4 ms·
People don’t have children so they can get a tax break. Your argument is remnant of a moral panic over “welfare queens” in the 70’s which continued through the
by twright 5y ago
People don’t have children so they can get a tax break.
Your argument is remnant of a moral panic over “welfare queens” in the 70’s which continued through the 90’s [1]. It’s been found tax incentives like these actually reduce family sizes over time [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
[2] http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfaremothers.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfaremothers.htm
- 3pt14159 5y agoBut people avoid having a second, third, or fourth child if they know they can't afford it. Bringing in epithets from the 70s isn't helpful. The original commentator was clearly offering an opinion that wasn't rooted in racism.
- twright 5y agoI agree that the opinion was not rooted in racism, another sibling thread makes that clear. However it is still a reactionary stance that should be educated. Every UBI or welfare proposal cannot simply be shut down because because of a leaky argument like this. The cost of having and raising children goes well beyond the meager tax credits or UBI proposals anyway.
- dlp211 5y agoMaybe not racism, just classism.
- yumraj 5y agoSo it has to be one of the -isms and can't simply be a person having an opinion, even if incorrect or based on incorrect assumptions. BTW, for the record, I'm not familiar with the concept of welfare queens.
- dlp211 5y agoKinda, yes. You can have a opinion that is classist/racist without being a classist/racist. This is one of the points of systemic racism/classism. You have this opinion because it's been informed via the zeitgeist of American rhetoric. The question is, given this new information, do you update your priors and your opinion?
- yumraj 5y agoI disagree, but for what it's worth, in case you were not able to tell from my username, I'm an immigrant, from India. While I have been here in the US for many years, much of my life, including college education and a few years after that, was in India. So, not sure if I'm afflicted by the American systemic racism.
- mcphage 5y ago> I'm not familiar with the concept of welfare queens. You are familiar with the concept—it's exactly what you put in your original comment.
- sershe 5y agoIs there anything wrong with classism, and is there any reason to lump these together that is not extremely specific to the USA? I grew up relatively poor, and I am generally very classist (modulo educational opportunities, i.e. for adults with no/little other disadvantages) because, well, I knew and saw a lot of poor people; almost all the same ethnicity as myself.