At 10:49 PM 6/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
Sort of... only the solution can be less painful:
All people need to do is stop having so many babies. This is why I
support the "W.C. Fields Memorial Child Tax Bill," a progressively
incrementing tax on children. One child, a somewhat low tax, such as
an education tax. Two children, a higher tax is applied. Three
children, a much higher tax is applied, etc. No more tax deductions
for dependent children; instead, allow childless people to have
generous deductions for pets, computer collections (if all of the
computers are named), plants, etc. It might not hurt to outlaw the
discouragement of birth control and outlaw any religious dogma which
encourages people to have children. Give tax breaks to childless
people and don't tax them for any costs associated with children
(e.g. education, health care, etc.) Etc.... In other words, reduce
the population fairly quickly through a decline in the birth rate.
Simple, humane and effective, what?
But dead wrong. Such an incentive would be positively correlated with
an increase in poverty, which is in turn positively correlated with
an increase in babies.
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Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org