A major feature of the House Ways and Means Committee’s “tax bill” is an expansion of the child tax credit. This expansion was necessary to secure Democrats’ support for the corporate tax provisions in the bill, but the trade isn’t worth the cost.
The welfare-related child tax credit provisions aren’t a minor extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, but a massive departure from the status quo. Together, they move the country in the wrong direction on welfare policy after years of pro-family, pro-work progress.
The problems with the committee’s bill are many. It would increase welfare subsidies for single parents rather than further promoting and strengthening married, two-parent households. It would undermine rather than strengthen work requirements in welfare. It would increase, not reduce, fraud and excess benefits. It would provide more welfare to…
