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May 13, 2009
Column #1,446
(Second of two parts)
Marriage: An Issue for Conservatives
By Mike McManus
While 90 percent of America's best jobs require a college degree, 60 percent of
children in city schools don't even graduate from high school. This is not just
an issue of the urban poor. The U.S. ranks 49th in the world in literacy, and
28th out of 40 countries in math literacy.
The issue is not one of money. The Federal Government began giving major federal
aid to help poor students way back in 1966. "No Child Left Behind" was a major
Bush initiative investing $24 billion a year. Yet there has been no significant
improvement.
Why? It is time to acknowledge that the central issue of our time is the
disintegration of marriage. Children of divorce or of non-marriage are three
times as likely to be expelled from school or to get pregnant as teenagers. A
federal study reported that children of single parents are 77 percent more
likely to be physically abused than those with married parents.
A British study put the risk much higher: A child living with an unmarried
mother is 14 times as apt to be physically abused by the mother.
In 2007 40 percent of children were born out-of-wedlock. That's 1.7 million
kids, up sharply from 1.2 million in 1995. In that year, more than 60 percent
of households were headed by married parents, but only 49.7% were married in
2005.
Divorce destroys one marriage out of two - the world's highest divorce rate.
Therefore, what needed is a fresh focus on strengthening marriage.
First, we must increase the marriage rate among young couples by removing
government subsidies that encourage having children out-of-wedlock.
Why should the government reward single parenthood with welfare, food stamps,
free medical care, housing subsidies, etc? Robert Rector of the Heritage
Foundation estimates "The cost of subsidizing single parenthood is $280 billion.
The people who receive these very large subsidies should no longer get one-way
handouts."
He argues that food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit and other subsidies
should be conditioned on full-time work. Sound familiar? Welfare Reform
changed the open-ended entitlement to a maximum of five years and required at
least part-time work.
Pat Fagan of the Family Research Council says this system "is a massive
injustice. Married people are the source of a massive transfer of payments to
broken families. Those who stay together are also paying for those adults who do
not do that."
He goes so far as to say, "Let those who have out-of-wedlock births pay their
own costs of health, subsidized child care, etc. I am fed up with paying the
cost of it. The system is even unjust to kids born out-of-wedlock, who are not
getting what they need to become an adult," the influence of a father as well as
a mother. And most remain poor, despite the subsidies.
If their parents simply married, they would enter the middle class.
With a Democratic President and Congress, cutting benefits is unthinkable.
However, what if marriage penalties were removed? A single mom earning $12,000
gets a certain level of benefits. But if she marries the man she's living with,
she loses thousands in subsidies for food stamps, health care, and housing. Why
not give her the same level of benefits for two years if she marries? Married
men earn more, and the need for subsides declines over time.
Studies show the poor want to marry, but can't afford it. So let's remove the
marriage penalty.
A second marriage strategy is to decrease the divorce rate by changing laws that
reward marriage destruction rather than its preservation. Contrary to common
assumption, divorce is opposed in four out of five cases by one spouse. There's
no major conflict in more than half the cases.
"Many are devastated to discover that they can be forced into divorce by
procedures entirely beyond their control," writes Stephen Baskerville in
"Touchstone" magazine. "Divorce licenses unprecedented government intrusion into
family life, including the power to sunder families, seize children, loot family
wealth."
Consider two facts: Each year 2-3 million restraining orders are issued to
separate husbands from wives and to keep fathers away from their children. Yet
half of all restraining orders do not include even an allegation of physical
abuse.
I have long argued No Fault Divorce laws should be changed if children are
involved, to require the mutual consent of the other parent, unless a major
fault (adultery, physical abuse) is proven. Another essential reform is
penalize spouses who file false restraining orders, perhaps reducing their share
of family assets.
Reviving marriage could be a fresh issue for conservatives.
"It is not good for man to be alone."
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