So, the Romney plan is interesting.

Yes, it pays for itself by cutting some other benefits for kids.

But the Niskanen Center's analysis suggests *even with* those cuts, it reduces child poverty by 33%.

Without pay-fors, it reduces it by 40%. https://twitter.com/dylanmatt/status/1357344087788032003

Basically, swapping full refundability + a bigger benefit value at low incomes for the weird "kinda about work and kinda about kids" EITC structure at higher incomes turns out to be a big help to people below the poverty line.

Now, my critique of the plan is I don't think it should be entirely funded by transfers from other kid programs. I'd prefer to see more of the financing come from non-child sources. As is, really only the SALT deduction pay-for is a transfer to kids and parents.

My preference would be to take the EITC schedule that Romney's folks show for childless households and keep that as the EITC for everyone, have no kid component at all, jack the child allowance up *even higher*, and have payfors out of excise taxes.

But the nice thing about Romney's plan is that it can be adopted right now and is both poverty-reducing and budget-neutral, and those kinds of fixes can be made in the future without great difficulty.

One thing I do think is very important is that we should absolutely not be providing a new child allowance without fixing some of the glaring problems in the existing CTC/EITC. Biden's proposal does not make that fix.

Yes, my preference would be to raise the alcohol tax, swap the gas tax for a VMT tax, and maybe tweak a few of the other small revenue raisers. https://twitter.com/Robert_t_Orr/status/1357346875339206667

Also while we're at it with the alcohol tax we *really* should fix the basis it's administered on. All alcohol varieties should be taxes on a proof basis, with the tax-per-gallon rising superlinearly with proof.

I know eliminating TANF is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way, but it's key to understand that TANF right now is only about $15 billion, and like half of that never even goes to families but goes to random state programs intended to help the poor in some general way.

Plus, TANF grants aren't really updated and recalculated in a rational way, so states get wildly disproportionate grant sizes.

Replacing TANF with a direct cash transfer to families is absolutely a net win for low-income people.

While we're at it, let's address some of the concerns that @ParrottCBPP raised in the quotes given to @dylanmatt .

She says the reason Romney pays for the program by cutting other benefits is just to take benefits away from kids.

That's.... not true.

First of all, let's be clear: *none* of these programs provide benefits *to kids*. They provide benefits *to parents.* That may seem like a trivial distinction, but it really isn't: we do have some programs that directly transfer to kids (like CHIP or public education).

But giving any kind of family-shared or semi-fungible asset *on the basis of having kids* to parents is *not* the same. It's irritating when people just delete the parents from these conversations and act like we're debating taking food out of a kid's mouth or something.

*In almost all cases* the primary sufferer when benefits to families with kids are reduced will not be a child (parents tend to prioritize meeting their kid's needs), but the parent.

Okay, that out of the way, let's ask, "Why NOT pay for this by increasing taxes on the rich?"

The answer is that current programs are *actually bad and need reform anyways*.

Take the EITC for example.

If two single people making modest incomes and claiming the EITC get married, what do you think happens?

They keep their EITC right?

Wrong. They lose most or all of their benefits in the vast majority of cases.

The way the EITC is calculated HEAVILY penalizes working class marriage. It's a massive thumb on the scale DISCOURAGING parents from marrying.

If you think that benefits kids, you're crazy!

We can debate whether trying to nudge people to get married is good for kids or not.

But I don't think *anyone* argues that setting up a $1,000 surcharge on marriage for working-class people benefits children. And that's what the EITC does.

So one reason to change the EITC as Romney does is that the current policy *actually harms working class people* in many ways. Reforming the EITC as Romney proposes would dramatically improve the situation.

I discussed TANF above, and @dylanmatt discussed it ably in his article, but let's be clear: the vast majority of TANF money does not go to supporting poor people. It goes to bankrolling state administrator's pet programs.

Transferring the same amount of money to anti-poverty measures but making more of it actually go to poor families, and reducing the amount of paperwork people have to do to get it, ***is a good thing***.

Similar concerns arise with the head of household filing status which has weird marriage/child disincentives. There's no reason to provide tax relief to the small subset of families with tax accountants clever enough to run their return in multiple ways and then arbitrage.

The simple fact is that the Romney proposal takes a huge whack at poverty (especially child poverty), can be made permanent through reconciliation, *and also* cleans up the mess of decades of haphazard policymaking in the past.

There is literally no reason not to do this.

Suppose you think more of it should be paid for by taxing the rich.

Okay! That's fine!

So pass Romney's plan, then pass a tax hike.

This'll sound crazy I know but Congress can actually pass more than one bill per century. Have a go at the tax hike in the next go around. In the meantime, *go ahead and do a good thing you can do right now*.