It's For The Children! ... And Other Lies My Government Told Me

Children's issues -- or at least, what appear to be children's issues -- have been plastered all over the news (or at least at the edges), for the last few days. From more NCLB fears to SCHIP expansion and CBS's alleged child abuse for ratings; it seems we can't get away from the "little tikes". Are there any lessons to be learned from this new juvenile ubiquity?

There is little doubt that this nation has a pre-occupation with its children. There are plenty of reasons why this is -- but politically speaking it is clear that the nation's children are the one area where Democrats and Republicans agree completely: they ought to be placated, protected, and provided for -- because they are so precious to us. Unfortunately, however, if anything this pre-occupation can only result in the expansion of the already-prevalent neoteny in our society. And it's certain that even in terms of our children, this focus is leading to "unintended side-effects". Take, for example, the growing "epidemic" of obesity in children:

About every fourth American child between the ages of ten to seventeen is overweight. This is the finding of a new report which has stated, "The rate of childhood obesity more than tripled from 1980 to 2004. Approximately 25 million children are now either obese or overweight.

It is painfully revealing that someone the age of 17 -- a year away from legal majority and adulthood -- is considered a "child". There are plenty of reasons why this is going on, but one thing is certain; it is clear that obesity (in general) comes about as a combination of two things: the consumption of rich foods, and the lack of exertion. Both of these, if taken to extremes, represent coddling; so the fact that 1 in 4 -- 25% -- of our children are overweight/obese means, in plain terms, that we have physical evidence that we coddle our young.

And the reactions to circumstances where children are only slightly-less coddled than normal is fascinating. "
On Friday, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced that it was investigating reports that allege abuse of children on "Kid Nation," which premieres Sept. 19.
" And mind you -- "Kid Nation" basically is nothing more than a bunch of 8-12 year olds whom were set up in a "ghost town" and given supplies to run their own town, without adults on-screen. The worst thing that happened was that a ten-year-old girl got a grease-burn on her face while cooking. For this, the parent is now suing CBS for 'child neglect'. A single, 1st-degree burn over a small area. Cases like these, once-upon-a-time, were thrown out summarily.

What is amazing to this author, however, is the fact that this national coddling represents less and less individual parental responsibility, while simultaneously representing a greater and greater outrage by society at the failures of society as a whole (in this case, read that as "the Government") to acheive in lieu of parents taking care of their own kids: we demand excellence, but can't be bothered to produce it ourselves, apparently. For example, NCLB's standards are being reported for their inflexibility, so greatly so that schools that individual (local) parents rate very highly continue to fail to meet up to NCLB's "adequate yearly progress" despite significant gains in statistical acheivements. And what, exactly, is the primary demand for the remedy of the nation's well-documented educational woes? More funding -- demand responsibility and effectiveness from our schools, we are told -- but also increase teacher pay so we get decent teachers; etcetera. But looking at raw numbers on this issue paints a very bizarre picture:

The United States spent an average of $8,701 per pupil to educate its children in 2005, the Census Bureau said on Thursday, with some states paying more than twice as much per student as others.

[...]

Students in northeastern and northern states tend to perform better on standardized tests than students in southern and southwestern states. But experts say the correlation between spending and testing performance is not strong.

[...]

[Tom Loveless] said Washington, D.C., has among the highest spending in the country but its students have among the lowest scores on standardized tests, while some states like Montana with relatively low spending have fairly high performance on tests.

So what, then, is this demand for more spending on schools accomplishing? It's worth noting that the single largest bloc for increased education spending is... teacher's unions. Meanwhile, private schools provide excelling education for pennies on the dollar compared to public schools; with a cost reported $3,116/yr. Is more money really what is needed, or is it just possible that someone has hijacked our unquestioning concern for our children for other purposes?

With that thought in mind, consider the other recent news item involving our children -- SCHIP renewal. The Cato Institute has an interesting take on some of the ads going around about SCHIP:

And of course, there's contention here. The following quotations come from the same source:

Gov. Mike Beebe joined with three Democratic members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation to support the federal reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance for low-income children.

Okay -- support the uninsured low-income children! This is a good message -- how could anybody dislike it, or vote against it? How dare President Bush threaten to veto it? But then we dig a little deeper:

The House bill allows states to expand SCHIP to families with incomes as high as 400 percent of the federal poverty level, said [Representative John] Boozman’s [R-AR] spokesman, Ryan James. That’s $82,600 for a family of four.

$82,600 is to be the new cut-off for SCHIP? 4 times the poverty line? Well, maybe this is justifiable -- so long as it's just for the children. And it is, right? So now we dig a little deeper still:

Another concern among some legislators is the extent to which the children’s health program covers adults. Arkansas’ SCHIP funding covers some adults in the new ARHealthNet program, which began enrolling people in January.

That's right -- now it seems that "low-income children" applies to middle-income adults as well. How amazing!! Who would bring this to us? Why, our new, fiscally conservative, democratic congressmen, of course:

The blue dogs are consistent on one fiscal issue: stopping tax cuts. As a group they opposed the Bush tax cuts and the extension of those tax cuts, and a super-majority vote requirement to raise taxes–all in the name of easing the debt burden on future generations. But those concerns evaporated when all but nine in the blue dog coalition voted to expand the Schip health-care program to include many middle-class families, at a cost of $132.6 billion over the 2008-2017 period.

And remember, SCHIP was originall the child of a Republican sponsor-author (Chuck Hagel), in a Republican congress.

When the hell are we going to, as a nation, stop allowing our reliance on the government to screw us over? Rational ignorance or not, this "This legislation is for the children! Ignore the other shenanigans behind page one!" crud simply has to stop. And when are we all going to wake up and realize that there's no such thing as "money for nothing" -- even if it's coming from the government printing presses?