The $300-per-month Child Tax Credit seems like it should be a no-brainer. It's $300 per month! No paperwork involved! That's $3,600 each year for anyone with kids. You'd think everyone should love it. But Bill Scher reports otherwise:
The public is not yet in sync with Democratic leaders. In a mid-July Morning Consult poll, only 35 percent of voters said the expansion should “definitely” or “probably” be made permanent, with 52 percent saying the opposite. A YouGov poll from around the same time found only 30 percent of voters favored permanent expansion; 46 percent opposed it.
These numbers probably surprised Biden and other top Democrats. They certainly surprised me. As I wrote here in February, giving people money is typically a political winner. But if the expanded credit doesn’t become one, then it may not survive budget reconciliation.
I doubt that these polling numbers are a coincidence. About 40% of American households have kids, and for the most part these folks apparently like getting $300 per month. The other 60% don't have kids and are not as thrilled since they don't themselves get anything.
In other words, these poll numbers shouldn't really surprise anyone. It's also worth noting a couple of other things. First, the expanded CTC was passed in the context of responding to the pandemic, which means most people probably think about it that way. Even recipients might think that "pandemic assistance" shouldn't be made permanent.
Second, Biden's no-strings-attached CTC payments are viewed by conservatives as a return to old-style welfare. There are no work requirements, no time restrictions, and no income limits. It's just automatic money for parents who don't work. Needless to say, they aren't in favor of that.
This is hardly definitive, but progressives ought to take it as a challenge to their "just give them money" mantra when it comes to federal assistance. We already do give poor families a fair chunk of money in the form of the EITC, and it's a good bet that doling out even more cash is not really a very popular policy.
In fact, it might or might not even be good policy. For that, we'll have to wait a year or three for the wonks to study the effects of the Biden CTC.
I really, really gotta disagree with Kevin when he writers, "The other 60% don't have kids and are not as thrilled since they don't themselves get anything."
I'm one of those 60% without kids, and I think the $300/month child tax credit is a damned fine thing for a helluva lotta American families, and for our economy generally.
Any tax cut or tax expenditure that does good for those who are neither rich people or corporations takes this country one more step towards being a decent society. For that, I don't get $300, but I sure as hell get some good feelings about our country.
A good number of the 40% will happily accept the money and continue to vote for people who opposed it.
Because, while they deserved it as an earned benefit, others didn't, & spent the money on flatscreen teevees, heroin, & lapdances.
You didn't just disagree with Kevin. You said you personally think it's a good idea. He's reporting that other (most) people with kids don't feel as you do. In other words, you disagree with those persons polled, not the writer of this post.
In fact, it might or might not even be good policy.
Oh please. With the child poverty rate in the US roughly double that of adults and third highest in OECD Iirc, and with the long-term benefits — individual, economic, sociological — of secure and well-funded childhood development studied to Hell and back and demonstrated dozens of times over, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that it’s goddam good policy.
The foolish, shortsighted meanness of so many Americans — and not just Republicans — never ceases to amaze me.
The foolish, shortsighted meanness of so many Americans — and not just Republicans — never ceases to amaze me.
It a may be that Americans are especially mean. But it may also be the case that other, similar measures were controversial or unpopular when they were first introduced in other high income countries fifty or sixty or seventy years ago (whatever the particulars). It's just that in other countries, people have had the opportunity to live for decades with high-functioning, comprehensive safety nets, and they like what they see. Americans haven't. America's safety net, though quite expensive in absolute terms, has generally been parsimonious toward the poor, and features lots of cracks that people slip through, and has been frequently characterized by complicated, often degrading criteria (reams of paperwork, means-testing, drug tests, etc).
A lot of people can't appreciate what they don't have any experience with. The fact that we're only now -- in 2021! -- getting around to establishing a universal child benefit, and we still don't have in place national healthcare -- is mostly a function of our suboptimal politics and constitution.
A big part is these safety nets were established in countries that were far more homogeneous than the US. As these countries have become more mixed there is definitely more grumbling.
Can't discount racial prejudice
As bbleh points out, our child poverty rate is shameful, and we need to do something about it. I also agree that unrestricted cash probably produces better results than money that comes with strings attached.
I would consider it good policy if it were financed by increasing taxes on high income earners and the wealthy. But, so far at least, it seems that it's going to be financed by more debt.
Who cares about debt? Not me.
You will when it's called in. Capitalism has the problem as well......Which sucks up to the state to bail them out.
"In fact, it might or might not even be good policy."
I second what bbleh said. It truly shows that many in the US, including some on the left, are simply envious holes who if they don't benefit from something directly they think it is bad policy or worthless spending, or who think that helping those in need will turn the country into the Soviet Union overnight.
For comparison, and to see how a program like that could work, Canada has had a Child Benefit for a very long time which pays up to $450 USD per kid, per month for children under 6 years old, and up to $380 USD per kid, per month for children 6-17 years old, with the exact amount being adjusted for family income. So far the country has not gone bankrupt, nor has it turn into a communist hellhole, nor a land of lazy "takers" so perhaps Biden should ask for some pointers there.
For me that phrase "with the amount being adjusted for income" makes a big difference. My youngest kid is 51, and my wife is unlikely to pop out any more even if we try harder, so there's nothing in it for me. But I'm in favor of it anyway, for the purpose it's intended--improving the lives of the kids who need it.
Then I think of my grandchildren. Their parents (my kids) are fortunate to be doing very well, so IMO giving them an extra stipend for each child would be a misuse of government funds. But a lot of their friends come from families who sure could use the infusion of extra cash, and I have absolutely no objection to some of my government's funds going to them to make their lives a little better.
As with most of these types of considerations, I respect the folks who look past the simplistic slogans to see the complexity of issues.
Their parents (my kids) are fortunate to be doing very well, so IMO giving them an extra stipend for each child would be a misuse of government funds.
Of course, if their parents (your kids) make up for it in the form of higher taxes, there's no benefit on net going to your grandchildren, so it all comes out in the wash. And as I'm sure you realize, the program itself is likely to function better , be easier and cheaper to administer, and be more popular, if it is characterized by simplicity and universality.
It's free money for other people that's not popular.
Give people a subsidy for not having children and watch the popularity soar.
this is a dumb post, NOTE THAT PEOPLE WORKING GET THE CREDIT TOO!
and the goal should be to end child poverty and address the unequal incomes in this country. chopping up the EITC into monthly payments is a no brainer.
They problem is that it was sold as a way to cut child poverty -- give money to *those people* -- instead of as a way to help parents with costs, like childcare -- associated with raising children. It is not chopping up the EITC into monthly payments, I enlarged the child tax credit which everyone with kids gets, making it fully refundable and sending it out as monthly payments.
The fully refundable part helps lower and middle income parents, the larger credit helps everyone.
The other thing to keep in mind is that intensity of support matters. This is something that often works against Democrats, but in this case might work in our favor.
The struggling parent getting a $300 check every month is going to a) be much more aware of the policy and b) care a lot more about it than a person without kids who, if you asked them, might say "Nah, we should cut that off," but who is otherwise barely aware that the child benefit even exists.
This pandemic has really had divergent financial outcomes. For lower income families, this money is a total lifesaver. For the well-off moms in my FB feed, there's griping about how the money will impact their taxes next year.
See above re meannness
The credit targets a key GOP constituency: whites with kids or grandkids. The question is whether their identity-ideology will outweigh their self-interest.
We asked these white suburbanites's grandchildren at this Greenpoint artisanal cocktail bar as they commiserated in stupefaction at the improbable defeat of Nina Turner if their Lester Maddox Democrat forebears would cut off their nose to spite a negro.
No work rules is why the full extension will not be passed. Rechange the question with work rules and it would get a thumbs up from the American people.
Never ceases to amaze me how much Americans worship work. Or hate mothers who don't work, yet also hate mothers who don't personally raise their children. Or hate that our population is pretty much only growing because of immigration, because actual native-born Americans increasingly cannot afford to have children. Or want to force native-born American women to have children they cannot afford, then shame them for being too poor to raise those kids "right." It's kind of beautiful, how the American Circle of Greed and Resentment feeds on itself and grows in intensity as more of our families spiral into financial oblivion.
Again, American society is based on the debt ponzi known as free markets. If you want a child creation/support policy which is defacto industrial policy, you see the problem. Maybe only white women should receive the no strings benefits while white men put em in apartments, keep em shape, raise kids. Then when men come home from work, they will have some nice gardens to pick from to screw in the evening. No more strings attached Nuclear Family nonsense. That is what classical socialism saw in the future. Women as collective property.
Your crack habit must cost you a lot of money
Your in denial
Really tempted to try this myself,
https://i.redd.it/nvobv2ztybf71.jpg
If you want to make the Child Tax Credit a popular benefit, there's a simple way to do it: Try to take it away.
I suspect most people know little about the credit and when they answer pollsters' questions it says more about the phrasing of the question or some preexisting bias about whether the government should be spending money or not. Default answer for a lot of "Should the government...?" questions is "Hell, no!" When you think about all the things that the government spends money on, you realize almost none of it is because it's popular. It's because most people are not paying attention. The government doesn't give subsidies to fossil fuel companies or tax deductions to billionaires who buy yachts because it polls well. The government does it because almost nobody knows about it or cares.
But once government starts doing something, it's very hard to stop. ACA was unpopular until the GOP almost repealed it. Even measures like the eviction moratorium gets little attention until it's about to go away.
If Democrats decide to ditch the Child Tax Credit because a poll shows weak support, then they will pay a price for it. Republicans will soon be running ads against those heartless Democrats who don't give a damn about our poor kids. (Or middle-class kids, either.) That is how our politics works.
Maybe it's worth mentioning, the American Rescue Plan of 2021 did not create the Child Tax Credit. What it did was bump up the existing credit of $2,000 per year to $3,000 or $3,600 per year (depending on child's age). The "$300-per-month Child Tax Credit" is actually smaller even for most people who get the benefit, and the monthly payments (from July to December only) is just a prepayment on a credit people would otherwise get when filing taxes next year. For kids whose parents are now getting a benefit, in most cases it's $133/month or $83/month more than they would have been getting (and half of it a few months earlier) if not for the American Rescue Plan.
Last point: The assumption that people should be for or against a policy based on whether they are direct beneficiaries or not is a conservative idea that undermines the entire concept of what government is all about. If that's how you think about politics, the hell with you.
Pay the price for it?? Nope. Considering the low utility it has, it isn't a big mover.
I always thought the elegance of the founding fathers' vision was that the government would work best when individuals acted in their best interest.
...the government would work best when individuals acted in their best interest.
You sure about that? You seem to be confusing Adam Smith with the Founders. Way back when it was Smith who wrote that people operating in their own self-interest can lead to overall economic well-being: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
But that same year the Founders created a new nation and I can't recall a single one of them saying the government works best when individuals act in their own interest. They did say "governments ... deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed." A very different thing.
A government is about what we do together as a people.
If a government were just about individuals acting in their own self-interest, it wouldn't be a government at all.
I'm a DINK, so the CTC helps me directly not at all, but I'm in favor of it.
Hell, I actually prefer the ROMNEY plan (which PAINS me to admit) -- read this PPP post to find out why: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2021/02/04/romneys-child-allowance-improves-on-biden-proposal/
I''ll worry about deficit spending when the military budget starts getting slashed....
It's the same reason why there is widespread opposition to college loan forgiveness and directed support for black farmers.
Most people see Econ as a zero-sum game, so if someone else is benefitting from X policy, they must necessarily be losing out.
Ask anyone on here if Econ is a zero-sum game. Even the answers are aligned to virtue-signaling altruism.
Americans are amazingly good at refusing to learn from other countries. Many countries subsidize children. Canada's child tax credit is quite similar to the present American child tax credit, although more generous, and has been in place since 1992.
Rather than speculating in an information vacuum, why not look at Canada and other countries that subsidize children and see how it has worked for them?
Americans are dumb as rocks
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Has there been any hard evidence that this is bad policy?
I know there is a great deal of hard evidence that it is good policy.
In addition to agreeing with many of the other comments here, let me add that I would be concerned that results in this poll might be tainted by concerns over not being able to fill job positions due to expanded unemployment.
Now, we know that these are two different benefits. But not all poll responders will be clear on the distinction. They know the government is giving out more money. They know that employers are having trouble filling jobs and that's making the drive thru at McDonald's slower. They've been told by conservative outlets that it Democrats giving money to freeloaders that is causing the problem. I'm not sure some of them aren't just reacting to that.
I'd see how this plays out over time. I do agree that free money isn't necessarily universally popular. On the other hand, at least since the 90s a lot of supposedly smart people have said there's nothing we can really do about poverty, and we now have pretty good evidence that's not true.