Time to tend to family business.

• Author: Hood, John
• Position: FREE&CLEAR

In public-policy debate, economic and social issues often follow separate tracks. But when it comes to the family, the tracks converge. While people can continue to disagree about the religious or moral foundations of family life, there is no room for argument about the consequences of family stability. Higher rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births raise the cost of government and, thus, act as a drag on economic growth.

In Raleigh and Washington, liberals and conservatives debate at the macro level whether taxes should go up or spending should go down to balance budgets, but they tend to miss the bigger story. Government is becoming a means of transferring money from one pocket to another rather than building productive assets such as infrastructure and a skilled workforce.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment insurance subsidize immediate consumption, not long-term investment. Entitlements and public assistance now account for the majority of federal spending and an increasing share of state budgets (primarily through Medicaid and unemployment benefits). They are growing far more rapidly than spending on education and infrastructure. In North Carolina, total state and local expenditures more than doubled during the last three decades, after adjusting for inflation and population growth. But that's only an average. Medicaid and other health and human-services spending more than tripled, while highway spending grew at half the average rate--and actually declined in real terms in the past decade.

Two traditional roles of the two-parent family were to rear children and care for elderly parents. In the past, multigenerational households were common. The savings rate was much higher as working adults planned for their family responsibilities. As rates of divorce and single parenthood rose, so did demands for public assistance. More than 40% of North Carolina children now are born out of wedlock, roughly double the rate two generations ago. Two parents earning modest incomes of $25,000 each can form a middle-class household even when they produce multiple children. If the parents split up, or never get married in the first place, child support can't make up the difference.

When people graduate from high school, work full time, wait until marriage before having children and avoid addiction, the likelihood they will spend significant time in poverty is minuscule--less than 2%. For every deviation from these rules...