[Mrs. Don-o]

Do we?

Reflections prompted by Jonathan V. Last's new book, "What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster."

Another demographics author, Steve Mosher, says the reason America isn't *yet* population collapse like Japan and Russia, is that the Republican-controlled Congress in 1994 passed a tax credit of $1,000 for each child under 16, and generously increased the per dependent deduction so that it is now $4,650. This means that young couples can actually lower their taxes by having more children, to the point where young couples of modest income pay virtually no income tax.

Mosher says that while this policy has kept America’s birthrate near replacement, this is not good enough. Young couples should also be sheltered from paying social security taxes, for example. Those who are willing to marry and have children should have their student loans forgiven. They should be exempted from state taxes, from sales tax, from any and all manner of taxation.

After all, they are investing in the future of America in the most fundamental way: by investing in the future generation.

I sometimes hear people say they wish they had had more kids. But to have a decent-sized family, you kinda have to start young. Younger than we did, anyhow.

[txrefugee]

Either HGTV is biased against children, or there really are 50% of the couples shown hunting for houses for themselves and their dogs.

Will their dogs be paying into Social Security for them, or taking care of them in their dotage? This generation has certainly changed the pattern of familial responsibility. Wonder how that will work out in 40 or 50 years.

[OpusatFR]

I look at two of my unmarried sons and wonder if out of those 55,000,000 infants-in-utero who were killed in abortion, a couple of them were destined to be their wives but never lived?

They can’t seem to find their soulmates.

[ScottinVA]

Here in Virginia, the majority of the ones we see pushing multiple strollers are immigrants... legal and illegal.

Demographic change, indeed.

[ScottinVA]

It would also help greatly if prospective parents didn’t have to fear the influences of an increasingly perverted, sex-driven, pro-homosexual societal culture.

[Biggirl]

Well with WHO we have in the WH, it would scare people.

[Vigilanteman]

It is refreshing to read something from women who actually promote the virtues of having children. My cousin just had her 8th and I'm not sure they are done yet.

She and her husband are rock-ribbed conservatives who live in the middle state of the only three where not one single county voted for Obama. (Hint: It also has the highest Native American population percentage in the U.S.A. and most of them aren't working in casinos and selling tax-free tobacco.)

Of course, every one of their kids are being trained to be useful productive adults. And they are all a joy to be around. Their Christmas card this year was a family photo where they were all doing the nativity scene. The baby dressed as baby Jesus, Mom and Dad as Mary and Joseph and the older kids as shepherd boys and angels. Even the goats on their farm got into the act.

[eccentric]

Not only do people rely on government tax deductions for children, they demand that the government supply food in the form of WIC. Can you imagine what the birth rate would be if propestive mothers thought they had to pay for thier own children’s food?!?!?!

[freekitty]

Populations receding is a dream come true for Bill Gates who also supports euthanasia except for himself.

[Brightitude]

Hmmm... “putting others first”... “focusing on something larger than yourself... doesn’t sound American to me, COMRADE!

[Brightitude]

Mosher says that while this policy has kept America’s birthrate near replacement, this is not good enough. Young couples should also be sheltered from paying social security taxes, for example. Those who are willing to marry and have children should have their student loans forgiven. They should be exempted from state taxes, from sales tax, from any and all manner of taxation.

Geez, why not just back up a dump truck full of government money to their house and dump it in?

You could get bipartisan support for the idea by plastering George Bush's (either one) face on one side of the truck and Barack Obama's on the other.

[Wonder Warthog]

"But as Last argues, "Very Bad Things" have historically accompanied depopulation, including disease, war, and economic disaster."

HUH!? This doesn't correspond to any history that "I" know about. In the past, "depopulation" was CAUSED BY "disease, war, economic disaster". Add to that list REAL "climate change" (specifically sudden shifts from WARM to COLD). Population increases have historically happened when climate was WARMING, and population crashes when climate was COOLING.

The current "child dearth" is completely different, being a voluntary limitation on fertility. And I don't see how, given the increasing availability of automation, that an "economic disaster" is in the offing for anything other than the welfare state, which depends on stealing from future generations to finance current largesse.

Far more critical is that fact that the "best and brightest" are severely limiting their fertility while the "worst and dumbest" are breeding like flies. Basically "reverse evolution".

[Born to Conserve]

Humans went through this once before. When women became aware of the relationship between getting boffed and getting pregnant, they stopped getting boffed. That was who knows how many hundred thousand years ago. Natural selection then went to work, and only those women who’s menstruation was so horrible that pregnancy was preferable would get pregnant. In fact, the menstruation became so horrible that the entire tribe would make sure that every woman who could get pregnant, was pregnant.

Now, menstruation is eliminated by birth control and we’re back to women not getting pregnant.

Goodbye world.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

What a great article. Thanks for sharing.

I was never blessed with kids of my own, but I raised three step-sons from ages 3, 4 & 5 to adulthood.

Unfortunately, we lost one to a drug overdose, the other appears to be asexual and the third and most eligible one STILL doesn’t have it together enough to marry and raise his own kids...at age 25.

So, I guess I really didn’t contribute much to the sustainable population solution, did I? LOL!

Eh. It was fun while it lasted...

[EternalVigilance]

Back to the top.

[Road Glide]

[[ What’s strange about our dining room child-planning summit, from a historical perspective, is that we considered it at all. “A few generations ago, people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy,” wrote Jennifer Senior in her much-discussed parenting treatise, “All Joy and No Fun,” which ran in New York magazine in 2010. “Having children was simply what you did.” ]]

Well, something happened to change that.
And Loretta Lynn knew what it was:

You wined me and dined me when I was your girl
Promised if I’d be your wife you’d show me the world
But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill
I’m tearing down your brooder house ‘cause now I’ve got the pill

All these years I’ve stayed at home while you had all your fun
And every year that’s gone by another baby’s come
There’s gonna be some changes made right here on Nursery Hill
You’ve set this chicken your last time ‘cause now I’ve got the pill

This old maternity dress I’ve got is going in the garbage
The clothes I’m wearing from now on won’t take up so much yardage
Miniskirts hotpants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah I’m making up for all those years since I’ve got the pill

I’m tired of all your crowing how you and your hens play
While holding a couple in my arms another’s on the way
This chicken’s done tore up her nest and I’m ready to make a deal
And you can’t afford to turn it down ‘cause you know I’ve got the pill

This incubator is overused because you’ve kept it filled
The feeling good comes easy now since I’ve got the pill
It’s getting dark it’s roosting time tonight’s too good to be real
Aw but Daddy don’t you worry none ‘cause Mama’s got the pill.

There’s only one way it will ever “change back”.
You know what that would entail.
And no one is ever going to do that...

[Tax-chick]

Steven Mosher is an amazing man - I’ve exchanged emails with him over the years - but I think he is wrong in his tax-policy proposals. If they were spherical tax credits in a vacuum, it might work, but in our society, his ideas simply pit segments of the population against one another, when we need to be united against our common enemy, Communism.

Lower taxes for everyone. Reduce spending on everything. Eliminate regulation for everyone. Break government education, government medical care, and the government-employee racket for everyone. Any decision made because it could result in a government benefit fails on its merits. The exercise of free will, worthy of human beings, doesn’t include the question, “Will Daddy ‘Bama give us a cookie?”

FREEDOM! For freedom Christ has set you free, so do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

“Be fruitful.and multiply,” but not if you want to send three kids to Ivy League Schools, or something.

[hout8475]

Actress Patricia Heaton has four children. The first was born when she was 36. So she managed to have more than the average number of kids at a somewhat advanced maternal age. Then of course, you could always go the route of Kate Gosselin or Nadia Suleman.