Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!jarthur!ucivax!gateway From: turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: (Sharing the costs of) Child making and rearing Summary: If means-testing encourages poverty, what does "parent-testing" encourage? Message-ID: <11353@cs.utexas.edu> Date: 20 Aug 90 21:00:44 GMT References: <9008191421.AA15964@uunet.uu.net> Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 57 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu ----- In article <9008191421.AA15964@uunet.uu.net>, mydog!gcf@hombre.masa.COM writes: > There are three very big problems with means-tested, as opposed to > universally available, welfare. The first is the aforementioned > stigmatization, although it's quite possible that the stigma > comes first and the means test is simply used to confirm it. The > second is that, if a source of goods arises under certain > conditions, some people will move to bring those conditions > about. Thus, if welfare is given to "the poor", then some people > will enact poverty to obtain the welfare. It becomes a job: being > poor for a living. ... If it were true that welfare stigmatized, then that would partially counter-act its tendency to create more of what it subsidizes. Your second point is today more relevant than your first. Those who study current programs and how they unintentionally bring about the things they subsidize point especially to young girls in the inner city, one of whose few hopes of gaining any status is to become a mother. (For some reason, there were several news shows on this about a year ago.) > We can communize child support. That is, the taxpayers in > general would contribute to a fund which would supply every > child, from birth to, say, eighteen or completion of education, > a grant in the forms of money, school vouchers, medical > insurance, food stamps, rent subsidies -- and so on. > > The person actually taking care of young children would dispose > of this stuff, while the older children would have some voice > in its disposition. ... You would substitute a parenthood test for a means test. You worry about poor people turning poverty into a job under a welfare system, but are you not concerned about them turning parenting into a job under your system? Is this what you want? As asked originally, why does parenting require subsidization? > The need to produce another generation is just as general as the > need to defend the country, provide a pool of educated labor, and > pick up the garbage. We like to pretend that individuals should > be responsible for these things, but where there is widespread > failure, it's time to look at other solutions. There are lots of things that are general needs, from boots to houses to lettuce. That something is a general need is not by itself a reason to nationalize its provision. Quite obviously, we are not failing to produce *enough* children. If you think we are failing in some way, it must be in the nature of the next generation that we are creating. Now I will concur that there are many parents who are lousy parents. On the other hand, giving bad parents money does not make them good parents. Your scheme subsidizes bad parents and good parents alike, and it is more likely the former who will be most encouraged by it. Russell