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May 27, 2002

GOP Marriage Hypocrisy

Despite all the rhetoric, the GOP doesn't care about poor unwed mothers. All their worry about "marriage penalities" and handwringing over poor single moms is just about screwing the poor and transferring money to the wealthy. Too harsh? Well, here's some evidence.
...The CATO Institute has a disdainful article, Is the President's Marriage Proposal DOA? that shows how silly and hypocritical conservative hysteria over "unwed welfare mothers" really is. As the article notes, "The numbers show that about half of single mothers on welfare are actually cohabitating with the fathers of their children -- the homes are not fatherless, as conservative critics claimed. Another third of these welfare mothers sustain close "visiting relationships" with the fathers of their children, and only about 9 percent of the tally are "dead-beat dads" or are incarcerated, and offer no parental support."
...Max Sawicky has highlighted the reason why GOP babbling about "marriage penalties" is really only about helping the better off, since as Max notes, working poor men and women can lose thousands of dollars-- $6336 or 25% of their income - as a tax penalty for marrying. That the GOP promotes rhetoric and disdain for the poor mothers, while ignoring this real economic deterrent to marriage among the poor shows the real hypocrisy of conservatives on the issue.

Posted by Nathan at May 27, 2002 07:44 AM

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