I’ve long had a view that there should be no tax deductions for children. I know that’s not a popular stance, but I’ve spent the bulk of my adult life single. It used to irritate me that I was shouldering more of the tax burden as a single male (and health insurance costs, too!). The thought of a family with three children paying much less tax and consuming far greater resources would just burn me up.
Now that I have a child and get to pay less tax it still burns me up. It just doesn’t make any sense. If anything, people who choose to have children should bear a greater responsibility of doing so. We shouldn’t financially incentivise people to have children.
It’s not like we need to grow armies of people so we can overtake nations. We don’t need a bunch of kids to offset the odds of mortality as large farming families used to do. Technology has changed things a lot. Population growth is not something that should be encouraged at all really. The Earth is barely making it as is. Nobody needs 10 kids. And they certainly shouldn’t get 10 deductions for being so silly.
Having children is not something to be taking lightly. Nobody should enter into such and endeavor if they don’t have the means to support it – work hard to get to a place where you can provide for a family first. You don’t have to be rich, but if you can’t afford to take care of yourself then you shouldn’t be having children.
Yes, I know it’s not that easy and that there are some social problems with it all. But if you really look at it objectively it’s hard to argue the logic.
Let the flaming commence!