So what does a Tyler Cowen pro-parent plan look like? I can think of a number of candidates for interventions, but most of them don’t strike me as things you would advocate for either because of their limited effectiveness or their unintended consequences. Some possibilities that I can think of:
- Parenting interventions in poor communities (i.e. an army of social workers descending on poor communities to teach parenting and advocate for children).
- Shorter/fewer prison sentences in order to allow more poor men to be present for their children and improve the sex ratio in poorer communities (thereby encouraging more committed relationships).
- Similarly – more drug decriminalization? Less?
- Tax reforms of the kind advocated for by people like Brad Wilcox to encourage rather than penalize marriage. (Seems like a good idea to me, but I don’t know how many people there really are out there who choose not to wed for tax reasons).
- Better/more jobs for working class men and all-out brutes? (Seems like an obvious idea, but how? More unions? Fewer? More tariffs and less free trade? Get rid of the Jones Act? More immigration? Less? A larger standing army? A return to more vocational education as advocated for by people like Mike Rowe?)
- The re-churching of America? If so, what are your suggestions for how to accomplish this (evangelical minds would like to know)?