programs. The problem is the infestation of moral relativism, which by definition removes the stigma of shame from such behavior. The elimination of social pressure and the consequences of aberrant behavior, when combined with federal and state entitlement rewards, has created a non-punishable free-for-all.
No amount of money in the form of social programs will fix the problem because we are no longer permitted to scorn such behavior.
I agree; I can't think of anything government could do to strengthen marriage, especially when liberalism is working constantly to undermine it.
My personal theory is that divorce became more prevalent when major anti-society influences during the 1960s, like feminism, various psychologists, and the porn-lite industry (like Hugh Hefner, movie makers, TV writers, etc.) began to make people of both sexes feel that they had a "right" to put their own pleasure before anything else in life, to abandon faith, responsibility, and morality in pursuit of sex and fun. It became officially and socially okay to ditch your spouse and kids, to screw around, to wreck lives, if you pleased. "I have to do what's right for me," became the mantra of the period.
And as a society we are so terrified of being called judgmental (the worst insult you can address to someone apart from calling him a child molester) that we don't condemn people who do such slimy things. Selfish men and women are given tacit permission or approval by a society that rewards infidelity.
How government could rectify this, I can't imagine.
Stop alleviating the consequences of choosing NOT to get married. That would be the only thing that the gov't could "do".
Marriage of one man and one woman is the "natural" state of human existance, and the only thing that any gov't can do is interfere with this via perverse incentives.
The average politician, imo, sees people who will obediently vote for the politician who promises to keep the handouts coming and never say anything "judgmental."
It's possible that they're so stupid that they just don't understand the cause and effect, but I think they'd stop breathing then.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922149/posts
The stupid left supports policies that are ultimately destructive because they are ignorant of the long term consequences, and the policies make them feel good right now.
The satanic left supports policies KNOWING that they are destructive, but supporting those policies gives them power (from the stupid).
“...Nobody knows exactly the strategies which are going to work.”
Gee! Maybe getting our bloated quasi-Socialist Government with their Leftist Secular perspectives out of our personal lives, and restoring respect for Religion and the morals of yore might be a start.
IOW get back to Americanism.
Take back my money from out-of-wedlock-childbearers and YOU WON'T NEED TO SPEND ANY MORE OF MY MONEY.
Who are these socialist/idiots and WHAT are they CONFISCATING my money for?
Very good post. And good article. I have a friend who is “stupid left.” Intellectually, she’s not dumb, actually quite the opposite, but she doesn’t apply any gray matter whatsoever toward her political views. It’s ALL about how she feels. She votes for the satanic left, of course.
I think the amounts are way understated. This is the biggest cause of poverty and of crime.
Yea, they sold 3 grams of weed to an informant in college when they were 18 and got hit with a felony. Did 6 months, got expelled, couldn't get hired by anyone and became career criminals.
I personally know 3 productive citizens' lives ruined by the war on weed. And one life ended by it.
When examining any issue, a “stupid” leftist uses the reasoning ability of an 11 yr old girl.
Any position on any issue is either “nice” or “mean” -
not “workable”, “constitutional”, or “has long term negative consequences”.
Before my dog, Baron, died, I never, ever asked one single person to pay for his keep. So, why should I be asked — no, make that FORCED — to pay for other people’s children. To those who sneer, “Well, he was a dog, not a child,” I respond, “Yes, and he was a far better dog than most illegitimate little bas***ds I’ve seen.
“... they can make divorce more difficult.”
As long as government is involved in the marriage business, I would argue that getting married should be made more difficult and getting divorced made easier.
It’s a cost the government gladly incurs. Haven’t you noticed? Government encourages divorce and out-of-wedlock parenting so it can create a class dependant on government that will be devoted ballot box support for the “just” liberal causes. You have your cause and effect reversed.
You gotta love the subtleties of the MSM and the socialist. When they want to create more laws to intrude on liberties, they exclaim how certain behaviors cost taxpayers’ money. When they want to create a program, they tout how the legislator won’t spend the money. When a program faces cuts, they blast the executive for cutting the program.
thank you Hollywood,please send a check to cover this!
I've never seen any evidence showing that government sponsored programs to strengthen marriage work.
Instead they just waste tax dollars.
Quit encouraging the government to extend it's reach into areas that it usually does far more damage than good.
Instead of wasting tax dollars on worthless and often counterproductive programs, cut taxes. Cutting taxes helps the economy, and a good economy is far better for families than any government program like this one.
OTOH, I know at least two productive citizens who had similar convictions, and none whose lives where irretrievably ruined. One was in the military (I think, at least his use started while he was a cannon cocker in Vietnam). He worked his way back to Senior Engineer, for a defense company, with a security clearance, and eventually a TS-SCI clearance. (It was harder getting him read in to a specific program than getting the clearance). He was also smart enough to get out of that line of work before he got Clintonsized, as I did (I liked the work too much. :) )
The other is a used car salesman, same as before his conviction, who has raised a bunch of good kids, the youngest of which graduated from high school last year. The first of his kids graduated in about 1990 I think. He's also my first cousin, and always, always, maintained that he was railroaded and not guilty. But he didn't let that turn him bitter or to real crime. He supported his kids and his wives, including the one whose mother he never married, he helped that one's mother financially too, and would have married her if he could have. A hound dog, but an honorable one. His mother once called him a 60 year old hippie with a pony tail, but actually he's too old to have been a real hippy. :)
A little funny story goes with that. The family all decided "Not to tell Grandpa". Well sometime after my cousin got out of the *federal* pen, we had a family gathering. It was Easter of 1980 in fact. The men were all hanging around outside, including grandpa. Well, family was always a Big Deal to that cousin, so he went over see how Grandpa was doing (He was about 85 at that point, still living by himself, which he did until he was almost 90, and didn't get to meet his Maker and be reunited with Grandma until he was closer to 100 than to 99) The first words out of Grandpa's mouth were "So, XXXX, how was the federal pen". Couldn't fool Grandpa.
Grandpa did sometimes get us grandson's confused. But he'd been doing that for a long time before 1980. In fact he often called me by that same cousin's name. Both start with the same letter and both have one syllable, so I guess it's not so surprising.
But all that that said, I think I'd agree with your implied position on the War on (Some) Drugs, it causes more problems than it solves, and except for border interdiction, it's beyond the delegated powers of the federal government.
But weed or whatever, or even a conviction, is no excuse for robbery, armed or otherwise, nor being a pimp, nor any number of other "vocations" which too many figure are the "easy way".
Often they are not even real dealers or know anyone higher up so they have nobody to give up. Just college kids selling a bit of their own to a 'friend'. 3 of the people I know never sold to anyone except for the time they were set-up. The police use alumni as undercovers to go as a friend of a 'friend' and observe buys.
Right after they are busted, the police and papers in town label them as 'drug dealers' as if they are already convicted. The original article stays even if they are found not-guilty. If a company searches their name on google, it's the 1st article that comes up.
The police make the reports sound like the sale was directly to an undercover by a big-time dealer so the papers lap it up. What they do is get a 'friend' to buy with the police cash and then hand the drugs to the undercover. I've seen a controlled sale happen and the police report for it was 100% BS. I was so angry about how much BS was in it that I bailed the kid out.
He was supposed to start a six-figure job with an oil company the next month but they set him up a week before graduation. The only testimony that mattered was the cop's.
Here's the kicker: The police even put a false statement in the report so I looked like a druggie to the judge. I almost lost it when they were using that to discredit me so I called the cop a liar and demanded to be drug tested. Of course the judge didn't give two sh*** and that false statement is still attributed to me.
The police do more lying and double-crossing than these 'dealers' ever did. They even turn on their own informants to get a conviction. Of course the police lie only 'for the children'.
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