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CARLSON BLASTS GOP FOR PUTTING INTERESTS OF BUSINESS AHEAD OF FAMILIES
In a featured article in the current Weekly Standard, an influential national
periodical, Howard Center Executive Director Dr. Allan Carlson blasts the
Republican Party for consistently favoring Wall Street over Main Street.
In the March 27th issue of the magazine (“Indentured Families : Social
Conservatives and the GOP – Can this Marriage Be Saved?”) Carlson charges,
“Where the interests of the proverbial ‘Sam’s Club Republicans’ collide with the
interests of the great banks, the Sam’s Club set might as well pile into the
family car and go home.”
Carlson notes that the recent federal bankruptcy reform act makes it harder
for financially troubled families to file for bankruptcy, but does nothing to
curb the predatory practices of lending institutions, which targets these
families.
“The Republican Party has done relatively little to help traditional
families, and may in fact be contributing to their new indentured status,”
Carlson observes. While the inflation-adjusted income of two-income families
increased 35% since 1970, for married couples where the wife isn’t in the paid
labor force, inflation-adjusted income growth has been stagnant over the past 35
years.
Parents who choose to put their children in day care get tax credits ranging
from $1,500 to $2,100 a year. Parents who sacrifice to care for their children
at home receive no comparable tax relief. The Republican leadership in Congress
has shown little interest in passing the Parents’ Tax Relief Act of 2006 (H.R.
3080) which would provide some equity here.
Carlson does credit the Republicans with increasing the child credit,
eliminating the marriage tax penalty, passing a bill to ban partial-birth
abortion and appointing conservative, pro-family judges.
However, says Carlson, “When push comes to shove, social conservatives remain
second-class citizens under the Republican tent. During the 2004 Republican
Convention, they were virtually confined to the party’s attic, kept off the main
stage, treated like slightly lunatic children.”
All of this may come back to haunt the Party of Reagan. The Family Research
Council just released a poll showing 63% of Values Voters, the core of the
party, feel Congress has not kept its promise to act on a pro-family agenda.
To read “Indentured Families” on line, click here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/991nmrow.asp
or www.weeklystandard.com.
For more information on the Howard Center for Family Religion and Society, go
to
www.profam.org. To schedule an interview with Dr. Allan
Carlson contact Larry
Jacobs at 1-800-461-3113.
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