Infantocracy

As if it weren't hard enough to raise a family in these times -- bigger tax burdens, more job-killing regulations, rising energy and health care costs and limited school choice -- now the Congress that screws up everything it touches wants to redouble its "help" for American children.

Retiring Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., used this week's opening hearing on "The State of the American Child" to call for a national commission that addresses the status of American children.

Oh, brother.

"Only by assessing honestly our progress -- celebrating our successes and acknowledging our failures -- can we improve it," Sen. Dodd said in his opening remarks.

What are the chances that Sen. Dodd and his colleagues will look in the mirror when they get around to "acknowledging our failures"? These guys wake up every morning wondering how they can keep more of your paycheck, they keep meddling in an economy that isn't creating private-sector jobs, they do the bidding of teacher unions everywhere to protect public education monopolies from the pressures of competition, they support the minimum-wage and "living wage" laws that eliminate entry-level jobs for teens, and they wonder why things might be tough for American kids?

"One in seven American children has an unemployed parent," Sen. Dodd said. "One in five live in poverty, and an additional 5 million could be driven into poverty before this recession is through. One in four currently uses food stamps."

And the best way to reverse these exaggerated numbers is to abandon the incremental creation of a European-style, cradle-to-grave welfare state. Yet instead we now rush to get there by, say, 2012?

Rather than taxing Americans into oblivion and instituting an infantocracy, why don't we try to make it easier for Mom and Dad to get a job, earn a living and give their children the best upbringing of their choice?

How's this for a status report: American kids will be better off if Washington leaves them and their parents alone.