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 The reasons are as obvious as they were predictable, especially
for those who dare to venture outside Washington, D.C. For months, I have warned
that President Joe Biden’s gigantic American Rescue Plan included needless
government stimulus that would have devastating ripple effects.
While most critics’ focus so far has been on the plan’s extension of federal
unemployment benefits, which effectively pay people not to work (and which
states like Florida are thankfully ending), the package’s radical expansion of
the federal welfare state has been relatively overlooked. That won’t be for
long, as the plan’s new handout – Biden’s so-called child “allowance” program –
will begin in July.
For the next six months, the Child Tax Credit, claimed by
working families every year at tax time to keep more of their hard-earned money,
will be transformed into an anti-work welfare check. Parents will receive
monthly payments of $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child age 7 to 17. By
next tax season, some households with no working adults will receive more than
$10,000 in these payments. No work required. Just free money on top of America’s
existing safety net.
It’s all part of a pattern of President Biden spending recklessly on a liberal
policy wish list, at risk to the economy.
When Biden first proposed the American Rescue Plan, even Obama administration
economists admitted the package was too much. Former Council of Economic
Advisers chair Jason Furman warned that the Biden stimulus was “definitely too
big for the moment,” noting, “I don’t know any economist that was recommending
something the size of what was done.” Fellow Obama alum Steven Rattner even
said, “We need to trim stimulus now!”
But the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress want to do the exact
opposite. Unlike their unemployment benefits, they intend to make Biden’s cash
handouts to non-working parents permanent.
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Despite Democrats’ claims, this is not a pro-family
plan. It would re-create the failed welfare system that President
Bill Clinton and then-Sen. Biden opposed in the 1990s, when there
was a bipartisan consensus that the goal of welfare should be to
encourage work and marriage rather than dependency.
Today, Democrats have apparently abandoned that guiding principle.
In the floor debate over the Biden stimulus, Republicans unanimously
voted to support my and Sen. Mike Lee’s amendment to once again
expand the Child Tax Credit for working families, just as we did in
2017. Democrats rejected the expansion in favor of Biden’s welfare
program for non-working, unmarried parents.
Now, as their program begins, the American people will witness the
dangers of this radical plan. These handouts will take away the
incentives for single parents to work and get married. It will go to
parents with histories of crime or substance abuse, with no
questions asked or help provided.
And as we saw with unemployment benefits, the American people know
the culturally destructive influence of paying people not to work
and how it can derail an economic recovery, just as it did during
the Obama years.
What’s more, the Democrats know Biden’s plan is unpopular. Why else
would they keep calling this program “tax relief” when it goes to
people who pay no taxes?
Though the Democrats downplayed this program to get it passed
earlier this year, they’re no longer holding back. When President
Biden calls his child benefit program a signature achievement in the
months to come, the American people should see right through it.
Republican Marco Rubio represents Florida in the
United States Senate. |
