By David
R. Usher
November 30, 2013
NewsWithViews.com
Republicans have struggled with social issues traps set by liberals ever since Reagan was President. Democrats targeted lower-income women with welfare handouts, while Republicans talked about spending. Guess who has been garnering an ever-larger share of women’s vote since then?
Republicans no longer have to cringe about social issues. Most women are interested in home and hearth. Most lower-income men are terrified about how to put food on the table too.
The Democrat idea is to bait women out of marriage and keep them living on their miserable welfare plantation, while locking up anyone unable to pay confiscatory sums of child-support welfare recoupments.
Imagine that – taking from the poor to help the poor, and winning elections with it?
There is no reason for Democrats to have the upper hand when so many women and children are living in poverty, having to “do it all”, waiting for some Democrat to fix the furnace or pay the phone bill.
Supply-side socioeconomics turns the Great Society game on its head. We find the true hierarchical sources causing the problems of the poor, and address them head-on. Our primary focus is not on band-aid solutions propping up endless consequences (like liberals always do). We then look at what most individuals really want in each controlling situation. 99% of the time, the choice most people really want is not provided under current federal or state law. We then establish the most direct marriage-positive path empowering individuals achieve their goals by themselves with little spending and without long-term dependency on government.
We know that the lowest rates of poverty are in married families. In most cases, when a low income woman marries a low-income man, they come real close to a middle-class income – the voting constituency that has always been the breakpoint between liberalism and conservatism. Surveys show that low-income men and women are interested in marriage. We simply need to get government out of their way.
What is supply-side Socioeconomic Policy?
Supply-side socioeconomic policy is the equivalent of supply-side economics – which stimulates business and economy through low taxes and minimal government involvement.
Supply-side socioeconomics stimulates marriage, economy, tax revenues, and reduces social spending through positive, choice-based policy empowering citizens to get what they want and need out of life.
Supply-side socioeconomics works by harnessing self-interest with a minimum of government involvement, with an eye towards rebuilding a self-sustaining natural marriage culture.
How does supply-side socioeconomic policy work?
Individuals have short-term needs they must meet or desires they wish to attain. Unmarried low-income individuals often struggle with short-term survival and do not have time or resources to achieve long-range goals that would assure future economic success.
Under existing “social” policy, the most attractive solutions available to low-income individuals discourage marriage, leading to bigger problems and entrapped dependence on government.
Inexpensive supply-side socioeconomic policies establish attractive choices meeting short-term needs of low-income individuals while encouraging healthy forms of marital interdependency, creating time and resources for educational advancement and establishing a pathway to long-term success.
Supply-side socioeconomic policy Example #1:
The Problem: The primary predictor of domestic violence, family money problems, unemployment, and relation breakup is substance abuse in the family.
What individuals want: Most spouses want the substance abuser to get well, but Missouri has no policy giving troubled responsible spouses what they desperately want and need.
The Answer: The “Family Intervention Order” (Missouri HB 402, 2012) establishes a targeted restraining order, empowering the Responsible Spouse to leverage the substance abuser into recovery without creating all-out war over assets and children.
The Benefits: Longitudinal substance-abuse recovery rates of 50% to 70% are expected. Each marriage saved or created will save the state of Missouri approximately $20,000 in social spending annually, for a total of about $200-million annually, with no budget battle.
Supply-side socioeconomic policy Example #2:
The Problem: There are no resources designed to prepare young couples for successful, lifelong marriage. There are very few good marriage counselors. There is no effective support group available to help troubled couples work through the normal problems of marriage and aging.
What individuals want: Most individuals want and need advice they can seek out together without the stigma of going to a marriage counselor.
The Answer: Community Marriage Savers Meetings are held at every church. Troubled couples are mentored by older, trained couples who successfully survived the same problems. Churches provide premarital mentoring to young couples to prepare them for a successful marriage.
The Benefits: Marriage Savers is proven to reduce divorce rates by an average of 17.5%, cohabitation rates by 1/3, and improve marriage rates by 16%. Each marriage saved, each marriage built, and each illegitimate birth avoided saves the state approximately $20,000 annually in social expenditures and improved tax revenue.
Supply-side policy is beneficial to individuals, business, and government
Marriage is the fundamental microeconomic unit of a successful economy. Businesses do better with two adults able to share duties fulfilling responsibilities for work and family. Married individuals are the most reliable members of the work force and have the lowest absentee rates.
Fewer women will have to settle for surviving on welfare in dangerous urban areas and will live happier, more contented lives. When marriage is the social norm, dependency on government shrinks, along with every form of human misery from which dependency needs arise.
State or federal budgets can be balanced when marriage again becomes the social norm. We will continue running deficits until supply-side socioeconomics is applied to federal and state policy.
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Rebuilding marriage is the only method to make whole a tattered Constitution punctured by decades of crisis-management policies and court rulings made in the name of helping and expediency.
Marriage is the cornerstone of trust and cooperativeness with neighbors, community, and ultimately government.
Supply-side socioeconomic is the model needed to replace dysfunctional pirate politics with a new era of collaborative bipartisanship required to lead us through a long-overdue era of American Reconstruction.
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