One of the reasons the fertility rate in America has been dropping is due to the rising cost of raising a child. Every few years, the Department of Agriculture recalculates the cost to raise a child in America. In fact, there is a USDA Cost of Raising a Child Calculator that you can use to personalize your calculations.

One of the biggest factors in the increased cost of raising a child is due to childcare costs. The cost of childcare alone (when adjusted for inflation) has climbed nearly twice as fast as other prices since the recession ended in 2009. On the other hand, the cost for housing has remained fairly constant over the years. Some costs for basic items have actually decreased slightly due to advances in agriculture and technology.

One of the biggest variables in cost has to do with where you live in the country and how much you earn. The Department of Agriculture estimates that the average cost of raising a child to age 18 is $245,000. However, high-income families who live in the urban Northeast are projected to spend nearly $455,000 to raise their child. By contrast, low-income rural families will spend approximately $145,500. In other words, you could spend $200,000 more or $100,000 less depending on your geography and income.

The above numbers also explain a phenomenon I have written about in the past. The fertility rate in America varies from group to group. Religious people (especially Christians) have more children than secular people. Also, conservative people generally have more children than liberal people.

The Bible teaches us that: “children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” As Christians we understand that children are a gift from the Lord and thus worthy of our focus and attention. We understand that they are worth the time, effort, and cost.

Twenty-nine years ago, Allan Bloom wrote the book, The Closing of the American Mind. Charles Koch wrote an op-ed with the same title. There are some similarities between the two, but also one important difference.

Charles Koch looks back at the revolutionary technological advances we have made and now take for granted. He is concerned that government and the academy are stifling progress. When he attended MIT he discovered that “scientific and technological progress requires the free and open exchange of ideas. The same holds true for moral and social progress.”

In America, we used to believe that progress comes from this free exchange of ideas and from challenging other people’s views and hypotheses. The spontaneous process of collaboration and challenge led to the technological advances we have today.

Charles Koch is concerned that: “The U.S. is already far down the path to becoming a less open and free society, and the current cultural and political atmosphere threatens to make the situation worse.” In previous commentaries I have talked about how political correctness and a bias against contrary views are transforming the colleges and universities.

Charles Koch laments that: “Education in America, and particularly in higher education, has become increasingly hostile to the free exchange of ideas. On many campuses, a climate of intellectual conformity has replaced open debate and inquiry, stifling discussion on a host of topics ranging from history to science to economics.” Many liberals and progressives may dislike the Koch brothers I would hope they would agree with his diagnosis.

Nearly three decades ago, Allan Bloom wrote about how higher education failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. Charles Koch now sees how intellectual conformity on the campus and in government stifles innovation. This is the legacy of closed minds.

The plight of persecuted Christians is worse than ever. That is the conclusion of a recent report by Aid to the Church in Need. It documents that persecution of Christians today is worse than at any time in history. “Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith groups. But ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution.”

In some countries the situation was already so severe, it is hard to imagine how it could be any worse. Other countries, like China, have seen intolerance on the rise, as evidenced by a clampdown on dissent clergy and the destruction of churches.

In light of this, I was deeply convicted by my recent interview with Johnnie Moore. He came on Point of View to talk about his new book The Martyr’s Oath. He begins the book and began our interview by talking about attending a Bible school graduation ceremony. The students repeated this martyr’s oath in which they pledged their lives and death to Jesus. He felt like he was standing in the book of Acts, witnessing “a raw, first-century Christianity” that he had been shielded from in America.

It says things like: “As he has given his life for me, so I am willing to give my life for him. I will use every breath I possess to boldly proclaim his gospel.” It later goes on to say: “Though persecution may come, I know my battle is not against flesh but against the forces of evil. I will not hate those whom God has called me to love. Therefore, I will forgive when ridiculed, show mercy when struck, and love when hated.”

Johnnie Moore often asks himself, “Why are so few of us in America willing to live for Jesus when others are so willing to die for him?” It’s a good question all of us should ask ourselves.

Two recent articles illustrate our uncertainty about the future of technology. One proclaims that, “More than 70% of US fear robots taking over our lives.” Another is the special edition of Time that believes, “Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Humankind.”

A recent Pew Research poll found that 72 percent of Americans “express wariness or concern about a world where machines perform any of the tasks done by humans.” That is more than double the number (33%) who were enthusiastic about the prospect.

Perhaps the best example of the discontinuity between experts and the general public is the possibility of driverless cars. There is broad agreement among proponents of the technology that it would be safer than cars driven by distracted, drunk, or sleepy drivers. The American public disagrees. The author of the report says that, “People are not buying the safety argument about driverless vehicles.”

By contrast, the latest Time magazine special edition on artificial intelligence is quite sanguine about the possibilities of the robots, computers, and machine intelligence. Each article explains the benefits to business, government, and the military. It explains how self-driving cars are safer and how we will enjoy various high-tech toys.

Near the end, it does provide a range of reactions to artificial intelligence. Ray Kurzweil believes A.I. will be achieved by 2029 and will be a great benefit to humans. By contrast, Stephen Hawking believes that A.I. could be the “biggest event in human history” but also warns it could be “the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”

Those are wise words and a good reason to be asking important questions about the impact of the new technologies.

In the past, I have written about how a few were starting to call some of the billionaires in the Silicon Valley “the new robber barons.” Most of the Silicon Valley companies seemed untouchable and above criticism, until recently.

Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that conservatives often pointed to the innovative, entrepreneurial high-tech leaders with admiration. They praised them as “modern versions of the 19th century risk-takers such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.” They demonstrated that American companies could compete and succeed in our global economy.

Liberals and progressives also seemed enthralled with Silicon Valley leaders and their high-tech companies. They even dropped their “customary regulatory zeal, despite Silicon Valley’s monopolizing, outsourcing, offshoring, censoring, and destroying of startup competition.”

The love affair with Silicon Valley might be ending. Critics want to know why social media, texts, email, and Internet searches are all exempt from interstate regulatory oversight. Nearly every other business endeavor is subject to such scrutiny.

Conservatives complain that these companies seem to be government colluders and manipulators. Liberals wonder why employees in these companies cannot unionize and sit down with their progressive billionaire bosses. Local communities resent the tech giants driving up housing prices and zoning out the poor from cities like Seattle and San Francisco.

Liberals and conservatives are asking why Internet communications cannot be subject to the same rules as radio and television. They are also asking why Silicon Valley monopolies cannot be broken up the way Bell Telephone was a few decades ago. And they wonder why high-tech profits are hidden in offshore accounts.

These are good questions both liberals and conservatives are right in asking.

A few months ago, an article in Business Insider proclaimed, ‘Divorce isn’t a failure, therapists say. In fact, it could mean the marriage was a success.” I didn’t pay much attention to it since you can find secular counselors and therapists who will say just about anything. But recently John Stonestreet did a Breakpoint commentary on the article and used it to illustrate some important points about the biblical words for love.

Instead, I would like to look at the premise of the article. Does a divorce really mean that your marriage was a success? I don’t think couples that have been through a divorce would say that. I doubt their children would say that. One of the chapters of my book, Christian Ethics in Plain Language, documents what psychologists have discovered about the emotional and economic damage of divorce on children and even later in adult children of divorce.

Years ago, Diane Medved wrote a book with the arresting title, The Case Against Divorce. The book begins with an admission. “I have to start with a confession: This isn’t the book I set out to write. I planned to write something consistent with my previous professional experience helping people with decision making . . . To my utter befuddlement, the extensive research I conducted for this book brought me to one inescapable and irrefutable conclusion: I had been wrong.”

The therapists cited believe that marriage can help you grow, and sometimes you change so much that you conclude your marriage isn’t helping you anymore. If you go into marriage expecting it to help you grow, and you’re not growing, then divorce is the next step. If, however, you go into marriage with a biblical view of two becoming on flesh, then getting a divorce is not a sign of success.

Astute political observers frequently notice the large gap between rhetoric and reality. That is certainly true of some of the Democrat governors in blue states. Their political rhetoric has been critical of the Trump tax reform. The reality is that their state budgets have benefited significantly from those tax cuts along with the Trump administration deregulation.

Fortunately, the editors of the Wall Street Journal collected the news stories and economic numbers to show that blue states are actually receiving a blue state dividend. . A rising economic tide is lifting those states in ways that aren’t often acknowledged.

For example, the governor of California recently was able to revise the Golden State budget to include a $21.5 billion surplus. That is already a few percentage points higher than the projection a few months ago. Illinois reported earlier this month that individual and corporate tax revenues exceeded internal forecast by more than a billion dollars. That should eliminate most of the state’s budget gap for this year.

These are not the only examples. The Pew Charitable Trusts noted that tax revenues in 41 states have hit records, even after accounting for inflation. Revenue was up in blue states like California, New York, Connecticut, and Washington. Of course, it was also up in red states like Tennessee and Texas.

At least the Pew report acknowledged that this significant and extended stretch of growth was due to the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The increased revenue to these states was due to “favorable economic conditions” and “robust stock returns.”

One more point is worth mentioning. While these state budgets have received a dividend from tax cuts and deregulation, the citizens of those states should not expect that this dividend would be passed on to them. Politicians in those states will merely find other ways to spend that additional revenue.

Some time in the near future, America will go over the entitlement cliff. That is the argument of Dr. Merrill Matthews, co-author of the book, On the Edge: America Faces the Entitlement Cliff. He was on the Point of View radio talk show recently to discuss the problem and possible solutions.

The first part of his book explains why entitlement programs fail. To put it simply, they are not actuarially sound. But the problem is even greater than that. He also shows how the cost of entitlement programs ALWAYS exceeds projections. He details the expansion of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The second section projects how America will fall off the entitlement cliff. Not only does he provide projections for Social Security, but also for the impending pension crisis, the welfare debacle, and the health care debacle. This is true of both private sector pensions as well as for public sector pensions.

He also includes sections on “stepping back from the cliff.” He deals with the fact that we have different types of safety nets in society that result in different outcomes. We do have examples (in other countries) of how to construct a sustainable safety net. I wish some members of Congress would read the sections on “principles of a sustainable safety net” and “embracing actuarial principles.”

There are solutions to the financial challenges we face with entitlements, but we need to elect to Congress politicians who actually want to solve some of the problems created decades ago with these government programs. So far most members of Congress want to ignore the fact that some time in the future we may go over the entitlement cliff.