Supporting Irresponsibility?

I was in my car with a friend this past week and the conversation (as my conversations are wont to do) turned to politics. Among many topics we discussed was universal healthcare. My friend is more fiscally conservative than I am (truly a rare thing in the northwest) and generally opposes universal healthcare, especially funded by the government. His argument (paraphrased):

“My mom had one child, and provided everything I needed growing up, including healthcare for me. Why should her tax dollars go to pay for a woman who has six kids and can’t afford healthcare for all of them? Why should my mom subsidize that woman simply because she wouldn’t stop f***ing?”

Now I understand the sentiment expressed in this statement: it doesn’t seem right that someone who acts responsibly should have to pick up the tab for someone who intentionally acts irresponsibly and can’t afford the consequences. My argument back to him was along the lines of the fact that society as a whole benefits from keeping those 6 kids healthy to allow them to become productive members of our society. Of course our current system has pushed the costs of healthcare out of reach for even some middle class families, although the causes of this may or may not be related to government interference in the normal operation of the healthcare market.

This does, however, raise an interesting question: how do and should we discourage people from procreating beyond their means to support those children? This brings to mind the Duggar family. I cannot imagine how much it would cost to support a family of 19 (and counting!). I cannot (off the top of my head) think of a way to punish people who do this in a way that does not also harm the innocent children that person has brought into this world. Once those children are born it is in society’s interest to make sure they are brought up well, but what about before they are conceived? Would society be better off if they had never been born? Do children born to parents who cannot support them add to or take away from our society?

Certainly the argument can be made that as more children are born the marginal net good produced by that person eventually turns negative and I’ve heard Roe vs. Wade described as the most effective crime stopping method to ever come out of the Federal Government. There is also the environmental implications of having creating one more person using up the resources of our planet. Many people in this country don’t even pay the full cost of the children they do support because of things like free public education. (Bottom line is that if you paid less than $11,000 [roughly] in total taxes per member of your family, you are being subsidized by someone else). What can we do, and really, should we do anything to encourage people to take the full cost of another person into account before they decide to have kids?

Mortgage Pain and Bailouts

I saw a great satirical article quoted at My Money Blog the other day (original article) about how we need to bail out people who bought bigger SUVs than they could afford and are now facing repossession. Unfortunately in today’s America this is not so far outside the realm of possibility that one of the commenters didn’t read carefully and thought the article was serious. The money quote:

“After all”, said President Bush, “it would not be American for us to live within our means and be responsible for our own financial decisions. Those who failed to spend themselves deeply into debt should pick up the tab to keep real Americans riding high.” (emphasis added)

Now I will admit that this mortgage mess has implications beyond people losing homes they couldn’t afford in the first place: the fact that Citigroup is having solvency issues resulting from mortgage-backed securities losses means trouble for the broader economy, not just subprime borrowers. Now that real estate prices have dropped and many people who financed more than 100% of the value of their house are underwater on their mortgages (and therefore unable to refinance at a lower rate) we have a problem. These “real Americans” borrowed irresponsibly and are now paying the consequences for it.

The most common form of bailout I’ve seen is an interest rate freeze for ARMs that would otherwise adjust upward. The certain lawsuits from the holders of securities notwithstanding, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m generally opposed to the Government unilaterally modifying legal contracts to which citizens are party, especially when such modifications come solely at the expense of one of the parties involved. I know there is probably going to be some kind of relief, but hopefully in the spirit of keeping the credit markets open in this country, not to bail out people who bit off more than they could chew.

And that’s the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration. For years we’ve heard about personal responsibility, and how we need more of it. But that has to include taking responsibility for mistakes. It’s not responsibility if the government intervenes every time something goes bad. I applauded when shareholder suits against banks and brokerage houses were thrown out in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble burst earlier this decade. If you take a gamble and lose you shouldn’t expect the government to give you back your money. Just learn from your mistakes. Do I feel sorry for people facing foreclosure? Of course. Should the government take my money, and the money of millions of other taxpayers to bail these people out? No. They made their bed, and now they should lie in it.

Perhaps some regulation will come about regarding the verification of income tactics that were used to put these people in houses in the first place. That I would support. But the government shouldn’t bail out people who took big risks and lost;  it encourages people to take more huge risks in the future, knowing they won’t have to pay the consequences if it goes bad.

Sound familiar?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, and that has been because I’ve been a little burnt out on writing about politics all the time. I’m still interested, but I want to write about other things.

That said, Huckabee scares the crap out of me. With this little excerpt, I know that I could never in a million years vote for this man. Attributing his surge in the polls to divine intervention? It reminds me of Bush’s “God wants me to be President” and it makes me sick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSQNSlUUoOc