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It is common knowledge that conservatives have soft corner for children and they support many social corrective measures. Yet their stand is unique by inconsistency because of inherent conflicting elements in their policy towards family and children.
Washington D.C – 21.08.2013 – If one looks at the attitude of conservatives and liberals towards family and children in United States, he or she will have no hesitation in concluding that the former are closer to the issues relating to these sensitive areas of the society. Yet when they have closer look at the policy of the conservatives towards family and children they could be in for some unpleasant shocks.
It is known fact that conservatives have more children in comparison to their liberal counterparts. That is why they also oppose abortion rights while appreciating baby’s powers.
Ross Douthat wrote in December last year in The New York Times “more babies please” reflecting rightly the sentiments of the conservatives in the country. At the same time he also pointed out that the comparatively higher birth rates of children in United States will ultimately tilt the scale in its favor in comparison to its ageing rivals on the globe.
Till this point everything seemed fine but now the inconsistency in the stand of conservatives’ surface. On the one hand they want more children take birth, support families with more children to come up, and on the other hand when it comes to national financial support for children and family, they support some drastic cuts in budget in respect of benefit programs for these sectors of the society.
Current situation in American administration is very well demonstrated by the following statement that came up in a trade review recently.
“First Focus, an advocacy group for child-friendly policies, will release on Wednesday its latest ‘Children’s Budget,’ which shows how federal spending on children has declined more than 15 percent in real terms from its high in 2010, when the fiscal stimulus law raised spending on programs like Head Start and K-12 education.”
The result is that in some of the school districts the teachers have been fired and in addition the services have been cut down and in some others it has resulted in shortening the school times.
These are not all as there have been many other adverse impacts on families and their life style due to such reduction of expenses for children by the State. Families are no more getting housing support and to add to this the Republicans have made further cuts on investments in children, education, labor, health, as well as human services in the 2014 budget of United States.
One of the main results of such decline in finances relating to family and persons have resulted in steep fall in birth rates in the country. Thus it is belying the expectations of conservatives that higher birth rate will tilt the balance of economic power in favor of United States against its ageing rivals.
Birth rates in United States plummeted in recent years to below 63 per 1000 women of childbearing age in the country that is the lowest since 1920s.
Inconsistent stand of conservatives have contributed substantially to this rather alarming situation now prevailing in United States.