Tax Lawyer's Blog

Well how about that? I finally have a reason to support higher taxes.

Kay Bell has provided it in her blog post High Taxes Discourage Childbirth:

Now there’s a contraception method I bet you never considered.

But Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson says that if taxes are raised to help keep the federal deficit from increasing, then policymakers need to be careful to structure any hikes so that they are more parent-friendly.

If they don’t, says Samuelson, “more Americans may choose not to have children or to have fewer children. Down that path lies economic decline.”

Far too many people have children and far too many people have far too many children.

Think about it. We impose requirements to allow people to drive, to allow them to perform construction work and to allow them to prepare tax returns, but the most important and potentially dangerous thing people will ever do, raise a child, we let them do willy nilly.¹

The truth is when a person who cannot afford to support a child brings a child into the world she is forcing others – some of whom, like Kay Bell and me, have chosen not to have children – to support that child against their will. Every day in America there is a mother on welfare who gives birth to yet another child knowing full well that, a) she cannot afford to support that child, and b) that others will have to support it for her.²

And there is a multiplier effect to the costs of bringing such a child into the world. Studies have shown that impoverished children often end up in our criminal justice system further draining taxpayer resources.³

So, yes, high taxes are a good thing if they discourage childbirth.

But, alas, something tells me that in the throes of pre-insemination bliss tax savings are the very last thing on a person’s mind.

Footnotes:

¹ Chillax. I am not suggesting that we make people get permits before they have children, but I do believe it would be a good idea to give some folks an incentive to stop procreating.

²  How is that a middle-class mother who spanks her well-fed and well-sheltered child in public can be found guilty of child abuse yet a poor mother who already has four undernourished and undersheltered kids can bring a fifth one into the world without consequence?

³ I am not proposing eugenics, sterilization, mandatory abortion or even social Darwinism. All I am saying is if you can’t afford to properly care for the children you already have, you have a moral and societal duty not to bring any more into the world.

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