Children

An interesting <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57876-2005Jan7.html" target="_new">take on the problem</a> of Social Security running out of money. It isn't that there are more older people and fewer people paying in or ever increasing benefits. No the problem is real simple, not enough kids being born. The solution to Social Security going bankrupt? Subsidize parents to have more kids, that's what he thinks will fix Social Security. Simple things like the cost of having more kids, overpopulation, overcrowding, two-income families just don't matter. <br />n<br />nThen there's the question of the loss of tax revenue now for the subsidy and the number of years before these extra children start getting out in the world and earning money to pay their own taxes. Probably better than 20 years for that. What is going to hold us over till then? Our good looks?<br />n<br />nI'll be the first to admit that many moons ago people had large families for a variety of reasons, and one of the side benefits of that was somebody to take care of you in old age, but that is not the way the industrialized world is today. I don't know what the answer is to the question of the government taking care of us in our old age, Social Security, instead of us taking care of ourselves but breeding a whole new pack of dependents on the system doesn't seem like the answer to me.<br />n<br />n<b>The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth. Edith Sitwell</b>