A marriage penalty

I recently chatted with a young fellow working at a nearby airport. He shared a perplexing problem. Seems that he and girlfriend in the modern vogue live together. He was excited to announce that she is now pregnant.

My comment, old fogey that I am in such matters, suggested that marriage be in order. He agreed as in his words, "I don't want to have a little bastard child." The word sounded a tad blunt but Old English if not currently politically correct. He pleaded to marry the mother to be but her answer is NO. The reason: If they marry their combined incomes will put them over WIC eligibility!

Now I am on my soapbox! What a sad comment on modern society that a welfare program is structured to keep young parents from marrying. WIC of course stands for Women, Infants, and Children. In official governmentalese described as: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.

Baseball, apple pie and motherhood. Who can argue with those kinds of American values? Encouraging breast feeding, providing good nutrition to pregnant mothers-to-be and their young children. All good but then where is this bit about not encouraging marriage, the very foundation of strong families?

It turns out that WIC isn't for everybody. There are income guidelines, thresholds to meet. You make more than this you aren't eligible and miss all the free stuff. The threshold is per "household" and evidently married meets the definition of household and both incomes are counted. For those living together, unmarried, also meets the definition of household but if the income of the man is not declared the lady's sole income gets her (them) qualified for WIC. And who is going to check--way too much trouble for the WIC administrators who in typical bureaucrat fashion are trying to build client numbers anyhow. Quite a system but then it is only "free" money, federal grants. Funds that are coughed up by those privileged few, the rich that have to pay taxes anyhow. Carry on, nothing to see here.

Currently there is a large brouhaha in the media about the government caught spying on us, the common people. Maybe this is a case for the National Security Agency (NSA) to do good work. It wouldn't take much looking at emails and text messages, telephone conversations etc. to discover if indeed a couple living together unmarried are cheating on the income guidelines for WIC and a myriad of other governmental charity programs. Living together and making babies meets the definition of household and both incomes need be declared. Those that are cheating could be quickly exposed and removed from the program. The WIC program expense would decrease and might even win a little redemption for the NSA.

Will it happen -- nah, not in today's world of progressive socialism. Never mind the unintended consequences of a marriage penalty that undermines the very foundation of family and home. Hooking up, living together unmarried seems to be the new American norm but is it really what we the people want for our future?

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail