by Mitt Romney
Most out-of-wedlock births are not accidental. By a wide percentage, the mothers are intent on having a child, so increasing the availability of birth control does not even remotely address the issue. In fact, only 1 percent of low-income single mothers report that they did not have adequate access to contraceptives. We are simply failing to help prospective parents make the best decision—to marry first, establish a household, and begin a family thereafter.
Given the dire consequences for the nation and the heart-wrenching implications for children, why has no alarm been sounded and no emergency measures enacted to staunch this grave crisis? To some degree, it results from our entirely appropriate reluctance to censure single parents and their children or to be indifferent to the burdens they are carrying. Most often, these are wonderful, even heroic people. Many single moms made the choice to bring their child into the world rather than to abort it. Many make enormous personal sacrifices to provide for their children. And it is true, of course, that many single parents are extremely successful providers and examples for their children, and that their children have achieved great things. Almost all of us know more than a few of such people. My sister Jane was left alone to raise her four children, and they are all now happily married with accomplished children of their own. But such successes, while they can inspire us and encourage other single parents, should not mask the tragic implications for so many others. The societal and human toll is too high to pretend that it doesn’t matter if a child has a mom and a dad in stable marriage. Some single moms are the most adamant about this—they know how hard it has been for them and they do not tolerate those who minimize the hardship they and their children have borne.
I believe there is another reason we have failed to act. The disparagement of out-of-wedlock birth is often perceived as racist. But remember, there are more out-of-wedlock births to Anglo mothers than to African American moms. During my campaign for the presidency, every time I drafted a speech that drew attention to out-of-wedlock births, and particularly if I cited ethnic and racial statistics, some of my advisers were concerned that my comments would be taken out of context, twisted, or used to mischaracterize my views. My remarks seldom attracted the criticism my staff feared, but neither did they motivate the change I had hoped for. Author and commentator Hugh Hewitt observed that many of our media elites are petrified by the subject of the impacts of single parenting on children, a discussion that triggers all sorts of emotions and touches not just a third rail, but often a fourth, fifth, and sixth rail, involving as it does race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
The Heritage Foundation concluded in its open letter to Barack Obama, You now have a unique opportunity and ability to halt this destructive trend and to take the first decisive steps to restore marriage in our society. President Obama is to be commended every time he raises and takes action to remedy this critical challenge. His visible involvement in the lives of his daughters is a quiet affirmation of the role of fathers in the lives of their children.
To reclaim marriage and family, we must begin by telling children and young adults the truth. Strong voices of concern and redirection must come from the president, governors, legislators, community leaders, pastors, and teachers. The issue should be discussed openly and at length in our public schools, and preferably, it should be a part of the standard curriculum. We also should require government-funded birth-control clinics to inform their clients of the advantages of marriage.
We must absolutely remove the marriage penalties from our social safety-net programs. My personal preference would be to include the income of both parents in the calculation of eligibility for government benefits, regardless of whether they are married or living together or not. Under this approach, every father would also be required to help support his child, regardless of his marital status. Requiring fathers to behave responsibly would encourage marriage and sharply reduce out-of-wedlock births, and at least partly, it would curb some predatory behavior by men and young men. Single men might not attempt so many sexual conquests if they knew that the government would require them to pay support for any child that their exploits brought into the world.
Due to the decisions of a few state courts and legislatures over the past few years, the discussion of marriage in America has tended to focus on same-sex relationships. Proponents of same-sex marriage have attempted to characterize its opponents as being universally antigay. That has sometimes been an effective campaign tactic, but it is untrue. And because most Americans know it is untrue, same-sex marriage has repeatedly been rejected by voters. For me and for many others, opposition to same-sex marriage stems from the strong conviction that the ideal setting in which to raise a child is in a home with both a mother and a father. Regardless of whether one’s opposition to same-sex marriage is rooted in religious beliefs, moral convictions, or societal considerations, the marriage relationship has been the cornerstone of the institution of family since the beginning of time. Marriage is not just a quaint social custom. It is critical for the well-being of our children and therefore fundamental to the future strength of the nation. It’s time for us to recognize its critical role and finally act to preserve it as the institution that nurtures and protects our next generations.
Honor, Law, and Constitution
A brilliant scholar and university professor told me that from his studies, he had concluded that differences in economic success between countries resulted from the willingness of their citizens to honor their word. From a very young age, we are taught that your word is your bond. Family honor and the value of a good name are among our highest possessions. When my father left Utah to head east to marry and to begin his career, he took his own father to the cemetery where his mother was buried. Dad, he said, this is as close as I can get to you and Mom in mortality. I want you to know that I will never do anything that would dishonor your name.
Our estimation of personal honor extends to our respect for the law. Adherence to the law transcends our passions, even when they flow from our sense of justice and right. Despite the public clamor and outrage, the British soldiers who fired on Americans in the Boston Massacre of 1770 were freed by an American court of law.
At the commencement of the Revolution, the Founding Fathers labored to set forth its legal foundation. The declaration was a good deal more than a notice of intent—it was a rigorously reasoned justification for revolution. The culmination of the Founders’ work was the Constitution and Bill of Rights. These set the bounds of conduct upon which the entire society of Americans would establish life and livelihood. And just as with the law at the trial of the Boston Massacre soldiers, the constitution would rise above the passions of the people.
There is a strain of thought among some liberals, however, that advocates lowering the bounds of law and the Constitution in order to accommodate the sentiment and sensibilities about right and wrong held by the elite and wise. They favor justices who will do what they think is right rather than what they know the law and the Constitution demand. This explains incongruous rulings on abortion and same-sex marriage—they are clearly beyond the contemplation of the Constitution, but well within the sensibilities of select society. This also explains the attempt by some to substitute their preferences for those constitutional guarantees they would rather ignore, as with the Second Amendment right to bear arms. This amendment, like all the others, preserves a principle that is fundamental to the American experience: The individual is sovereign, not the rulers.
Respect for the law will continue as part of our culture only so long as it extends to the entire Constitution. When justices breach the bounds of the Constitution and law, society may choose to follow them, with untold consequences for the national character.
The Demands of Citizenship
At the core of our system of government is an informed, involved, and responsible citizenry. The real peril to the nation if its citizenry fails to meet its duties was recognized by the Founders. John Adams was fearful of pure democracy, in
which citizens could direct the affairs of the nation without the participation of office-holders who were elected to promote the public’s best interests. In his 1814 letter to John Taylor of Virginia, thirteen years after he left the presidency, Adams wrote:
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. . . . When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philsophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
Adams believed that history proved that such human frailty was a constant, and the shared fear of direct democracy led the Founders to establish a republic. Representatives stood between the people—who could be hurried away by the torrent of contagious enthusiasm—and the state. Electors, not the voters themselves, chose the president. Senators were not originally elected by popular vote, but selected by state legislatures. Two conditions were essential for the new Republic to succeed: voters who were informed and responsible in choosing their representatives, and representatives who were committed to rising above the immediate passions of the people and to acting in the interest of the entire nation. Failure of the citizens to take their role seriously and elect responsible representatives, or the representatives’ willful refusal to seek the good of the nation on the greatest issues, they feared, would result in the democratic suicide of which Adams wrote.
There are places today where voters are probably as well informed and involved as they were in our nation’s past. The first two presidential nomination contests take place in Iowa and New Hampshire. During my 2008 campaign, I got to know those states’ voters at close hand. One of the best by-products of a presidential campaign is close contact with an amazing variety of Americans—and it never gets closer than it does in Iowa and New Hampshire.
On a very hot weekday afternoon in 2007, I was scheduled to speak and take questions in the loft of a barn in rural central Iowa. When I arrived at the site, it appeared that there would be a lot more pumpkins in the garden than interested voters in the loft. But when I climbed the stairs, I found about two hundred people waiting patiently in the heat to hear my pitch. No one had paid them to come. No one had twisted arms. They came simply to get the measure of one of the ten Republicans running for president. A scene like this one took place several times almost every day during the primary season in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
Candidates are peppered with pointed, no-nonsense questions about matters of policy. I’m asked whether the crowds are tougher in Iowa or in New Hampshire. Both, is my answer. The folks in both states don’t put up with wandering or evasive answers. And they have given a good deal of thought to the issues and to the construction of their questions.
On the other end of the spectrum are questions of the zany variety that put me back on my heels, at least for a moment. I remember being asked: Why don’t you just leave Massachusetts and move to New Hampshire like the rest of us? Do you believe in UFOs? Do you support the secret government plan to unite the United States and Mexico in a single country called ‘Americo’? And, Has your wife always been that beautiful? Ann won’t forget that one any time soon.
We Bay Staters joke that politics is a blood sport in Massachusetts. Outside Faneuil Hall in Boston prior to my 1994 debate with Ted Kennedy, my vehicle had to be escorted to the building by a phalanx of police motorcycles. As Kennedy signs pummeled my car and the patrolmen did their best to push back the aggressors, my friend Bob White and I broke into laughter. Bob chuckled, Hey, Mitt, this makes the whole thing worth it!
Perhaps not everyone is as engaged in politics as the folks in New Hampshire, Iowa, and Massachusetts, but wherever the presidential campaign took me, I found people who cared deeply about the country and its future. It’s important that Americans retain their interest and involvement with the electoral process. For the Republic to function as it must, I believe voters must continually renew their understanding of the critical role they play, take the time to learn about pressing issues, and judge candidates based on their character, intelligence, relevant experience, and positions on issues. Parents need to instill in their children a sense of civic responsibility, to discuss political questions at the dinner table, and to make sure that their children see them taking the time to inform themselves and to vote. I was always pleased to see young adults and children at my campaign events; if they are introduced to political issues at an early age, they are more likely to be involved and active throughout their lives.
There have, of course, been too many instances where our elected representatives have let us down. Some do so in flagrant and shocking ways—sex scandals, cash in the freezer, or the Massachusetts state senator who was filmed stuffing cash into her underwear.
Others succumb to less obvious failings. One of those is policy making by poll. In a republic, we count on our leaders to represent the best interests of the people, not to count noses. When that is what they do, they subject the republic to the hazard of a government driven by the fleeting passions of a majority, as John Adams foresaw.
Soon after I became governor, I realized that a politician who seeks popularity and high approval ratings can achieve them by slavishly agreeing with public opinion and by actually doing very little. In my case, politics was a departure from my career, not a continuation of it. My reading of history had given me a profound appreciation for the sacrifices made by the Founders. I felt then as I do now that it is an enormous challenge to live up to their example. That challenge is also a useful guide for conduct in office, particularly as a defense against the temptation to take the easy, popular path when short-term political advantage may be gained by doing so. I have tried always to be more interested in making a difference than in making a hit in the polls. Beth Myers, my chief of staff while I was governor and still a trusted adviser, joked that sometimes it seemed as if we did unpopular things on purpose. In my first months on the job, as the state faced a multi-billion dollar crisis, I sought and obtained emergency power to cut the amount of state aid given to localities. Cutting funding to 351 cities and towns guaranteed outrage from mayors as well as local newspapers. Any cut at any school—whether in music, football, or art—was attributed to me rather than to the ruinous fiscal policies of the past. That’s just the price of admission to leadership.
At the national level, politicians occasionally succumb to the temptations of populism, especially when the economy is troubled and people are understandably fearful, hurting, and angry. The shouts for action come from both the left and the right—calls to protect jobs from foreign goods, claims that immigrants are taking away our jobs, and charges that our problems are the fault of the rich and powerful. When President Franklin Roosevelt failed to restore the national economy during his first term in office, his reelection campaign asserted that the problems were caused by the wealthy and by the corporations. In the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, anti-CEO sentiment in America grew extraordinarily high. President Obama added fuel to that fire by castigating companies for holding sales and management meetings in resorts and high-end hotels. His rhetoric certainly scored points, but it also pushed hundreds of companies to cancel meetings, costing the jobs or incomes of thousands of hotel, airline, and hospitality employees. The human consequences of playing to the crowd can be high.
Policy by polls is one problem, but policy by campaign contributions is an even bigger one. Campaigns have become enormously expensive. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign spent at least 750 million in securing his victory. When candidate Obama broke his pledge to abide by the post-Watergate practice of accepting public funding and spending limits, he effectively ended that practice for all future presidential campaigns. The media, enamored with Barack Obama, barely blinked. But his abandonment of his promise now means that money and campaign contributions will have a far greater role in nationa
l politics.
When I ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994, I worked hard to raise the millions I would need. My father spent six months at our Massachusetts home, helping on the campaign. Recall that my dad was one of the most successful politicians of his era; he was a realist about the need to raise money to fund campaigns. But after seeing how much time I had to spend fund-raising, he was convinced that the system made no sense at all. In his race for governor of Michigan in 1962, he explained, his finance chairman, Max Fisher, raised all the money they would need in a single night. Fifteen or twenty people were invited to an event, Max made his pitch, and no one left the room until the campaign had what it needed—each check probably totaling 25,000 or more. Dad was then able to campaign across Michigan, from the Upper Peninsula to the border with Ohio, without having to be holed up in hotel rooms dialing for dollars.
I asked Dad whether accepting large contributions encouraged corruption; surely the contributors wanted something in return. He replied that not once during his three terms in office did one of his contributors ask for a favor. They were some of Michigan’s most prominent and successful citizens, and instead of favors, they were looking for good government. I’m not defending the old system; I’m sure it had its share of abuses. But so does the current one.
Although the amount an individual can contribute in federal and many state races is now limited, contributions do in fact play an even greater role in influencing policy than they did in the past. Today the people who can raise money are even more important to a politician than the people who once could write big checks. And because campaign budgets are far bigger, the obligations are bigger as well.
In the post McCain-Feingold world of campaign finance, union CEOs have become the 800-pound gorillas. They can amass funds from the dues of their members—who number in the millions, in some cases—and then spend the money on the candidates or cause of their choice. In some Democratic Party primaries, it’s virtually impossible to defeat a candidate who is backed by organized labor. No other type of organization I know of is allowed to collect political funds in the way that unions do.