Are Families "Fringe Groups?"
Posted May 2, 2008

If an underlying – and fixable – cause of New Jersey’s fiscal crisis were to be identified, one would think that our leaders would pay attention. Well, a cause has been pinpointed. But, unfortunately, Governor Corzine has refused to see past his liberal social viewpoints to acknowledge a real issue that is devastating New Jersey families and taxpayers and has chosen instead to hurl insults at every New Jersey resident who believes that healthy families make a healthy state.

It all started with a report.

In a finding that should be anything but surprising, four prominent public policy groups recently released data showing the exorbitant cost to taxpayers of divorce and unwed childbearing.

The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Child-bearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States, issued jointly on April 15 by the Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, the Georgia Family Council, and Families Northwest, reveals a national, state, and local economic burden of a minimum of $112 billion per year or an astounding $1 trillion over the last decade.

These costs, according to the report’s principal investigator Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., an economics professor at Georgia College & State University, “are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased child poverty – caused by family fragmentation.”

In New Jersey alone, the taxpayer burden is more than $1 billion a year, earning us the rank of the 11th-most-costly state in the nation in this arena.

To address this critical situation – and one that is so harmful to children and families here in the Garden State – the NJFPC called on Governor Corzine to establish an independent, objective, and all-volunteer panel to examine possible ways the state might work to lower the divorce rate and the rate of childbirth to unwed mothers. But instead of recognizing the vital need and responding in a way that would help children, families, and taxpayers across the state, Governor Corzine, through his spokesman Jim Gardner, insulted every resident of New Jersey who believes in preserving and protecting traditional families.

Gardner stated, “At this time, the focus of the administration is to get the state’s fiscal house in order, not arguing social policy with a fringe group that is attempting to exploit the state’s budgetary challenges to advance its own agenda.” 

Through Gardner’s statement, Governor Corzine has shown his true colors. He has both proven that he has no real interest in fixing New Jersey’s fiscal crisis – after all, who wouldn’t look at ways to reduce $1 billion in annual expenses, regardless of its source? – and also blatantly indicated that high divorce rates and high rates of childbirth to unwed women and girls are of no concern to him.

Our state does not need a governor who disparages the people’s beliefs and ridicules citizens’ commitments to protecting their children and building strong and healthy families.

No, New Jersey deserves better.

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