Why isn't there a greater focus on family?

I know one area that I have common cause with some conservatives is in the area of family responsibility for child rearing outcomes.  And the debate in D.C. on both sides skirts around this, but gets mired down in base cheering politics.

Michael Gerson's column today outlines a book that focuses on the consequences of inequality on kids that has risen from 3 interrelated trends:  family instability, community disfunction, and the collapse of the blue collar economy.

It is hard to believe in my life time, the chances for a kid today to follow my path, have gone from likely to improbable.   My grandparents didn't go to college, my mother is the only one who preceded me through college and I was raised in a blue collar household in a blue collar town.  But I got a good education, went to a good college, and got into a great business school.

The important thing is my parents stayed married and gave me good examples.  They also had two steady jobs.  That is much harder today and the political debate is not really focused on how to make that simpler.  One of the reasons that ObamaCare is in such trouble is people see it as being focused on the poor only, while those who are just above that level, cannot see the benefits from ObamaCare which will come when they lose their job or suffer a serious illness (or the real safety net, those two coincide).

But I see ObamaCare as helping keep families together and focused on raising productive children.  It also helps control the cost of health care which is one reason in my mind that we have had a collapse of the blue collar economy.  If I were a business manager with a global operation, I have no doubt that I would be motivated to establish the marginal business in a country where there is a single payer health plan or no health plan.  You multiply that decision by 1000 companies and you have sent hundreds of thousands of jobs to other countries.

Anyway, Gerson's column doesn't go there, he simply highlights the issue and I wonder why D.C. politicians can't frame their policy discussions around this critical issue.

But then I know all D.C. politicians care about is their next campaign dollar.

Link to Gerson column