New, educated, humans from a country's citizenry, to perpetuate said country's viability should be a priority. Ask Japan how a lack of newborns is working out for them. They're kinda' fucked right now. Too many "waifu" pillows out there. A healthy, moderately reproducing middle class is the base driver for an economy; or at least it will be until such time as everything is automated, which probably isn't all that far off. BUT, you raise a good point. Why should an employer pay for that? It comes down to how a government chooses to manage its population base.
A country NEEDS replacement humans. It just does. So, how does a country enable proper (read, educated) human production, without being onerous to employers? A country needs to make such production viable for both the producer (the literal woman, at minimum), and the employer of said producer. The rest of the industrialized world has decided the person/persons that have just produced a new human need an extended period of time in order to initiate the rearing process properly, such that said country is not being repopulated by TV reared fuckwits. So how do these countries do it?
In Germany, for the first 18 months (yes EIGHTEEN), a parent can draw close to 70% (I've seen numbers between 64-67%) of their salary to stay home and actually engage in the raising of their replacement. The employer is not burdened with this cost directly. It is a government funded benefit. So yeah, it comes from the tax base. "What kinda' commie bullshit is that! We're payin' people to be lazy!" Well, that's one take. The other take is that the country has chosen to invest in future taxpayers. Generally, people that have a better start to their lives end up better earners, and thus pay more taxes in the future. Really, it's just an R&D cost. Is Germany going bankrupt? No. If memory serves, I believe they are the biggest economy in Europe. So, what are Germany's tax brackets? Here are the top two tax brackets for Germans in Euros.
Filing single:
52,154 - 250 000: 42 %
250,001 and over: 45%
Filing jointly:
104,305 - 500,000: 42%
500,001 and over: 45%
"Holy fuck!" you say. WAY too high tax. Well, yes and no. The question is, how much of your personal money are you spending on things that would otherwise be covered. Let's go back to (my prior post) Healthcare. How much do you pay for insurance? Maybe $0 if you have a SMOKING plan at work, but now your employer is burdened with that cost (More commie bullshit!). If you have a family, how much do you dependents cost? Now, if you actually need to use your insurance, what's that set you back? On and on. In Germany, there are some co-pays for care, and that's it. No premiums, no pre-existing conditions bullshit (we'll see where the Annoying Orange lands on that one, when he actually has to commit to a policy), no fuss. You need care, you get care. Are you going to go bankrupt because you got cancer? No. Is that better for society that you don't go bankrupt? Yes. Is it better for the country's GDP, yes. In Germany's model, the nation's working parts (humans) are able to repair themselves, and your newly manufactured replacement parts (little humans) are provided with a good start by their functional and healthy manufacturers.
Healthcare is just one of many examples. There are services that make sense to be socialized, and services that don't. For all the hard line right wingers screaming and moaning about "Socialism," how many of them do you think would vote to abolish Medicare? That's a socialist platform for healthcare, period. "Oh, but wait, I'm old, and conservative, and the TV told me socialism is bad, but not Medicare that's fine." And why? Because it makes fucking sense for a civilized society to care for the elderly. In fact, of all the socialist programs one might support, Medicare makes the LEAST amount of financial sense, because these old fucks aren't earning ANYTHING!!! Lazy bastards, leaching off the system. It'd be more economical to just shoot'em and save the dough. But we don't do that, because we aren't fucking animals. So, why do we care for our retired, but not for the producing class. THAT actually makes zero financial sense. I'm off on a Healthcare jag again.
Bottom line, there really are things a nation should pay for in its own self interests, to take advantage of an economy of scale and negotiating position, but too many have been taught that it's better to expect that they too will be a millionaire, and that once they have it, they need to guard against the government taking it all.
