Penna Dexter
It wasn’t a joke or an anomaly when, last December, a video series celebrating the Dual Income No Kids — or DINK — lifestyle went viral. Young American couples argued that their freedom to take European vacations and their ability to splurge on pets and bulk purchases at Costco are preferable to being tied down to parenthood. They said that for this reason, they likely won’t have kids.
Add to that, a new survey from the insurance company, MassMutual, which finds that nearly 1 in 4 Millennials and GenZ-ers plan to remain childless for financial reasons. Of the 1000 adults surveyed, all of whom were in the 18-43 age group, 23 percent don’t plan to have children. They said they prefer the financial freedom they’ll have by remaining childless or they think they simply can’t afford the cost of raising kids.
In July, the Pew Research organization published results of a study on childlessness. According to their report, “When asked why they are unlikely to have children, the top answer for adults younger than 50 is that they just don’t want to.” Forty-four percent of this group said, “they want to focus on other things.” And 36 percent said, “they can’t afford to raise a child.”
It does cost a lot to raise children. And the price is rising. But why?
Timothy Carney, father of six and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute wrote a book with the title: Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. Extras, like lessons, camps, travel sports, are enriching, but not crucial to childrearing. Some things we think are necessities may not be.
The baby bust resulting from our country’s below-replacement birthrate has dire financial repercussions. Our society needs those people. When millions of couples make the stark choice never to have children the country’s future and their own will certainly be impoverished.

Kerby Anderson
How close are some elections? Let’s look at last year’s 2023 off-year elections. Twenty-six elections ended in ties, and another seven were decided by one vote. According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, there have been 625 elections that ended in tie votes, and 162 elections that were decided by one vote in just the last 22 years.
In the past, I have told the story of Penny Pullen in Illinois who lost a primary vote. But there were some irregularities. Judge Francis Barth concluded that the election was a tie and ordered a coin toss, and she lost the election. Later she found out that many members of her church hadn’t bothered to vote in the primary election and could have made a crucial difference.
We have also had many close presidential elections. George W. Bush won the 2000 Presidential election by the slimmest of margins. His election essentially was decided by 537 votes in Florida. He won re-election in the 2004 Presidential election again by very slim margins. He won the 20 electoral votes from the state of Ohio with 50.8 percent of the vote.
The last presidential election was closer than most people know. Joe Biden won three key states by the slimmest of margins (by 0.6 percentage points or less). If you flip fewer than 43,000 votes across those three states, the electoral college would have been tied 269 to 269. In case you are wondering, the outcome would be decided by each House delegation. Since the Republicans controlled more states, Donald Trump would be re-elected.
The presidential election may be this close again, and it is certain that many other elections will be very close. Anyone who wonders if his or her vote will make a difference needs to look at how close elections have been.