Let's get it on the table now: Kids do best when they are in stable families. The question is then, \how can we promote this situation?"" Conservatives who oppose gay marriage like to talk about how gay marriage would somehow destroy stable heterosexual marriages with kids.
The question still remains as to why so little is being done now to promote stable households. Where should we turn to in order to promote stable marriages with children? Everyone's favorite social engineering method: the tax code.
We have tax breaks for everything anyone has ever thought important, from corn-based ethanol to moving operations overseas. We now have an income tax credit for children.
What is interesting about this credit is that it is not a deduction like most other tax incentives. The difference is that the child tax credit is like money in your pocket in that whatever the government sets the amount to be is how much you get back in the refund.
For example, if you owe a tax of $1,000 on your net income, but have one kid, then the government will refund you $500 due to the child tax credit, whereas most other tax incentives simply allow you to reduce your net income to lower your taxes by less than a direct credit.
What is so backward about this credit is that it subsidizes having kids in any situation. It does not matter if you are a crack addict or living in a stable relationship-the government is going to give you some money for your trouble. This policy might be useful if the government just wants more kids, like in Italy where birth rates are incredibly low. But it remains to be seen why the government needs to interfere in the market for children.
However, it seems that if we are going to subsidize something, it should be beneficial structures like children living in two-parent homes. This is not to say other family structures can not be effective, but simply that research has shown children do best in two-parent homes.
It is clear families that create an environment that will help their children are most worthy of assistance, especially families that have spent years trying to foster this environment.
To further this goal, the child tax credit should be revamped to include an increasing scale for how long you have been in your current marriage. The idea is that the longer you've been in your relationship before having your child, the more tax credit you should receive.
The credit would increase with every year together and reach some maximum after a certain number of years. The credit could also increase faster in the first years of marriage when couples are most likely to get divorced.
This might come across as cruel to those women who already have to raise a child without a father. Someone may even accuse me of blaming the victim! My response is simply that life is tough. We get into bad positions and just have to deal with them. But the purpose here is to promote positive outcomes in the future. Just because some people will not get the full benefit does not mean we need to sacrifice progress.
Another possible criticism is that this might promote women staying in abusive marriages. It seems that on the margin it would increase such behavior. But it seems that the effect would be tiny. Not many people are going to trade an extra $100 a year for staying in an abusive relationship.
This idea could be easily extended to gay marriage with no penalty since the couple is of the same sex. No data shows children do worse with two gay parents than with heterosexual parents. The idea is simply that the government should be supporting stable family structures to promote the well-being of children.
Maybe a laissez-faire policy toward fertility will lead to a situation where not enough parents are living together to raise their children. So if we want two parent households, we should be willing to pay for them.
