Most of the time, kids pay for themselves out of their future earnings and consumer behaviors. We have a stable enough civilization that we should be able to invest something now for a potential return in 18-25 years.
The children will be born whether you want them to exist or not, and regardless of whether the parents are fit to raise them. Once the kid exists, what do you intend to do with it? Ignore it and hope for the best? Or maybe coax it into some form of societal contract, wherein we all help it reach its maximum potential now, and in return, it constructively participates in the civilized economy later?
The question is really whether you believe that the inability to easily pay the costs of child-rearing, whatever they may be, dissuades people from having more children.
And if, for some reason, one generation decides to grant itself a heap of late-life benefits that will have to be paid for by future productive workers, like retirement funds, pensions, and medical care, it would really be shooting itself in the foot to slash its support for young parents and immigration. The existence of "money" notwithstanding, current consumption always has to be paid for with current production and past stockpiles. Unless there's a warehouse somewhere out there filled with stored-up services for older people, people looking to consume such services had better start thinking about who might be providing them in the future.
Everyone. It's called a community. Same people who pay for seniors and unemployment and public education and roads and bridges and national defense. Do we not live in a world where everyone deserves to be able to afford kids?
