But when does it end? Parents get all those things as you wrote. But they made a lifestyle choice (to have children) which then gets all of these subsidies and tax deductions at the expense of those of us who are childfree. So why can't we childfree get a break on our local school taxes because we are not a burden on the school system? I am not saying that we childfree should pay zero in local school taxes, only that we should get a discount on those local school taxes simply because we are childfree.
At the risk of making you more upset, which I really do not want to do, I can make a counter argument that it takes a lot more than these tax deductions to raise a child, and to bring him/her up to be a productive citizen to work and pay taxes for my and your SS and Medicare.
So, are parents not making a personal sacrifice for the good of society? Should they be rewarded even more? I already mentioned how European nations with low birthrates are doing exactly that.
Even if we do not have Medicare and SS and totally rely on our own, without enough youngsters to provide the services and products that we geezers consume, we will have to pay higher prices for what we will consume. I guess if one goes to a 3rd world country he can get more for his money, but if more people do that, would the US become a huge Detroit?
Although I have two grown children, I used to agree with a Libertarian friend of mine that I should not have to subsidize people with 4 or 5 children. I no longer think the same. I do not know when I changed, but perhaps it was when I started to think about how some developed nations are having trouble with an aging population. Japan is the most obvious example.
This sounds a lot like the justification for any Ponzi scheme. "If we can only keep getting new investors ("new blood") into my Ponzi scheme, it won't collapse or get into trouble." Local schools are pay-as-you-go systems, too. If the number of children in a district were to drop to zero, then we could close all the schools down and eliminate (nearly) all the school taxes, except for the legacy costs to retired school employees, UGH!).
It is a Ponzi scheme only when the benefits are so generous that it takes many workers to support one retiree and requires that the number of workers keeps growing and growing.
Think about the equilibrium case when the population reaches a stable value, and suppose that we have a stable ratio of 2 workers for 1 retiree. If the benefit is computed properly, the workers can support the retirees forever. I forgot how this benefit ratio would be computed, but if the retiree wants to get the same pay as the worker, and is going to spend as many years in retirement as in his work life, then the tax is going to be very high for the workers. It would not work.
Any retirement system will go broke if it is going to pay a retiree the same pay as when he worked, and with his years in retirement being as long or even longer then his working years. The only way for that to work is for the worker to save 50% or more of his pay.
People will say that they can save less than 50% and investment growth will take care of the rest. However, the economy and the stock market also stop growing when the population reaches equilibrium.