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"Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." ~Nancy Pelosi~

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Well, it seems that Nancy Pelosi has finally shown her true colors. In an interview with ABC's Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning, she made this comment, "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." Basically, she is saying that kids cost money (which they do), but then she is also inferring that they are a complete waste for the government to be spending money on, (which is not true). From a completely fiscal viewpoint, is the next generation worth the cost?

According to an online calculator(1) for the costs of raising a child born in 2009, including paying for their college tuition is roughly around $250,000 a child. Now, to be fair, we will take away the college tuition, as it comes further down the road, and the parents might win the lottery before then, so with the average tuition of a public university from the '06-'07 school year being around $12,000, this brings our total down to about $238,000.

Now, the question arises, how much of this 238k does the government have to dish out to its citizens to pay for the kids? Well, as long as Obama doesn't start "bailing" out everybody in the US, NOTHING. I know there are families with special needs children that will receive subsidies from the government; and there are families that will be receiving welfare checks; but for the most part, all of the money spent of a child is from the private sector. Thus, actually having children is stimulating to the economy in the way that it helps the circulation of the money supply. It keeps things "liquid" (there's your economic term for the day so you feel like you got your money's worth).

Now, what are the benefits for the government to promote contraception? Well, the only one I can think of is that there are less people to feed, and thus less food is required overall, which frees up more food to be consumed by each individual. (It's no surprise that the obesity rate in America is headed out the roof) Other than that, I really can't think of any benefits for the government to promote contraception.

What are the costs of not having children? They are a lot more than what you would imagine. For example, when you have less people, you will receive less taxes. The total federal budget for fiscal year 2008 was roughly $2.9 Billion (data taken from the Federal Budget Office(2)). Divide this among the 138 million citizens counted in 2007(3), and you get about $21,000 per person. Now, what would the cost be if had been no abortions in the United States? What would happen if we virtually reverse Roe v Wade?

An estimated 50 million babies have been murdered through RvW, but we'll only take half of that number so that we're sure to only get the kids that would be of tax-paying age. Thus, adding 25 million people onto the 138 million taxpayers, we get 163 million people for the government to suck money from. Diving the entire Federal Budget among these citizens, we get the amount of $17,700 per person. This is a savings of $3,300 per person, what a tax break! I know that taxes don't pay for all of the government's budget, but we're going by the KISS principle here for the sake of argument.

Tax breaks are great, and would stimulate the economy in and of itself, but the real benefit to having kids is to help solve the disaster that is Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. It's estimated that in 50-75 years, the total cost for just these programs will total the entire current federal budget. Why are we losing money through this program? Because there's not enough kids to pay for the older people going into retirement. It's also affected by the retirement age declining and some other factors, but we won't get into that here. The point is, if the government were smart, it would not promote contraception, but it would rather encourage its citizens to procreate.

So, why is Pelosi saying that it's cost effective for Americans not to have kids? It stems from a worldview, not from a political position. She's fallen into the same trap that the rest of politically correct America has stepped in, and now it's finally coming out of the closet. To paraphrase John McCain on the stimulus package, "it needs some work". I say we forgo the stimulus package all together and stimulate the economy through the means of the FairTax and balancing international trade... However, that's a different topic.

Look ahead to the future America, look to see where your past ideas will take you. Learn from your mistakes that you might not repeat them again.

-Cheers