Santorum: Fix the economy by incentivizing marriage
By Megan Carpentier
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
In an interview after the debates with Raw Story, Santorum expanded on his thesis. “On the legislative side, you have to make sure that families that are raising children are not unduly penalized for having children,” and cited the fact that the child deduction hasn’t kept pace with inflation since the fifties, meaning “the tax burden on middle income families has grown and grown and grown.”
http://cdnimg.visualizeus.com/thumbs/ee/85/animated,billboard,marriage-ee85493a74c5b146cbf32d15105ec67e_m.jpgBut, Santorum cited as another example the Chattanooga First Things First program, which was a collaborative effort to encourage more people to get and stay married. Santorum said, “what they did was get educators together, churches together, government together, community and business leaders together and they put together a plan to help families, to educate through the school system the importance of marriage, not just from the standpoint of interpersonal relationships but economically, the importance of it.” That, Santorum added, “is what a leader can do.”
The Chattanooga program does not advocate for more sex education or low-cost birth control, despite having had one of the highest rates of unwed mothers in the country, according to Santorum.
Santorum added, “How many of us have had a conversation at the kitchen table in the last two or three weeks about class warfare, about the rich versus the poor? Why? Because the President’s talking about it. Now what do you think if the President actually talks about the importance of marriage, not just from the standpoint of men and women coming together, but from the standpoint of how it’s going to help the economy? And we actually put together ideas and programs to try to foster this whole different way of looking at America?”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/11/santorum-fix-the-economy-by-incentivizing-marriage/