Star Parker: “America's 'soulless materialism,' declining birthrate leading to disaster”
WND: With the first presidential debate and the only vice-presidential debate behind us, it seems pretty clear that so-called “social issues” are not going to get much attention in this year’s presidential politics.
It’s unfortunate, I think. We deceive ourselves to permit the assumption that values and behavior are not the real drivers behind our economic problems.
The fiscal crisis of our entitlement programs is the direct result of these values and behavior.
The fiscal soundness of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is rooted in the assumption that those working can fund the needs of our elderly through payroll taxes. In the case of Social Security, we’re talking about retirement income. In the case of Medicare, we’re talking about health costs of the aged, and, Medicaid, long-term care of low income elderly.
When these programs were founded, the approach of using payroll taxes to fund care for our elderly seemed like a viable idea.
The bottom has fallen out, however, because of changes in our behavior. There are fewer and fewer workers per retiree as result of longer life spans and a shrinking workforce.
In 1950, there were 16 working Americans for every retiree. Today, there are less than three. According to projections, by 2030 there will be less than two.
It doesn’t take a supercomputer to realize that if we don’t reduce the retirement and health care resources available to our elderly, the burden on each working American to provide those resources increases substantially when they must be provided for each retiree by two, rather than 16, workers.
Yet the discussion about this crisis is 100 percent focused on how to cut the spending, and zero attention is spent on restoration of values that could rebuild families, produce more children and stop destroying the unborn.
According to a new report just out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the overall fertility rate of American women – defined by the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 – is the lowest ever recorded since the government started gathering this information.
According to demographers, a fertility rate of 2.1 is necessary to keep a population at a steady state – which means that the overall population remains the same size over time. The 2.1 rate means that each adult woman produces 2.1 children on average over her lifetime.
After years of the U.S. fertility rate hovering slightly above 2.1, it has now dropped below to 1.9. That means the overall U.S. population is shrinking.
We generally look to Europe to see low fertility rates and shrinking populations. However, according to the Economist magazine, the U.S., at 1.9, now has a fertility rate lower than France, whose fertility rate stands at 2.0.
A change in prevailing values could reverse this trend. But the opposite is happening.
According to a new Gallup poll, for the first time most Americans feel that government should not promote any particular set of values.
In 1993, the first year Gallup did this annual survey, 53 percent said government should promote traditional values and 42 percent said that no particular set of values should be promoted. Now, in this latest survey, it is the opposite. Fifty-two percent say no particular set of values should be promoted, and 44 percent say government should promote traditional values.
With no rebirth of traditional values that could lead to more babies, caring for our elderly will become an increasingly onerous burden. Where can this soulless materialism lead?
In a recent New York Times op-ed, New York investment banker and former counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration Steven Rattner provides a shockingly candid answer.
The op-ed begins, “We need death panels.”
Rattner then qualifies this by saying, well, maybe not “exactly.”
But he then concludes with, “We may shrink from … stomach-wrenching choices, but they are inescapable.”
Star Parker is the author of Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It, Revised and Updated Edition, Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger and White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay
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