...surgery or prison. Maybe for a second offense; first gets simply an injunction not to start any more babies, method of their choice. Repeat offenders get forced to comply by one of the sure methods.
The problem with the child support for 'licensed' children is big: you're punishing the children, not the parents. If one of the forms of irresponsibility we're trying to address here is producing children you can't adequately support, how is it going to help to doom a child born to such parents to being raised with no resources? Once the child gets produced, welfare is the obligation of society directly to the *child*, so that the poor rugrat doesn't have to starve because its parents are bad at math. It's not its fault it was born.
Now, the welfare check intended to provide for the child shouldn't really be entrusted to people who are so demonstrably bad at math. I'd say, take the kids away and give them to someone responsible, but there's a horrible shortage of foster parents already. Maybe we need better staffed Children's Services departments, that would be empowered to supervise grocery shopping and clothes purchases. I don't know. But start with rendering the parents incapable of multiplying the problem. |
