Often, people who favor a policy change will claim that this change has no cost, because the existing policy doesn't work anyway. Opponents of torture claim that it never produces usable intelligence; opponents of high taxes claim that they don't raise any additional revenue.
Usually, these claims are ultra-premium high-test piffle. However, I am happy to report that in this case, I think I actually can make such a claim:
When we approached the agency we offered to pay the full fee and take whatever baby came our way. The social workers told us that we had to choose a program and that given that we were open to “any race,” we would be placed with a black child because there were fewer waiting parents in that program.“You may as well get the fee break,” one told us. “Because if you are open to adopting a black baby, you will get a black baby.”
"Black babies are worth less than white babies" is a signal that society shouldn't send. Luckily, it doesn't have to. The main cost of adopting a healthy American baby of any race is non-financial; it is the queue. A couple determined to have a white baby will wait years. Babies of other races are in bigger supply, a side effect of black poverty and white affluence. It's unlikely that lower fees result in much shift in peoples' willingness to adopt transracially, so eliminating the fee break would have little cost.
On the other hand, getting rid of the fees entirely would probably be a good idea. If we want to take more money from affluent people, we should do so through the progressive income tax, not through charging people for the privilege of adopting babies that the state would otherwise have to care for. And there's no reason to set up financial barriers to adoption by loving parents of limited means.
The frightening thing about this? Race relations are better now in the US than ever before. I agree with you wholely on this topic. There are too many fees to be met in adoption. Everyone understands the background check, shots, medical treatment. But this business is unfortunate to begin with. How many parents who are open to adoption quit once they see the paperwork? I can hear the cacophony "If they're quitting it probably means they don't care enough to be real parents." Or perhaps a parent is not a parent until a child is present.
the opponents of torture are absolutely spot on, ms. mcardle. the opponents of taxes are not necessarily so.
While easing the paperwork burden is a no-brainer, I think the adoption fee serves a purpose. It acts as a silent screening mechanism. One of the characteristics of a high-quality adoptive home is financial security. All else being equal, a family with $100,000 annual income will provide a better home than one with $50,000. It would be politically incorrect for an agency to "award" a child to a family based on income. However, the adoption fee serves that function to the extent that it is a binding constraint on low-income families.
On the other hand, as is always the case, there are tradeoffs. The fee does limit the potential pool of adoptive parents. This is a concern for minority babies but not white babies. So in that case, the discount for minority babies makes sense. The adoption fees ought not to be viewed as the "value" of the child, but rather as a means to get the highest number of babies (of all races) into the highest quality homes as possible.
I think there is something to be said for adoption fees. Maybe not when it comes to race, but I could see it having a beneficial effect if they (and I don't know if they do) decreased along with the age of the child. The money raised could go toward the cost of taking care of the children not adopted, or be invested on their behalf.
Zach: All things being equal, may I speculate that above a certain threshold there is no correlation between income and quality of care, and above another threshold (300K?) the correlation could be negative. (Of course quality of child care is a made-up metric you can fudge 16 ways, but given the choice I'd rather be raised in a reasonable part of Brooklyn or a Chicago suburb and not Beverly Hills)
I'm curious . . . why do celebrities get to line jump? How come if they want a nice pristine white baby . . . (other than the publicity freaks who can't bother to adopt a non-white baby from this country) . . . they don't have to wait in the que for 10 years?
"Babies of other races are in bigger supply, a side effect of black poverty and white affluence."
Again, I propose that you have reversed cause and effect. Perhaps black poverty is driven by unwed mothers. When 70% of black births are to single mothers, it is inevitable that they end up in poverty and that more black babies are available. White economic status has nothing to do with unprotected sex before marriage in the black community.
Poor morals is the creates a surplus of black (and white) babies. The most basic division of labor is the family where one works and one cares for the children. Destroy the family unit and economic prosperity will flee as well.
And why would an economist avoid using economic incentives to further adoption goals. If discounts for adopting black babies increase black adoption rates, there is no inherent moral argument against it. It is simply a supply and demand scenario.
The moral issue is how so many unwanted children came to be. But it's not PC to address that issue.
el adopto: I certainly agree with your point. There are probably diminished marginal benefits to the child from parental income. And as you point out, sometimes the marginal benefit is negative. However, any threshold is likely to be sufficiently high that the adoption fees are not constraining to those would-be parents anyway. Also, note that I included the phrase "all else equal." Comparing the income of an average family in Beverly Hills and the average income of a family in Brooklyn is not holding all else equal. I still make my original point: a child is likely to grow up in a better environment with a $100k/yr family in Brooklyn than a $50k/yr Brooklyn family, all else equal.
Un-PC or unsolvable? Talking about morals always amounts to that; just talk. Even where people agree on a moral issue, any actual legislation or shame only goes so far. I don't think there are many that would say single-parenting is a good idea. But laws that discriminate against single parents (usually tax laws) are highly unpopular. Talking about preventing premarital sex is the most couterproductive, and in many cases factually misleading endeavor that exists in our new gilded age. Ultimately the answer some people want is "stop having sex before marriage." Which as I suspect you know, even in cultures where the rules are as draconian as can be, the data is always fudged, misleading, or plain lies on paper. And the alternative is in no way as superior as many convince themselves, anytime you even hint that you understand that 16-20 year olds can and will have sex they will of course assume that it is condoned and encouraged.
Furthermore poverty is always driven by a multitude of factors, A lottery culture (sports, entertainment, the actual lottery). Poor education (a vicious circle, poor people beget poor schools), and yes the feeling that of being trapped in the same 5 square miles.
Lastly if something in you does not stir when you read that minority children are adoptable at a faster rate than the "pretty little white baby" then you obviously are missing something. Morally speaking a baby that is not of your genetic makeup is just that. There are fewer instincts, and sentimental attachment. The color of its skin is an illusion to make it more like you. I don't doubt that black families are more likely to adopt black babies, and Koreans are more likely to adopt Korean babies, but that doesn't make it right. It just demonstrates what a wreck man has made of himself in a short period of time.
"Black babies are worth less than white babies" is a signal that society shouldn't send. Luckily, it doesn't have to.
I'm afraid I don't understand you. Are you saying the queue doesn't constitute a signal sent by society?
Surely that the signal is not a good thing. But it's there.
ben wrote: The color of its skin is an illusion to make it more like you. I don't doubt that black families are more likely to adopt black babies, and Koreans are more likely to adopt Korean babies, but that doesn't make it right. It just demonstrates what a wreck man has made of himself in a short period of time.
What on earth are you trying to say?
Simple biological genetics dictate that like begets like. Skintone that roughly matches that of the parents isn't an "illusion"; it's the normal outcome. When two caucasion white people raise a dark-skinned baby with negroid features, it will be instantly evident to everyone that the child was either from a different relationship or adopted, as there is no natural mechanism to produce that result. For better or worse, it will create social and cultural issues that the parents will have to spend much of their lifetime working around in order to evade prejudice, misconceptions, or just plain gawking.
Parents who go to the adoption agency are already crossing a significant emotional chasm, in some cases coming from a long and stressful spell of fertility failure or miscarriages, and are making a huge investment in accepting a child that is not biologically their own. Some parents who are strong enough to overcome racial barriers in making that decision, and well for them, but the rest don't need a self-appointed judge explaining what "wrecks" they have become for simply wanting a close substitue for what comes naturally to most other couples: biological offspring.
"If we want to take more money from affluent people, we should do so through the progressive income tax." Our self-described 'libertarian' Hostess, aka MM
Karl Marx's "10 Planks" to seize power and destroy freedom:
Abolition of Property in Land and Application of all Rents of Land to Public Purpose.
A Heavy Progressive or Graduated Income Tax.
Abolition of All Rights of Inheritance.
Confiscation of the Property of All Emigrants and Rebels.
Centralization of Credit in the Hands of the State, by Means of a National Bank with State Capital and an Exclusive Monopoly.
Centralization of the Means of Communication and Transport in the Hands of the State.
Extension of Factories and Instruments of Production Owned by the State, the Bringing Into Cultivation of Waste Lands, and the Improvement of the Soil Generally in Accordance with a Common Plan.
Equal Liability of All to Labor. Establishment of Industrial Armies, Especially for Agriculture.
Combination of Agriculture with Manufacturing Industries; Gradual Abolition of the Distinction Between Town and Country by a More Equable Distribution of the Population over the Country.
Free Education for All Children in Public Schools. Abolition of Children's Factory Labor in it's Present Form. Combination of Education with Industrial Production.
http://www.conservativeusa.org/10planksofcommunism.htm
"I'm curious . . . why do celebrities get to line jump?" Because "society" has opted for an aristocracy of celebrity.
"I don't think there are many that would say single-parenting is a good idea."
Ben, without disagreeing with anything that you wrote, can we agree on a starting point? How about..
Two parent families are preferable to single parent families.
Not wrong, or bad, or immoral. Just better for the parents, the children and society as a whole. Once we agree on a basic premise, then taxation, laws, shame etc are just methods of moving toward the desired goal.
"and yes the feeling that of being trapped in the same 5 square miles"
Your nearest military recruiter has a cure for that.
Isn't it interesting that the consensus is firmly against discriminating on the basis of skin color, but tacitly accepts that economic status is a good measure of a preferable family unit. This is an economics blog, but you guys need to meet more rednecks.
What criteria should adoptive parents need to meet?
Here's my list:
1. married
2. no major criminal record in the last ten years.
3. employed
Screening goes much faster with at the Zoot Fenster Adoption Agency. $100 and you get the next kid in line.
"It's unlikely that lower fees result in much shift in peoples' willingness to adopt transracially, so eliminating the fee break would have little cost."
Megan, you're making shit up, you miacharacterize the issue, and you're wrong. The lower fee structure isn't for inter-racial adoptions, it's for adoptions of African-American children.
I'm on the Board of a non-profit adoption agency, and I assure you that lower fees make a huge difference in the willingness of people with less money to adopt a child, inter-racially or otherwise. If we didn't have lower fees for those children who are hardest to place, we would have many fewer lower income adoptive parents, a much higher percentage of whom are African-American. That is, lower fees increase the probability of same race adoptions. They also increase the oportunities of becoming a family for lower income clients fo all races. Eliminating the lower fees would impose a substantial cost to the lower income customers.
The suggestion that all fees be waived is also idiiotic, for the same reasons that health care can't be free, even though eveyone needs it, and food can't be free. The fees pay for the costs associated with adoption. Without fees (or higher taxes, which I recall you oppose) there couldn't be any adoptions.
"Less paperwork" sounds good, but doesn't really make sense. The paperwork is intended to prevent very bad things from happening, such as preventing convicted child molesters or kiddie porn producers from adopting new victims.
Note to Texaspatrick: celebrities don't jump in line. They just hold off on the publicity until the adoption is final or close to final.
Are the fees there to make sure only truly serious (and wealth, unfortunately?) get the kids?
Is there a scenario where a welfare mom would adopt kids just for the tax credits?
That seems hard to imagine, but the polygamists were basically don't that -- maybe not for the credit but they were abusing it.
So... could you end up with people who can't afford kids having society pick up the tab for them?
I'd rather have those that can afford them pay for them. And if there is a waiting list, there must not be a surplus?
Imagine if every time an Upper West Sider or a pontificating reporter said something ill-informed, someone like Arthur who knew something about the matter came along and corrected them with facts. Society as we know it would cease to exist. That's why these intertubes are so dangerous.
"Less paperwork" sounds good, but doesn't really make sense. The paperwork is intended to prevent very bad things from happening, such as preventing convicted child molesters or kiddie porn producers from adopting new victims.
Paperwork is also faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. What we need in this country is fewer police officers and more paperwork.