Single Mothers and Conservatism

 

shutterstock_209614678I would like to pose two questions to my follow Ricochet members: What should be the conservative answer be to unwed single mothers? How should the GOP/Conservatives support existing single mothers (to include widows, separated, divorced, unwed)?

I think we have a tendency to focus on the origins of the issue of single mothers — such as the rise of the welfare state and the sexual revolution — without addressing how we would support those single mothers that need help today. Social Conservatives are pro-life, pro-motherhood, and pro-marriage. However, the Left perpetuates the stereotype that Conservatives are not supportive of single mothers, and it works for them politically. In the 2012 presidential election 75% of single mothers voted for the Democratic ticket.

So what say you, Ricochet? Should we cede that portion of the electorate to the Democrats and to likely dependence on the state? I believe we can do better than that.

Published in Culture, Marriage, Politics
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  1. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    V.S. Blackford:The best we can do at the government level is create, through Conservative initiatives, the best economic environment for people to help themselves, and even then it is up to the individual. School choice for the children is essential as well. Civil society is needed to help at a more personal level.

    Well, I guess where I am is that, regardless of incentives, there are people who will refuse to help themselves.  I’m all for letting them starve.  Is that a viable conservative position?

    • #241
  2. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    Randy Webster:

    V.S. Blackford:The best we can do at the government level is create, through Conservative initiatives, the best economic environment for people to help themselves, and even then it is up to the individual. School choice for the children is essential as well. Civil society is needed to help at a more personal level.

    Well, I guess where I am is that, regardless of incentives, there are people who will refuse to help themselves. I’m all for letting them starve. Is that a viable conservative position?

    They have hostages.

    • #242
  3. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    I was thinking that the Guaranteed Basic Income was a direct cash transfer from the government (that is, the taxpayer) to EVERY American citizen.  Not a minimum wage, not something Wal-Mart has to do…

    Not because you’re an idiot and you’ve screwed up, not because you’re a pathetic victim of the system, but because you’re an adult American citizen.

    I’ve seen the negative income tax thing, too—and it could be done that way, but that seems more… complicated? And I would worry that poor people would remain bound-into the local bureaucracy of their city, county or state, and unable to leave to find better places to live, work and raise their children.

    This would be pretty attention-getting, wouldn’t it? “We’re going to replace ALL WELFARE PROGRAMS (subsidized housing, AFDC, utilities assistance, vouchers) with a 20 thousand dollar check, tax free and direct deposited into every U.S. adult citizen’s bank account on January 1st, with no oversight, no moralizing, no “you must spend this on food” or “you can’t spend this on a trip to Vegas.” The most important part is: This is it for the year.

    If you blow it, you’ll get no more…except from private charities and churches (who can then demand modifications in behavior as they see fit).” Or, as Mike says:

    We want to ensure you get at least as much money as you do now. We want to change it so you get more direct assistance and the government doesn’t force you to take it earmarked for things like food or health care. These are both very important things, but we respect your decision making far more that the Democrats and know you will choose to do what’s best for your family with these payments. 

    I like the lump sum idea, because it represents capital—you can use it to move, to start up a very small business, to pay for a training program or private school for the kids or whatever. And since it would be coming every year, it would give you at least a little credit.

    I was talking to my husband today, and we thought what an interesting project it would be to go to high schools around the country and ask a group of sophomores: “What would you do with 20,000?” It would be like those “what would you do if you won the lottery” conversations…the kind that tend to evolve from “I’d go on a Round-the-World Cruise” to “I’d buy my mother a BMW” to “I’d create a college fund for all my friend’s kids…” and so on.

    At the moment, in many neighborhoods, a young girl may look at the future and the most viable economic and emotional future she can imagine for herself is having a baby and going on welfare. Tell her that, when she turns eighteen, she’ll have an income of 20 grand a year, to do with as she wishes, and suddenly, she’s got possibilities. She’s got options. And the best thing is, she doesn’t have to stay in South Central L.A. or the South Bronx or wherever. She can take her money and leave town, or leave the state, go where there are more jobs and less crime.

    And if she gets a job and makes more money—great!

    If she’d rather be very, very frugal and get by on the 20 thou/year because she’s really interested in doing something (organic farming? helping out with a political campaign? becoming an apprentice blacksmith? taking care of small children? binge-watching netflix all day?) that doesn’t pay.

    Young men, in the meantime, would also have bigger possibilities and because they have means and capital even if they are  unemployed, they become potential providers instead of difficult, dangerous drags on the Mom-Baby-Government triad.

    • #243
  4. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    I haven’t looked into it, but the guaranteed minimum income idea sounds far fetched.  We’re already spending money we don’t have.  That would have to be stupendously more expensive if it covered every adult in the country.  It would be like maybe five “stimuluses” every year. Where would that money come from?  Would it cause hyperinflation? Has somebody run some numbers?   And it just sits wrong with me that being “an adult American citizen” should entitle you and me to someone else’s money.

    • #244
  5. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    I know—so what I had to keep reminding myself when I first heard about this idea,  JoJo, is that we’re already giving handouts of taxpayer money.

    And I don’t actually mind paying taxes to support people (people have paid taxes to support me in my time) but I’d like the money to fund better, more interesting lives than we’re funding now. More choices, more mobility, more autonomy and more freedom.

    As you know, economics is not my strong suit, but I have heard it is at least possible that it wouldn’t cost more (or much more)  than what we have now? (I don’t know about the hyperinflation part.) But it would only work if we really did eliminate welfare and replace it completely.

    • #245
  6. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    If I’m doing the arithmetic right, and there’s no guarantee, $20k/American comes out to roughly $6 trillion/year.  Say the adult population is 2/3 of the 318 million I used.  That’s going to last 1o min before it gets means tested, or is that what you had in mind all along?

    So, we have roughly a $16 trillion economy.  Your idea is to skim off 25%, let the Feds take their cut, and give the rest away?  Actually, by the time the Feds take their cut, we’d be back to close to the $6 trillion.

    Arithmetic isn’t that hard, folks.  Serfs in Czarist Russia had it better.

    • #246
  7. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    Randy Webster:If I’m doing the arithmetic right, and there’s no guarantee, $20k/American comes out to roughly $6 trillion/year. Say the adult population is 2/3 of the 318 million I used. That’s going to last 1o min before it gets means tested, or is that what you had in mind all along?

    Yes, I guessed around there also, which is like double the total federal budget or more than five “stimuluses” every year.  I think most welfare spending is state level now, and I don’t know how much it is, but can’t see how this would work.

    As soon as it’s means tested, it penalizes working.

    • #247
  8. Luke Thatcher
    Luke
    @Luke

    Insofar as the goal here is to accrue votes, I think it gives us the social morality hammer to guarantee some income level, instead of following them around to make sure they spend it the right way.

    That’s the source of motivation for the left. They need Dependants like a heroine addict needs heroine. Except the satisfaction kicks in when they try to try. Doesn’t matter whether it actually solved the problem or not. But, all their flailing makes them appear to be doing something good for the mothers. The complex, feature-rich, multi faceted, so-called programs are the stuff of marketing materials from a boat show.

    Instead we can claim we are the party of their liberation, We not only want to give you money, we further want you to spend it on hookers and booze, if you so choose. That’s a better version of Freedom than all their moral preening.

    Edit:

    (I don’t feel like it must be the negative income tax. I just like hearing him explain things.)

    Listen to uncle Milt’. He’s never steered me wrong.

    Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax: https://youtu.be/xtpgkX588nM

    • #248
  9. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    As Heinlein said, “Even the great bard had an off day once in a while.”  I may be paraphrasing.

    • #249
  10. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    Randy Webster:As Heinlein said, “Even the great bard had an off day once in a while.” I may be paraphrasing.

    bard

    • #250
  11. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    Luke:Insofar as the goal here is to accrue votes,

    By “accrue,” do you mean “buy?”

    • #251
  12. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    By “accrue,” do you mean “buy?”

    In some sense, isn’t the government always buying votes? Or appealing to some kind of self-interest, anyway:  “I will protect you from Al Qaeda better than my opponent,” “I’ll give you better roads and bridges,” “I’ll keep buying submarines from the factory in your town, even though the Navy doesn’t really want or need them…”

    I don’t think it’s unreasonable for anyone who belongs to a very broadly defined group—-single moms, senior citizens, people who work in a submarine factory—to expect a candidate who wants their votes to explain how s/he will make their lives better.

    If politics is the art of the possible, we’ve seemed to spend a lot of time talking about the impossible. Is the next Republican candidate really going to  promise to magically create (perhaps by Darwinian means—e.g. “starvation”) a completely different American people, a self-controlled race possessed of low-libido, excellent impulse control and a preternatural ability to commit to virtuous  lifestyles they’ve never witnessed let alone experienced..?

    Do we want the GOP candidate to get up on the stump and huffily declare that the single mothers who chose life don’t deserve our support— that they’ve screwed up and should suffer the consequences including (evidently) starvation?

    “Not one thin dime of your tax money shall go to support young women who have made mistakes!” the GOP candidate can thunder, loudly enough to drown out the chanting of the Liberals (bristolpalinbristolpalinbristolpalin). And every American who is without sin will cast forth their votes…

    • #252
  13. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    Instead we can claim we are the party of their liberation, We not only want to give you money, we further want you to spend it on hookers and booze, if you so choose. That’s a better version of Freedom than all their moral preening.

    Can’t we at least toy with the idea of doing something imaginative, expansive and exciting?

    EDIT: That’s “expansive” folks, not “expensive…!” (I know. If I was the Queen, it would be expensive, too…)

    • #253
  14. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    Well, we have totally different philosophies of government.  You want government to do stuff; I want government to protect liberty.  The two missions are incompatible.

    • #254
  15. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    Randy Webster:Well, we have totally different philosophies of government. You want government to do stuff; I want government to protect liberty. The two missions are incompatible.

    Everyone wants to government the do stuff. Protecting liberty IS “doing stuff.”

    The question is “which stuff counts as protecting liberty?”

    • #255
  16. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    Coercing money from one person to give to another is not “protecting liberty,” if you have any recognizable definition of liberty.

    • #256
  17. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    All taxes voluntary?

    • #257
  18. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    Sorry.  You didn’t read what I wrote.

    • #258
  19. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Randy Webster:Coercing money from one person to give to another is not “protecting liberty,” if you have any recognizable definition of liberty.

    It’s a hobby horse of mine and pretty much no one agrees with me, but once you institute a participatory government and participate freely, then it isn’t coercion. You have a duty to accept the outcome of the agreed-upon system (though not a duty to like it nor a duty to refrain from petitioning for change), even the parts you would do differently. Once you stop agreeing to participate or once you think the system is illegitimate then your choice of action at that point is pretty clear even if none of the choices are pleasant.

    • #259
  20. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    At what point could I have opted out?  I was listening to a podcast that was almost directly on point this last week, but I can’t remember what it was.

    Ah, it was on econtalk, and was a discussion of group action.  For it to be truly voluntary, there has to be a way to opt out.  I see none.  I suppose I could move to Texas, and hope it secedes; at least that would be voluntary.

    • #260
  21. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    really going to  promise to magically create (perhaps by Darwinian means—e.g. “starvation”) a completely different American people, a self-controlled race possessed of low-libido, excellent impulse control and a preternatural ability to commit to virtuous  lifestyles they’ve never witnessed let alone experienced..?

    Well now, this is grandstanding.  You aren’t giving women credit for being able to make rational decisions.  They used to.  They still can.

    Do we want the GOP candidate to get up on the stump and huffily declare that the single mothers who chose life don’t deserve our support— that they’ve screwed up and should suffer the consequences including (evidently) starvation?

    More grandstanding. The GOP candidate should keep his mouth shut about other people’s screw-ups.

    “Not one thin dime of your tax money shall go to support young women who have made mistakes!” the GOP candidate can thunder, loudly enough to drown out the chanting of the Liberals (bristolpalinbristolpalinbristolpalin). And every American who is without sin will cast forth their votes…

    And a leetle more grandstanding.  The GOP candidate who promises to give away other people’s money to drown out cries of “bristolpalin” is a thief and a coward. He is still a thief and a coward if he takes the money from sinners.

    A candidate who respected the honestly earned thin dimes of the citizens just might deservedly win.  He would be the man holding the high moral ground.

    • #261
  22. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    Kate Braestrup:I know—so what I had to keep reminding myself when I first heard about this idea, JoJo, is that we’re already giving handouts of taxpayer money.

    And I don’t actually mind paying taxes to support people (people have paid taxes to support me in my time) but I’d like the money to fund better, more interesting lives than we’re funding now. More choices, more mobility, more autonomy and more freedom.

    As you know, economics is not my strong suit, but I have heard it is at least possible that it wouldn’t cost more (or much more) than what we have now? (I don’t know about the hyperinflation part.) But it would only work if we really did eliminate welfare and replace it completely.

    I don’t think the math works, that’s why I asked you to show somewhere someone had run the numbers… Randy and I both think $20K to everyone comes to about $6 trillion/year.  A Washington Post article (links are broken)  says all forms of welfare including Medicaid cost under $1 trillion/year including state and local expenditures.  The entire federal budget is about $3.5 trillion/year.  So this one program would more than double the federal budget, which is already in the red.

    • #262
  23. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Randy Webster:At what point could I have opted out? I was listening to a podcast that was almost directly on point this last week, but I can’t remember what it was.

    Ah, it was on econtalk, and was a discussion of group action. For it to be truly voluntary, there has to be a way to opt out. I see none. I suppose I could move to Texas, and hope it secedes; at least that would be voluntary.

    You can opt out any time. You can move to a place where the US doesn’t have jurisdiction, but I’m not so sure you’d find other jurisdictions a better deal. As I say, the alternatives aren’t good but they are available.

    • #263
  24. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    “I know which side the noble dog’s bread is buttered on.  I’m staying here!”

    Walt Kelly

    • #264
  25. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    Jojo:

    Kate Braestrup:I know—so what I had to keep reminding myself when I first heard about this idea, JoJo, is that we’re already giving handouts of taxpayer money.

    And I don’t actually mind paying taxes to support people (people have paid taxes to support me in my time) but I’d like the money to fund better, more interesting lives than we’re funding now. More choices, more mobility, more autonomy and more freedom.

    As you know, economics is not my strong suit, but I have heard it is at least possible that it wouldn’t cost more (or much more) than what we have now? (I don’t know about the hyperinflation part.) But it would only work if we really did eliminate welfare and replace it completely.

    I don’t think the math works, that’s why I asked you to show somewhere someone had run the numbers… Randy and I both think $20K to everyone comes to about $6 trillion/year. A Washington Post article (links are broken) says all forms of welfare including Medicaid cost under $1 trillion/year including state and local expenditures. The entire federal budget is about $3.5 trillion/year. So this one program would more than double the federal budget, which is already in the red.

    I believe you… I’m just sad…

    Maybe I can find Barfly and make him explain?

    • #265
  26. Jojo Inactive
    Jojo
    @TheDowagerJojo

    I don’t think that an action you take because otherwise you’ll be put in jail and have to do it anyway can really be called “voluntary.”  I don’t follow that.

    • #266
  27. Luke Thatcher
    Luke
    @Luke

    Mr Webster,
    To hearken back to that episode they also present an interesting idea.
    That not leaving the country is not tacit consent. Then, no Nation state may exist beyond its founding generation. I’ve been wrestling with that problem since. Because, if that’s true then no nation today is legitimate.

    As an avid listener of econtalk and a reader of choosing in groups by mike munger, I must say, we disagree allot more than I would’ve thought.

    • #267
  28. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    Luke,

    I’ve thought about that, too.  I’m not sure there is an answer.

    When you say we disagree, do you mean you and I disagree, or you and Mr. Munger?

    • #268
  29. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    The conservative creed should be fighting for people, especially vulnerable people, whether or not they vote as we do. Such an experiment cannot guarantee success. But its spark will relight the fires of hope in a wearied country that 64 percent of Americans feel is “off on the wrong track.” In ethical, emotional, and potentially even electoral terms, no opportunity could be more promising than this opening to champion those who need our help.

    This is our fight, and it is a happy one. After all, as Proverbs 14:21 reminds us, “He that despiseth his neighbor, sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.”  

    Arthur Brooks, American Enterprise Institute

    • #269
  30. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @GrannyDude

    Jojo:I don’t think that an action you take because otherwise you’ll be put in jail and have to do it anyway can really be called “voluntary.” I don’t follow that.

    JoJo— I was asking whether paying taxes should be voluntary.

    • #270
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