In some states, more than 50 percent of births each year are to unwed mothers. This dilemma has multiple causes — the promiscuity promoted by the entertainment media, the removal of God and morals from our educational system, etc. But high on the list of causes is this — government is financing it. With the creation of “The Great Society” during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, the government told women, “If you have a baby outside of marriage, we’ll send you a monthly check. The only way you can lose that check is to get married or get a job.” Recently, a social worker shared about hearing a middle-age mother explaining to her daughter that she (the daughter) needed to keep having babies because by doing so she was the breadwinner of the family. Some years ago, I read a news article about the man who went to several women every month to collect his portion of the welfare check as his “siring fee” for fathering their children. The number one “poverty indicator” in the U.S. is unwed motherhood. The government support provides the individual a near-poverty-level income. If the mother strives to better herself and earn more, she loses the government support. Therefore, the system perpetuates poverty. To add to the financing of the national moral decay, our tax laws impose a “marriage penalty.” The tax codes are set up so that married couples pay higher taxes than couples who are cohabiting. The result of this government “compassion” is most clearly seen in our prisons, where the percentage of inmates from single-parent homes ranges from 92 to 99 percent. So much for the Great Society where “it takes a village to raise a child.” — Steve Casey is from?Stonewall, La.