Let me try to restate my thoughts on the response to Andros, since we seem to be getting lost in a thicket of exchangs.
First, the question was why should andros “pay more” (in taxes for services or just in general) than a child-rearing family. I’ve been approaching this in a very broad framework since it seems to me the underlying answer, with all caveats to the reality of the messiness of politics, is to be found in asking what do we mean by pay more, for what and what benefits and losses are there in the aggregate. Looking at things on an individual basis never gets one anywhere.(*)
(*: thus we ignore the question of the individual parents who child(ren) don’t contribute effectively.)
I am sticking to the concept that a dependent tax deduction per se is essentially a subsidy to child-rearing. We may argue whether its a particularly effective or efficient one, but I think that in reality that is beside the point since the essence of the andros question , as I understand it, does not really depend on the specifics of the tax deduction per se, but rather the concept of subventions going to child-rearing families and andros perceiving that they’re ‘getting more’ than he. Structurally speaking, I don’t think it matters much if that is a direct subvention or an indirect one, so with all regards to picmr’s well-marked criticism, I’m going to ignore it for the purpose of this discussion.
First, I made the point that children are future workers and those future workers are in fact extremely important to the future of retirees. All your bonds and the like do you no good at all if there aren’t folks wealthy and numerous enough to buy them. In that light, having children and raising them is a good for society, child-rearing families are in fact benefitting society — insofar as we need more workers etc. Of course there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing, too many future workers too fast is no good. And of course, it would be nice if those same parents raised their children well, etc. However, all things being equal, parents are benefitting society at large. The objections in re parents not raising kids to benefit society are rather beside the point, it doesn’t matter why, just that it happens.
I forget who raised the issue of importing workers through immigration. Quite true, that option exists, however one must admit it can be expensive and challenging: (a) one has to depend on foreign workers having the right skills, or investing in training them, directly or indirectly. (b) transition costs can be challenging in terms of cultural adjustments and inevitable social costs implied — take the European example of guest workers.
It seems likely that a society will wish to ensure a degree of continuity in terms o social and economic structure, as well as culture generally, through internal reproduction, even if it does choose to partly rely on imported workers.
Next I raised the issue of quality. We all agreed that ensuring future growth requires investments in education and in the general well-being of the children, if only to ensure maximizing their future effectiveness as productive members of society, to buy your securities as you sell them off in retirement. That of course requires allocating money to families, either directly or indirectly. In this case, andros is going to end up paying “more” in direct dollar terms than a family in terms of net taxes/government services received. An inevitable result of directing some funds to families to help defray child rearing costs and raise their standard as part of the overall investment in future productivity.
Andros continues to object that he doesn’t want to pay more, even though he is “all for” these things. I’m afraid this does not stand to reason, accepting that there are positive externalities to ensuring a broad future work force with high skill levels is a good per creating future wealth. Further, accepting my argument above that parents are providing a social benefit in aggregate terms for society by taking on the cost and burden of providing future workers, we can look at their unassumed (by the state/society at large) costs as costs of future wealth production externalized unto them. Ergo, andros by not rearing a future worker to help contribute to future wealth may be externalizing costs unto parents and thus should pay more. Now, he did raise the question of savings rates, whether the childless save more which could be contributing to future capital accumulation. I think this is a bit hard to calculate insofar as they will be drawing down their savings in retirement much like the child-rearing couple who has contributed future productive workers. We certainly would have to control for differential income levels to even attempt to come up with a real answer here.
All in all I think if one thinks this through it becomes obvious that there are perfectly good, cold rational reasons to direct resources to child-rearing families, in the short term apparently ‘costing’ the non-child-rearing more. However, taken in context, that ‘more’ simply is sharing the burden for creating future wealth. Now, as mentioned in this thread, the dependent deduction might not be the most effective way to do that. I in fact agree with that. However, I thought that the most important part of andros’ question/debate was this aspect which I have attempted to address.
But let me address a few more points:
First in re Jackmanni and children damage to society, I don’t see that your presumptions follow in re damage to society and environment. Loss of resources? That presumes a zero- sum to begin with, something which we can exclude as the population of the United States has increased dramatically over a century, along with wealth. I might add also increased protection of the environment, which comes along with wealth it appears. If added children/population burdens ipso facto outweighed benefits from a well-trained, proactive workforce, one would expect to see in the United States and Europe declines in quality of life, production etc. That’s clearly not the case. Looking to the Third World, among the problems we see, in addition to the absolute problem of too rapid population growth which exceeds the societies’ ability to accumulate capital, we see severe problems in under- investment in children — i.e. in education, training, the whole kit and kaboodle, which is to say precisely the issues which I raised above. In fact, much of my discussion here has been predicated on what I have observed first hand in the third world. Absolute numbers of people are a problem, above all in areas with limited water resources — like me home now — but much worse is the issue of under-investment and mal-distribution of wealth.
Now in terms of the benefits, one can fairly clearly see that higher incomes in the hands of parents result in over-all more income devoted to children. Insofar as we can see positive results from that — one can rather easily note the negative results of poverty — it makes sense to put added income/reduce tax burdens on child-rearing families (whether that through direct subventions or tax reductions).
I’d note that I find the usage “childfree” to be fairly silly and unnecessary. Childless has a problem?
Second, in re Andros:
I am glad that I got love andros. I can only hope your sentiments are undying.
But that aside, first, in re the population increase issue. My replies focused on this because I felt you were/are raising a red herring, insofar as I don’t see the subventions to child-rearing families as an issue of population increase. If you don’t either, then we can stop mentioning this as irrelevant.
In regards to your concern about inability to pay, well, insofar as it is subjective and not amenable to rational analysis, I guess there is nowhere to go with it. However, I would only add that insofar as subventions seem largely ineffective in the aggregate, based on European experiences, in moving aggregate preferences for children one way or another, it’s also irrelevant to your question. Nor should one decide policy based on one person effects. Much the same goes for your concern re parents whose kids don’t contribute in the end. Since (a) most adults do become ostensibly productive members of society, in the most basic sense of the term (b) no social policy can control for every odd-ball or problem in society in and of itself, this also strikes me as irrelevant.
As for Libertarian:
I have but one question. Are you capable of responding in a way that does not involve setting up extreme straw man arguments?
