As far as being taxed “more” than a couple with kids, yes you do potentially miss out on a tax credit of $2k/year. Going through my food bills I easily spend that much just feeding that child- let’s just call it $5/day. So that child I’m rearing is at best netting me $0, and most likely will never be able to pay me back! So much for my supposed economic advantage!
So no it’s not some selfless act to society. After all nature makes the kid making process somewhat enjoyable and you take immense pride in your offspring. On the other hand the argument that you’re disadvantaged as a non parent because you miss out on a small tax break that, at the end of the day, at most subsidizes the nourishment required for said human to survive, rings hollow.
Your taxes enable young people to exist/grow-up and extend those services to you. Providing for kids is selfish, not selfless. Until the singularity happens, we need young children to grow into functioning adults that continue and (hopefully) advance society.
Let's stick to the simpler rationale that some people have kids because they love kids and/or want to pass down their genes.
Similarly, people choose to have kids for lots of reasons (family pressure, want to pass on genes, etc.) but society's continued existence depends on people having kids, so it's on all of us to support the people who do have kids whether or not any given individual's motivation is noble.
How might we use the trillions of dollars spent on the military for education, healthcare, retirement and other betterment initiatives for U.S. citizens? If hypothetically all nations agreed on world peace, then having a military becomes superfluous but the would-be soldiers can find other meaningful professions in society rather than being soldiers.
Again I'm not against supporting parents. Just when there's immarginal benefits being conferred, that are not available to non-parents.
In a perfect world, that would work. We don't live in a perfect world, which is why virtually no society has ever disbanded their armed forces and lived to tell about it.
Similarly, in a perfect world, we could treat every individual exactly fairly and never given someone slightly more than they should have. But in this real fallen world we live in, sometimes the best we've got is simplistic decision rules like "support categories of people who do work that is essential for society to survive".
I empathize with parents, but please don't make it sound like it's a selfless act they are doing for the good of society.
Also, childless couples/singles get taxed at quite a high rate (after any returns) vs parents. You compound that over 21 or whatever years it takes for kids to become "productive". Furthermore, people who choose to stay childless still have to work and pay higher taxes till the age of at least 66 in US. Life expectancy for males is 78, so that gives you 12 years. Social security is in no way enough, and you must survive on pension that you paid into for your retirement. So the child that I helped raised with my extra taxes and without any preferential treatment at work will never even come close to paying me back.