Triple the Child Tax Credit?
So, Rick Santorum would like to triple the Child Tax Credit (WSJ), or in other words, he feels that a family with three children should have their federal income tax cut by $6,000. The assumption here is that Mr. Santorum wishes to triple the previous doubling which would have expired after 2010, but was extended another couple of years. Would the tripling be made to co-ordinate with the doubling, or would they be unaligned, perhaps both temporary, so that depending on how tides, stars, and Congressional extension votes align, the future credit would be either $500, $1000, $3000, or $1500 per child?
For 2010, my household income was somewhere around the 80th percentile, but as the father of six children, I owed no federal income tax. In fact, a big fat check was sent to me by the U.S. Treasury due to the “refundable” Additional Child Tax Credit.
In the fall of 2010, when the doubling of the Child Tax Credit was still set to expire, and President Obama had proposed almost doubling the Child Care Tax Credit, I estimated that thirty billion dollars would be shifted away from the President’s political opponents (single-income, dual-parent households with three or more children) and toward his supporters (dual-income or single-parent households with one or two children). That didn’t happen, but by that estimate Rick Santorum would like to reduce tax revenue by about 120 billion dollars in such a way that almost no families with children pay federal income tax. It doesn’t sound like a wholesome civic arrangement.
(See also “The ‘Procreative Mormons Suck the Nation Dry’ Tax Credit.”)
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
January 17, 2012
The Wall Street Journal got it wrong. Santorum’s actual policy appears to be tripling the child deduction–
http://www.ricksantorum.com/defender-taxpayer
–credits are direct reductions to taxes owed while deductions reduce your taxable income. Unlike the Child Care Tax Credit, an increase in the child deduction would not lead to big fat checks.
I generally support something like this. The child deduction has been stagnant for decades while inflation has steadily eroded it. Child rearing is an expensive proposition that benefits society at large, but for middle class parents the burdens are largely born by themselves. Our birth rates continue to decline, partly because of the burdens of having children, and experience around the world has shown that incentives affect decisions to have children at the margins. Finally, this would reward Republican constituencies and even increase them. And since I generally support Republican platforms (with lots of caveats, but still), I see that as a good thing.
My big objection is cost. How to pay for it? If it were politically feasible to phase out or cap the mortgage-interest deduction to pay for an increased child deduction, I would support that strongly. To my mind, the mortgage-interest deduction mainly only makes sense as an inefficient encouragement to marriage and child-rearing anyway.
A.Roddy
January 26, 2012
It is the individual’s responsibility to pay for children. you should not have them if you can not provide. We already pay enough for people to have kids. The cost would come from singles and childless which is unfair. In fact the credit should be limited severely. All it does is promote irresponsibility.
G.
January 26, 2012
I don’t know if that effusion of assertions deserves a response, but I’ll provide one.
Wrong.
Vader
January 26, 2012
You think you’re being treated … unfairly?
Who do you think is going to support you in your old age, if you don’t have children? That’s right: The children of other people, raised at considerable sacrifice.
I would be happy to alter the bargain, though you should pray that I don’t.
A.Roddy
January 27, 2012
Having children just to support you in your old age is wrong. If you think children will always take care of you look in any nursing home. The holier than thou attitude toward parenting is what caused the Kate and Jon Gosselins of today wouldn’t you say so. Maybe non-smokers should pay for the health care of smokers. Maybe vegetarians should pay for meat eaters. Maybe non-pet owners should pay for other people pets. And the list goes on. I guess GOP doesn’t support choice.
A.Roddy
January 27, 2012
In other words why should others get a fat paycheck from the IRS just because they have six kids ? So what they sacrificed some thier adult years to raise kids? they made this choice not me.
G.
January 27, 2012
A. Roddy,
if this post was meant to elicit joke comments, it would have been filed in the “Brilliantly Lit” category.
Zen
January 27, 2012
It is tragically comic how adverse most of the first world is to the building blocks of civilization. You do realize that part of our prosperity has been our birthrate, (of course it isn’t the only factor, don’t even begin that argument) and a declining population will require us to bring in others. But that is the death knell of our society if it happens in large replacement quantities. In small amounts it is good.
In Europe, they are facing this demographic challenge because they do not give birth to enough babies to replace their current population. In America, we are barely doing that…. primarily because of immigrants who don’t have the tiny or non-existent family Americans do. Don’t even get me started on the much more severe problems Japan is having.
So in short, you can oppose family-centered policies, but it is a vote for a selfish suicide of society.
Vader
January 30, 2012
A. Roddy,
If you can’t count on your own kids to support you in your old age, what makes you think you can count on other people’s kids to support you in your old age? Because when you don’t have children of your own, that’s what you’ve chosen to do.
But, hey, I admire a man who is true to his principles, even if I disagree with them. And, in your case, I believe you’d be doing the human race a positive good by not having children.
A.Roddy
February 9, 2012
That is a very insensitive comment and I am telling the truth. I am not childless by choice and keep your asinine opinions to yourself about those choose not to have kids. GOP preaches no welfare and wants to increase child tax credit paid for by the tax payers. From where I stand most parents are lazy leech of the gov letting their children run the streets and had them thinking the kids will take care of them. I say HAH . So a majority of parents arent helping society if you look in juvenile facilities. Most of them will end up being back in prison. In other words why do we need more incentives that encourage this? And in my part of the country I do not see a population shortage.
John Mansfield
February 10, 2012
Looking in juvenile facilities wouldn’t show a person much about the majority of juveniles or their parents. It’s a bit like the neurosurgeon who, based on his daily work routine, believes there’s an epidemic of brain injury enveloping the world; I once heard such a doctor during public comment on a proposed bike helmet law.
G.
February 10, 2012
Poking fun of A. Roddy’s brain injury, that’s very insensitive, John. Please knock it off.
John Mansfield
February 10, 2012
I may be insensitive, but I’m not going to knock off anyone’s injured brain. Stop goading.
zen
February 10, 2012
Reminds me of a recent lecture I attended with Richard Dawkins. One person had a question poointing out that athiests don’t have many children (especially in comparison to the religious) and are essentially committing demographic suicide. He ended his response with with uproarous offense that anyone would suggest he have children.
To which I will say, Mr Dawkins, we agree on something.