81–90 of 165 posts
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> couldn’t we come up with a subsidy with less market distortion? Yes. Universal childcare. Alternatively, payment for children (as a refundable tax credit or e.g. social security payment for one's first N years).
How is universal childcare less market distorting? It seems to me that the larger the subsidy (or tariff for that matter), the more the distortion.
The argument no one has brought up yet: why should society have to pay up even more for breeders' personal choices? People without kids have to pay higher taxes (via rebates for parents), utilize less resources (public schools), effectively subsidizing people who want to have kids. I'm all for protecting what's best for children, but I am not happy with people having children they cannot adequately support, causing o…
Because those children, when adequately nurtured (and proportional to the extent to which they are adequately nurtured), grow up to produce goods, provide services, and pay taxes that support the portion of society that can no longer do those things for money (which, with any luck, you will be one day).
There is plenty of reason to believe that the ROI of society subsidizing that nurturing is enormous, not to mention the second-order effects of that subsidy (like parents being able to balance their budgets more easily, consume goods and services other than childcare, and save for their own retirements such that they are more able to support themselves when they, also, become too old to work for pay).
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Sounds lovely At this point in the political universe these are the only measures that get through. We are living in a post policy era of governance. Hopefully the wonks can find some way to get the upper hand again, but I’m not optimistic.
>>> We are living in a post policy era of governance What do you mean by this?
The argument no one has brought up yet: why should society have to pay up even more for breeders' personal choices? People without kids have to pay higher taxes (via rebates for parents), utilize less resources (public schools), effectively subsidizing people who want to have kids. I'm all for protecting what's best for children, but I am not happy with people having children they cannot adequately support, causing o…
Day care is just the start of it. Being raised broke and working class isn't all that bad. Not being raised with a sense of community and security.. Might as well add prison capacity now for our little social experiment on raising social primates with the goals of independence from society.
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The goal is both parents work, but work only part time. And we get there via better childcare.
Why is that the goal? Who decided that it is an appropriate goal? This whole argument is silly for a lot of reasons, but honestly it's a bait and switch amongst other things: "Oh we'll eventually get to reduced hours, you just need to both start working now and let someone else raise and watch your children." Sounds like a scam to me.
It seems more scammy to me that universal childcare, pre-school, et cetera are twisted to mean mandating both parents work. It doesn't. Countries with universal childcare still have plenty of stay-at-home parents. What they don't have is parents, predominantly moms, forced to stay at home with their kids.
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> Universal childcare. Alternatively, payment for children These are the same, just different execution. A slot for your child or children if you want to go to work, a payment if you want to stay at home to provide childcare. The care is universal, the delta being who logistically is providing the care. Edit: Agree with y'all it is both a marketing and execution story.
> are the same, just different execution Sure. But the branding matters. The former seems to provoke a vitriolic reaction in some people that, if widespread, could tank it in a way that the identical effect under the second's branding doesn't provoke.
I believe (anecdotally) that the rate of unwanted pregnancies are not impacted significantly by economic measures, only by ease of access to free birth control measures and widespread sex education, but it's an unpopular opinion. Welfare from the state is always a hard sell unless it benefits a vocal, influential segment.
Setting aside the philosophical free market questions, additional government subsidy childcare seems fine. There’s a positive externality of readily available childcare: one adult to many children is more efficient than home care, and parents being able to work generates economic production, taxes, etc. But couldn’t we come up with a subsidy with less market distortion? A specific subsidy to pay for childcare for chi…
That said it’s somewhat amusing to me to pay for someone’s kids to be watched so others can pay said someone to watch their kids instead.
Single income families are considerably more efficient in real terms, but child care only shows up as GDP and taxable economic activity if a stranger does it.
It reminds me of that joke about the two economists in the woods.
The argument no one has brought up yet: why should society have to pay up even more for breeders' personal choices? People without kids have to pay higher taxes (via rebates for parents), utilize less resources (public schools), effectively subsidizing people who want to have kids. I'm all for protecting what's best for children, but I am not happy with people having children they cannot adequately support, causing o…
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> rich get handouts in Kentucky On what planet are child-care workers the rich?
The key phrase here is “regardless of household income.” There’s a very simple way to make sure rich people don’t get free shit, and that’s capping stuff like this so that rich people don’t get to take advantage of it. I’ll give you an example: there is no universe in which I personally ought to have had my student loans forgiven. My household income tipped into the seven figures during the pandemic. But some debt fo…
The argument no one has brought up yet: why should society have to pay up even more for breeders' personal choices? People without kids have to pay higher taxes (via rebates for parents), utilize less resources (public schools), effectively subsidizing people who want to have kids. I'm all for protecting what's best for children, but I am not happy with people having children they cannot adequately support, causing o…