Sin taxes

That kind of rhetoric also creates a major divide between those who have kids and the childless.

Frankly, issues like this make me wonder if society would be better off if people stopped reproducing for a few years, to give us time to think about the pros and cons of reproduction.

"That kind of rhetoric also creates a major divide between those who have kids and the childless."

Does it? As far as I can see, the only way this is true is that it can discourage the poor from procreating - which, considering the correlation between race and the economic status may have some unsavory eugenic undertones.

"Hey, we're shifting the burden onto those who create the costs, I see no flaws with this."

By that, you must mean the parents. The flaw is, once again, in keeping the poor uneducated and the rich educated.

edited 12th Jun '11 12:09:04 PM by kashchei

That's an easy one to solve, mandatory contraceptive injections for having the sin tax waved.

I'm with neo, I think society would be better off if we stopped reproducing for a few decades.

You'll have to make a more convincing argument than that before you get to pull a Saturn's Race.

No the problem is that smoking/drinking is all f-ing negative.

Children on the other hand are not. If they grow up and pay taxes, they're removing burden from you. So you have to show net-negative effect on the government coffers. Like someone said already, they're basically an investment by the state. So shifting the costs to those who create them... well it gets quite confusing with children. Do you pay the parents back money when the children start making a net positive effect on society? No, the most sensible thing is to just average it out and if done right, children should average to some positive value. (That is, children should be more productive than their parents)

<sarcasm>

Why are you people talking about children? The elderly and infirm obviously suck more out than they give in. We should end things like Social Security in the United States and let them die quickly like in Children of Men so their longevity would stop unbalancing the population charts.

</sarcasm>

But they're primarily negatives towards the people that do them. Since they only become problems when done in conjunction with something else, most of which are illegal, they only have a cost on themselves.