Earlier this week, the Edmund Burke Foundation published “National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles,” signed by a who’s who of conservative populists including Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College, Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Meadows of the Conservative Partnership Institute, Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, and Peter Thiel of Founders Fund.
The eighth principle of the statement is titled “Family and Children” and says, “We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. … Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.”
There is no evidence that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) released his Family Security Act 2.0 in response to these principles, but it is hard to think of any specific legislation out there today that better promotes the principles of national conservatism.
Romney’s bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Steve Daines (R-MT), consolidates four separate existing tax benefits (the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, the child and dependent care tax credit, and head of household filing status) into one monthly cash benefit for working families.
Families earning more than $10,000 a year would receive $350 a month for each young child and $250 a month for each school-aged child, up to a maximum of six children. Romney’s office estimates that a married couple with two children ages 4 and 9 that currently receives a tax benefit of $7,041 under existing law would get an extra $2,318 under Romney’s plan, which is paid for by both consolidating existing tax benefits and eliminating the state and local tax deduction that predominantly benefits only wealthy families.
Most importantly — and if anything, this is undersold by Romney — his plan eliminates the existing marriage penalties in the EITC and CTC programs. By eliminating these marriage penalties in the tax code, Romney’s bill delivers “greater support” for “the traditional family.”
Romney introduced a similar plan by himself last year that did not include the $10,000-a-year income requirement. Many conservatives voiced concern that giving parents a full benefit without requiring any work would disconnect too many families from the workforce. Children benefit when they see at least one parent in their household hold down a job. No doubt the inclusion of the $10,000 income phase-in helped get Burr and Daines to sign on.
Romney’s plan is not the only legislation out there that promotes marriage and the traditional family. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced a parent tax credit that offers working families (those with earned income higher than $7,540 a year) a $6,000 fully refundable tax credit for single parents and a $12,000 credit for married parents.
That is an explicit $6,000 bonus for married households. And since it is fully refundable, many lower-income parents with no net tax liabilities would receive a check from the government every month.
If anything, the Romney and Hawley plans don’t go far enough. Every existing social safety net program (Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, Affordable Care Act subsidies, etc.) includes a marriage penalty. Each of these programs, therefore, makes it harder for the working-class families that need marriage the most to get and stay married. More Republicans should be offering more legislation to eliminate all marriage penalties in federal law.
The Democrats’ obsession with open borders, abortion as birth control, transgender ideology, and reparations has created a huge opening for Republicans to become a multiracial, working-class parent party. Romney’s bill is a giant step in that direction.
