Deterioration of families now a 'legitimate gov't concern,' says activist (OneNewsNow.com)

Deterioration of families now a 'legitimate gov't concern,' says activist

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 4/17/2008 9:00:00 AM

couple arguing small A new report commissioned by four policy and research groups finds that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births cost American taxpayers a minimum of $112 billion annually. According to the report, national, state and local costs of family breakdown account for more than $1 trillion in the last decade. (See earlier article)

The study -- released by the Institute for American Values, Georgia Family Council, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and Families Northwest -- looked at the most accepted consequence of "family fragmentation," which is poverty. The economist who conducted the research examined the cost of government anti-poverty programs such as WIC, housing assistance, Medicaid, and child welfare, and the effect of poverty on crime, among other factors.

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Randy Hicks, president of Georgia Family Council, says the $112 billion cost estimate was "cautious" because it did not take into consideration the behavioral benefits that marriage brings. "Not only is there a serious human cost -- and a heart-breaking human cost, often -- to family fragmentation to divorce and unwed child-bearing, just in the form of human suffering; but there's also a taxpayer cost ...," he explains.

The resulting "staggering amounts of [taxpayer] money" over the last couple of decades, he believes, renders the issue of family fragmentation a "legitimate government concern" as well as a social and moral concern. And it is clear, he adds, that families suffer when they fragment.

"To a large degree, if you go back to the 70s, you can see that we devalued marriage in many ways -- not only culturally, but legally," Hicks shares. "[For example] it became easier to get a divorce."

Consequently, he argues, people during the 1970s and 1980s viewed divorce as having minimal if any impact on children. "And so we just kind of barreled ahead through a couple of decades, not really believing that marriage was as important as it turns out to be," he laments.

Hicks contends there is now a new generation of adults who were children of divorce and are now more likely to divorce because of their experience. Hicks says while government does not possess a "silver bullet" for solving the problem of broken homes, Americans need to "band together" to find ways to strengthen marriages and families.

The study, according to Associated Press, does not offer formal recommendations to combat family fragmentation, but suggests that lawmakers at both the state and federal levels consider putting more money into programs designed to strengthen marriages. Noted are programs in both Oklahoma and Texas, the latter of which set aside $15 million in federal funds for marriage education.