OF PLIGHTING TROTHS AND DODGING TAXES :

What a Good Marriage Can't Do : If the Bush administration truly wants to promote marriage, it should start by providing tangible financial assistance to families that need it. (FRANK FURSTENBERG, 8/13/02, NY Times)

We don't need government programs to convince people like the mothers in the Baltimore study that marriage is good for them. The children of the teenage mothers in the Baltimore study were far more reluctant to marry at younger ages, though most say they do want to get married someday. Still, many of these women are wary of entering matrimony until they find a man who offers them some prospect of economic support and won't "act like another child," as one woman explained to me. These children have higher expectations of marriage than did their mothers. They watched their parents try and fail, and they don't want to repeat their mistakes.

What will it take for them to feel confident that they won't? Certainly, more than weekend workshops telling them that marriage will make them happier and healthier. They know that lack of commitment is not the reason most marriages don't work. Their parents were plenty committed, but they faced huge problems supporting their children.

If the Bush administration wants to help women like these, it should reconsider its proposal and get down to the hard work of creating the economic and social conditions that will support marriage for the less advantaged: child care subsidies, paid parental leaves, cheaper health insurance for low-income families and other programs to help support them.

Rather than creating more government programs and passing all these other costs along to industry, why not just waive taxes for married couples below a certain income--maybe $300k per year? Then you'd have Republican support for sure. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 13, 2002 11:40 AM