Lose the Kid

I’ve been blogging a lot about the changing attitudes among the younger members of our society, how their views will eventually shape a nation into a political spectrum that isn’t even on the table in this election year. But it’s interesting how we are preparing the even-younger crowd to participate in future values and policies. But maybe Americans – and those in developed countries – are already sensing a problem. Birth rates in impaired economies – including our own – are falling. Seems economic pessimism is becoming an increasingly effective method of birth control.

With 2.1 live births per adult woman being the replacement standard, Italy must be really bummed out at 1.23, Germany depressed at 1.38, Japan at 1.39 and even the two highest European rates – France at 2.03 and Ireland at 2.07 – are below that replacement level. U.S.-born women (1.9) are also having babies below the replacement rate. Yet these children are our future. In the States, they will take over this badly-administered nation someday, but they seem to be the sacrificial lambs – they don’t vote and young parents vote a whole lot less than their elders – in our austerity-driven world. In the United States, guns win out over children way too often. Of course, you want numbers.

“The United States tolerates the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world. Yet federal expenditures on children — including everything from their share of Medicaid and the earned-income tax credit to targeted efforts like child nutrition and education programs — fell 1 percent last year and will fall an additional 4 percent this year, to $428 billion, according to estimates by the Urban Institute based on the Congressional Budget Office’s projections.

“The federal government spent $8 billion less on child health last year than it did the previous year, as fiscal stimulus programs to combat the Great Recession were phased out. It cut aid to states to pay for primary education by about the same amount… The states, which provide more than 60 percent of the total government dollars spent on children, aren’t in great shape either. According to the Urban Institute’s estimates, state and municipal spending on children fell in each of the last three years.

“And the outlook is not much better for the coming decade. Despite health care reform, which will lead to coverage for millions of uninsured children, the Urban Institute forecasts that federal expenditures on children — including direct spending and tax breaks — will shrink to about 2.3 percent of the nation’s economic output by 2022, from 3 percent last year…  Children have needs besides sound fiscal accounts. Deprived childhoods lay the groundwork for future social ills. We have the third-worst rate of infant mortality among 30 industrialized countries and the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate, after Mexico. We’re in the bottom quarter of countries in terms of literacy. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, half of American children born to low-income parents grow up to be low-income adults.” New York Times, October 9^th. Our test scores in science, math and literacy are falling like a stone.

If we’re counting on this group to earn enough money to fund elder care and pay down the deficit in the future, think again. They will be consuming cash from social safety nets and straining the criminal justice system instead. They will be angry, feel betrayed by the society that let them twist in the wind with little hope and even less to lose. Oh, did I mention they have access to the greatest per capita stash of small arms on earth? As politicians debate about the future of Social Security and Medicare, catering to the elder voters who do vote, maybe they should really be debating about our future… the whole picture.

I’m seeing an F-22 flying over a city with pot-holed roads, crowded crumbling elementary and secondary schools and empty factories. What’s wrong with this picture? Exactly what is that jet protecting and preserving? And what about that gated community up on the hill… who are those folks marching towards it? Oh, they’re Americans too. Shame on our politicians and the voters who let this happen.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the Bible says, you reap what you sow.