April Fool's Day Comes Early This Year
-- Jim Babka wishes the Bush administration
was kidding when it said it wants to spend your
money to promote healthy marriages
by Jim Babka
January 15, 2004
I shouldn't be surprised, but when I read the
latest proposal being floated by the White
House, I hoped that perhaps a new day of pranks
and jokes had been started – as if April Fool's
wasn't enough.
George W. Bush wants to spend $1.5 billion
(yes, with a "b") to promote "healthy
marriages." He plans to announce this in the
State of the Union.
And that's no laughing matter.
On top of the nearly half of your income that
you provide to federal, state, and local
governments, Bush wants another twenty bucks
a year out of you to invest in this "preventative"
measure.
The Family Research Council, a group of well-
meaning but naïve people who apparently
believe that politicians possess special skills at
teaching virtue, hailed the decision. Their
president Tony Perkins was quoted as saying,
"For every $1,000.00 we spend on public
programs addressing family breakdown, we
only spend one dollar trying to prevent that
breakdown in the first place. The President's
initiative puts the emphasis in the right place –
prevention."
Amazingly, Perkins isn't kidding either.
So consider this an investment my friends.
While government grows, and grows, and
grows, and deficits expand, and debts swell, we
should consider this a potential savings plan.
After all, if we could prevent divorce, we
wouldn't have to spend so much money on
welfare now, would we?
If they seriously believe that, and apparently
Mr. Perkins and his associates do, I have some
investments I'd like to show them, starting with
a certain bridge.
Government always spends more. In fact,
welfare reform, which has allegedly shrunk the
welfare rolls, has not resulted in budget cuts. On
the contrary, this area of government has
continued to require more money.
Politicians are One-horse Harry's – they only
know how to spend more and more of your
money. There's no investment here.
But that wouldn't matter to Perkins and the
Family Research crowd. They are
communitarians. Communitarians believe that
the power of the State can be used to inculcate
values and build moral structure.
No, I didn't say "communist," and I'm not
calling them a name that they haven't embraced
themselves. A previous offering by this crowd
was the Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives, designed to redirect government
welfare money to Christian organizations. It was
supported by self-professed communitarians
such as William Bennett, John DiIulio, Jr., and
Marvin O'Lasky.
But it's no accident that some of you might've
thought that I just called them "communist."
Both groups believe we can do good using
government force.
It's an odd contradiction. If I compel you to
behave morally, say at gunpoint, that's not
really a moral choice, is it? It's not even really a
choice.
And government is force. It means that you
confiscate hard-earned money to give to other
people. If people don't "voluntarily" turn over
their money, you harass them, strip their wages
and bank accounts, and finally take their stuff –
maybe even arrest them. The professed ends
may be well-intentioned, but the means are
flawed – terribly flawed. And I doubt the
Family Research Council would want to be
known as a group that believes the ends justifies
the means.
Furthermore, virtue cannot be instilled by force.
The message of Christ, which I'm sure Mr.
Perkins professes adhesion to, is one of love and
its intended target is the human heart. It is freely
offered, freely accepted. The State is not so fair.
What kinds of marriages are likely to be
produced with federal intervention?
It's hard to imagine how an agency overseen by
the likes of philandering and divorced
politicians, devoid of any values that might
appear to be religious, is going to have any
success.
Given the government's past track record on
social welfare, it would be fair to expect this
investment to cost us an increase in divorce
rates! Such do-good programs consistently fail
in the same manner.
- The government's War on Poverty has
not eradicated poverty, but it has
entrenched it in certain areas.
- The government's War on Illiteracy has
lead to increased dropout rates.
Even most of the communitarians themselves
would concede those points. Why should this
case be any different?
Politicians can't fix marriage. Boy do I wish this
was an April Fool's joke. Sadly, it's not