Back to the Future: Fixing the Family Infrastructure

During a recent panel discussion, Ari Fleischer identified the “soft under belly” of vulnerable American society as the destruction of the family ( https://youtu.be/6r-pcKfofbI ) time index 27:15).  He stated that 25% of White families, 50% of Latino, and 75%  of Black families go to bed at night without a father in the home.  This situation is sadly a prime breeding ground for  the following consequences:

•  Delinquency/incarceration (1 in 4 Black adult men in prison, 70% of men      come from fatherless homes)
•  Low scholastic achievement
•  Low financial status
•  Fosters government dependency
•  Fosters drug and gang connections
•  Fosters unwed-teenage parenting
•  Fosters abortion

So, if we continue on our present course, it would appear that more prisons, more cameras, more police, more government “surrogate-parenting” is in our future.  But how can we get to the root of the problem  and stop forever “trimming branches”  only to eventually have them grow back?

What if we take a step “back to the future”, back to what worked?  And what worked:  a committed two-parent marriage.  What if the government “incentivized” marriage rather than raised taxes to deal with crime and delinquency?  What if couples were “rewarded” for:

• Participating in pre-marital counseling programs
• Actually getting married
• Waiting to have children after marriage
• Every year of “staying” married until their youngest child turned 18

The reward(s) could be in the form of various compensations (money, exemptions, privileges, scholarships, tuition, etc.), but the bottom-line is a “win-win” for families and government.