Dear ZPG letter writers: You may have heard that part of the new budget deal is a per child tax credit. I disagree and have drafted the following letter. I will send it to President Clinton and copies to my legislators. (Editor's note: you can get the email address of your legislators from ZPG.) Let us make our voices heard!!
Howie Breinan
220 Hurlburt St.
Glastonbury, CT 06033
3 May 1997
(860) 633-6355
RE: per child tax credit
Dear President Clinton,
I would like to express a very strong opinion on one of the points of the proposed balanced budget agreement: the per child tax credit. I believe this is an enormous mistake when we consider the message it sends to Americans concerning population growth and family size. This is a time when continued human proliferation threatens many aspects of our nation's and the world's well being. Our burgeoning numbers are stressing our environment, making it more difficult for our social and political systems to provide basic needs, and lowering our quality of life by contributing to crowding, traffic, loss of open spaces, and forced reductions in personal freedoms. Clearly, your approach to the issues of health care, education, and the environment will be nearly impossible to sustain with a continually growing population.
I urge you to consider the wisdom of tax credits for children. It may be politically popular, but under close scrutiny it does not make sense for our long-term well being. I acknowledge that the birth of a child is perhaps the most important event in an individual's life, and as such should be celebrated. I personally look forward to raising a family. However, children also cost society. We must find a space for them to live, feed them, clothe them, provide them with clean water, educate them, dispose of their refuse, control the pollution they will create with their car, etc. These burdens to other humans and our environmental support system suggest a tax, rather than a credit. It is one thing to subsidize a first child for a poor couple that could not otherwise support a family. I would not want to deny anybody who truly desired it the chance to raise a child. But those who are able to pay should cover the full cost of bringing a human being into this world. To ignore or subsidize these costs is to compromise our future and that of our children.
We should also make it a national goal to achieve, on average, two-child families to stabilize our population. This would be of significant value, allowing us to address many issues tied to our quality of life (including health care, education, and the environment) without having to contend with the continued demands of serving more people. What is needed is a new public conception of optimal family size. However, the per child credit sends the wrong message: that more is better. Any tax relief for new births should be only for a first, and possibly a second child. This limit would draw attention to the fact that a small family will be good for us all in the long run. In order to limit the perception of loss of reproductive freedom, it is important that our citizens see the wisdom in making this choice It will be a difficult task to control our reproduction, but an unavoidable one if we are to maintain our present quality of life and to foster a sustainable relationship with our neighbors and our environment. Let us start with this small step.
Sincerely,
Howie Breinan
breinan@alumni.stanford.edu
Editor's note: there are two ways to send this letter to President Bill Clinton --