At the moment, it looks like Democrats are moving toward a version of the BBB legislation that's the exact opposite of what I'd like to see. But who cares about that? I think I have good arguments in support of my preferences, but other people think the same about their preferences. Win some, lose some.
But then there are things that would be objective disasters. For example, when Obamacare was passed, it raised the cost of private health insurance due to its minimum coverage requirements. However, its subsidies ran out at an income around $70,000. That left a whole lot of middle-class families who had to pay more for their insurance but got no help doing it.
By anyone's measure, that was not good. The only saving grace is that it affected only individual insurance, which is a very small part of the market. So some middle-class families got screwed, but not all that many.
But what if you did the same thing for a bigger program used by more people? That would be devastating. Jordan Weissmann reports that Democrats might be headed down this exact same road with child care:
The basic question is whether Democrats are about to essentially repeat the mistakes they made with Obamacare, by passing reforms that increase the quality of child care services and increase access to the poor while simultaneously making it impossible for parts of the middle and upper-middle class to afford day care. One way to avoid this issue in the long term would be to simply cap what all families have to pay at some reasonable amount, which for a moment looked like it would be the party’s approach. But on Thursday a Democratic Senate aide told me that the conversation seems to be headed toward limiting subsidies to families that earn less than 200 percent of the state’s median income.
NO NO NO NO NO! Please tell me Dems are not planning to be this stupid. Please tell me they aren't planning to screw the middle class yet again. Please tell me that Weissmann has lousy sources and should be ashamed of himself for passing this along.
Please?
Form circle.
Face inward.
Aim at foot of person opposite.
Fire…
Why don't Dems write it so that everybody gets the child tax credit, but then at tax time, payments are deducted from those making a high enough income? Say, 100% taxable at certain (high) levels, scaling downward to zero at some point?
I believe that's how it works now. Our tax preparer has warned his clients that some of those checks may be clawed back next year at tax time depending on your income.
If your household income is stable from year to year - like it is for full time employees paid a fixed salary and most full time hourly wage employees - it’s highly unlikely you’ll have to pay back any of the child credits because they’re already calibrated to your income from last year.
Sorry! I didn't think this one posted, so I tried again below. I also hate that we can't delete boo-boos.
Because Republican Joe Manchin doesn't agree with that approach. That is why.
Why don't Dems write it so that everybody gets the child tax credit, but then at tax time, payments are deducted from those making a high enough income? Say, 100% taxable at certain (high) levels, scaling downward to zero at some point?
(and by "100%" I mean that ALL of the support monies received by, say, Elon Musk need to be paid back.)
At least middle class families won't suddenly see their monthly childcare bill double or triple -- they'll just miss out on paying less. That will be less of a political disaster, a la the Obamacare rate hikes. But Kevin's right. Make this a univeral benefit. That also makes raising upper-income taxes to pay for it more palatible: "Hey, quit whining rich people! You're getting this subsidy, too!"
Right, except the rich don't want the tax credit. Imo it has been a bust in Canada.
The universal child tax credit is popular enough in Canada that no significant political figure opposes it or even advocates reducing it.
Your opinion is nice but wrong. Canadians love their child benefits and are horrified whenever they come to this country to work and find out we’re far stingier.
SoG's opinion is always wrong
Do the wealthy even know what childcare is?
“Rosita watches the kids Monday thru Friday, and Lola watches them on weekends, unless we’re in Aspen, in which case Manuel takes them because he’s also a ski instructor…..”
[Laughs in Kimba Wood & Zoe Baird.]
mostly,
you win post of the day.
👍👍👍👍👍
I'd be very tempted to take the position that Democrats and the nation would be better off not having the CRT included in BBB at all unless it's structured as a broad, middle class benefit.
One could imagine a future Democratic Congress (in, say, 2025, or even in the 2030s) finally enacting this benefit, if it can't be done now. But I suspect the optics and politics of "transforming a benefit for poor people into a benefit for everybody" will be fraught, and difficult. So, structuring CRT as a poor people's program in my mind carries a higher risk the US will never see a broad-based child benefit.
There's a difference between a half loaf and a whole loaf--go ahead and take the half loaf--and a poisoned pill which you should never take.
Of course, the devil in the details...
Nobody gives a hoot about the child tax credit. It's not even popular. Nothing against you Kevin, but your not paying attention. The most popular parts of this are ACA expansion, child care and end of life care. That is staying fully. Your post is misleading and a lie.
liar, liar, pants on fire. Really, just immolate already.
Kevin and others may be right about the specifics of the child-care part, but it is hardly likely to be critical in upcoming elections. As I keep saying, Democrats and Republicans are competing in completely different arenas. Anyone who does actually pay attention to real economic issues can see that Biden and most Democrats are actually trying to help people other than the 1%, wheras the Republican are delivering almost entirely for the rich. Republican appeals are now based on race and religion, and ridiculous and irrelevant accusations of Marxism, etc. on economic matters. As Kevin himself has said, Democrats have got to get going and get the bills passed, and this means giving in to the "moderates" on many things.
"NO NO NO NO NO! Please tell me Dems are not planning to be this stupid. Please tell me they aren't planning to screw the middle class yet again. Please tell me that Weissmann has lousy sources and should be ashamed of himself for passing this along. Please?"
Don't just appeal to your readers, please contact Sen. Manchin about this and please give us his email address and phone number (the one to his houseboat, not his Senate office). Because it sounds like this is being structure this way so only the poor benefit because we don't want a "entitlement mentality" do we?
Manchin and Biden already have a deal on the fiscal side. With the backdoor Medicare expansion stopped. Sanders wants concessions on 5 of the intiatives......which don't directly deal with coal. Maybe 6 if Manchin can sell it as a positive to his voters.
Manchin will put pressure on Simena then on lifting the Corp tax rate to 25% as he wanted in 2017.
I personally think it is a deal already. Tentative it may be.
I'm of the opinion that doing a bunch of stuff half-assed is stupid, but I'm also struggling to see how/why we are defining families who earn more than 200% of the state's median income as "middle class"; by state that cutoff would be (dependent on family size; default/average household assumed below):
Arizona ~118K
California ~150K
Georgia ~117K
Iowa ~120K
Michigan ~115K
Minnesota ~142K
New York (state) ~137K
North Carolina ~110K
Ohio ~113K
Pennsylvania ~123K
Wisconsin ~123K
Obviously those thresholds aren't rich or anything, but they're all right around (or just above, or in the case of California WELL above) the 80th percentile for household income in their states.
Are we really going to argue that 80-85th percentile households are "the middle class"?
Yes. I’ve seen allegedly serious news outlets claim that households making $400k are “barely getting by” in sob stories about how expensive it is to live on either coast. So logically, “middle class” must go at least as high as the 80-85th percentile.
You are making a making a huge mistake with respect to household, many of which are individuals. The median income of families with children is much higher than that. 120k is in fact middle class if it’s two adults and some kids, and barely that if you live along the coasts.
Nope. No I am not. The household size in those numbers is probably somewhere around the national average, which is 2.53 or so. I've got a lot of experience in using these numbers as I use local and national AMIs routinely through my work in housing. Related: HUD is a good source of AMIs.
The national median income for a household of 4 (typically 2 adults, 2 children) is $79,900, meaning that 200% of that is almost 160K... which is higher than any of the numbers I listed above.
Also relevant: the quintile numbers are on the same/comparable "household" measure, so it's absolutely OK to compare them 1:1 even though not all households have children. Because yes, of course not all households have children - about 40% of households do (and about 30% of those are single-parent).
I agree that a limit at 200% of median income leaves most of America in on this benefit, so I don't' share Kevin's alarm.
On the other hand, "middle class" is often defined as a stratum above the working class, but below the few percent at the top. A lot of this middle class make more than twice the average worker, and though they don't include most voters, they are numerous and have a lot of political weight. It makes sense to avoid hurting them financially.
But it's not even clear that this will hurt them at all financially. Is it going to actually increase the cost of child care for them? If it did, would it be by enough that it's noticeable and attributable to this? I'm extremely skeptical.
Yeah, I don't know.
Toxicity level of followers of lunatics on Twitter decreases after lunatics are banned,
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525
Yep. They wouldn't be spreading their poison in the first place if it had no effect.
Why don’t we just make a charity to help whomever we want and screw republicans?
What the hell has happened to the spine of Dems. It seems that they give the farm to the rich and repulsives at every turn. What is wrong with them. And yes, I vote Dem.
It’s not “Dems,” it’s specifically Manchin and Sinema. Just like it wasn’t “Dems” who wanted the ACA to be so stingy either, it was asshats like Lieberman and the Blue Dogs.
(1) cmayo makes an excellent point.
(2) While the evidence is circumstantial, I believe the problem here is Manchin, not "Democrats."
"However, its subsidies ran out at an income around $70,000. That left a whole lot of middle-class families who had to pay more for their insurance but got no help doing it."
Democrats were just doing their "Lucy-Charlie Brown" act - being fiscally responsible so that Trump could gleefully blow the budget.
Manchin and Sinema are making them do it again!
Pingback: Media Patrol … | Homeless on the High Desert
Well, at least double state family median is a better way to do that.
$80k in WV, $160k in Maryland. $150k in CA. $120k in Texas.
That actually is around the income where childcare costs get tolerable in the three states where I've paid for it.
Vs the usual arrangement which might be set at the WV number for the whole country.
Of course states are still problematically large for this.
Face it, Kevin, the commies and race chasers have taken over the party. Just as there is no longer a sensible Republican Party, there is also no longer a sensible Democratic Party. Bend over America.
> That left a whole lot of middle-class families who had to pay more for their insurance but got no help doing it.
How many?
Most middleclass families get coverage through their employer. There's a relatively small number of families that are in the right circumstances to not be able to afford insurance. Yes, it would be nice to help them, but let's not exaggerate the problem.
How is "not helping those making more than twice the median income" the same as "screwing over the middle class"?
Everything from about 20th percentile income to about 80th percentile income should be middle class by definition. And my quick google search suggests that 80th percentile income is about twice median income.