On Apr 5, 2008, at 9:41 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote:
On Saturday 05 April 2008, Nate Duehr wrote:On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Charlie wrote:I suppose by that standard you imagine that children have no worth at all? I can't really agree. As one who was a child once, I think children are an extremely valuable asset to a species in the now as well as the future.I never said anything of the sort. I said that as a society we reward parents for having children, and it's odd. If their values are to have a "big family" that's fine, but government encouraging it is a different thing. Not necessarily bad, just not real "obvious" to the majority that have children.I was debating to respond earlier, but I thought I'd wait. If you're talking about taxes in terms of rewards, as you saidinitially, compare how much the deduction for a child is or how much isadded on to the refunds we'll get this year to how much it costs to take care of a child for one year. It's about as much of a reward as someone paying me $5 to spend a month doing some tough coding that keeps me up day and night.
Doesn't matter, economically it's still a reward for behavior that you as an adult were always 100% responsible for anyway.
There's no bigger "welfare" for a larger group of people anywhere in the U.S.
if you're making roughly middle-class money, it comes off of your taxable income. It reduces your tax liability quite significantly. I made similar comments on another list and challenged any parent to calculate the difference on their taxes, and to send the difference to their local school district during an "education reform" debate. I haven't seen any e-mails yet from any takers... thus, obviously the parents are not putting their money where their mouth is -- they want to put my money (thus my labor and skills) in that breach instead and run experiments with the school system on my dime.
I'd rather see them up the limits for future education spending for the children under that particular parent's care, than take a straight- off-the-top taxable income change. Go ahead and let 'em save lots and lots of money for that child's education to reduce their tax liability just as much as they get back for any dependents if they will... (more than they can save already today as a tax shelter).
Education of their children benefits society far more than yearly reductions in taxable income.
And this year, additional money in the rebate checks for those with children? Why? Think about that one for a minute...
1. They already paid less in taxes. 2. Now they get more money than childless taxpayers back?What a deal! I bet ALL of the "concerned parents" will be sending BOTH the difference in their original taxes in 2006 and their rebate checks straight to the education system. (Rolling eyes.)
-- Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com