Daniel Henninger has gone down the rabbit hole. In his column for the Wall Street Journal he inveighs against the countless ways in which the tax code is manipulated by legislators to reward this or that constituency—or donors and lobbyists, as the case may be. The whole mess has been reaffirmed in the bill that was just passed to avert going over the fiscal cliff.
All to the good. Where he goes wrong is lumping this insider game with various efforts to use the tax code to encourage socially productive behavior. He writes: “The bill has $335 billion for the child tax credit, the sort of expenditure some conservatives like. But then no complaining about the rest of it.” He goes on, “You can’t pick and choose which tax heist to join. You’re in for all of them. In time everyone’s a tax gangster.”
Only a very ideological person can fail to distinguish between a tax code designed to subsidize the extraordinary costs of being a parent—the single most important act of citizenship anyone can perform—and one that subsidizes the production of ethanol. Unfortunately, many so-called conservatives think the way he does. For them, having a child is a “lifestyle choice” among many. Why should government be in the “social engineering” business of encouraging people to have children?
Purity, yes, but at the price of anything resembling political responsibility. One of the ideological dreams of modern men and women is government without politics. The Left entertains dreams of society administered by disinterested experts. The Right dreams of a libertarian society in which everybody’s private choices, unconstrained and undistorted by government, somehow constellate to make us all richer and happier—the invisible hand at work. But neither is possible. We’ve got to live in the world of actual human beings, which means a never-ending debate about how the power of government—including and perhaps especially its taxing power—should best serve the common good. No doubt that means doing our best to prevent the perversion of the tax code to serve special interests, but it also requires discerning when the tax code must be tilted this way or that to serve the general interest.
Ask the Japanese if having children isn’t very, very important for the future of society.
January 4th, 2013 | 12:14 pm
If there is a silver lining to the demographic cloud massing above certain nations, it could be that it will lead to a renewed understanding of the importance of child-rearing and marriage in the stability of society.
January 4th, 2013 | 1:52 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I would love to see the Republican Party adopt the pro-family tax plan championed by Robert Stein and Ramesh Ponnuru. Expand the child-tax credit and put more money into the hands of parents.
January 4th, 2013 | 10:32 pm
I’m not even sure conservatives are presenting the best case for the child tax credit. One can be uncompromisingly ideologically rigid and still support the child tax credit. In fact, it helps to be very ideological, regardless of ideology.
Everyone, liberal, conservative, libertarian, is for some form of welfare for those who can’t support themselves through no fault of their own. A child is a person with no possible means of supporting himself. The child tax credit is welfare for the child. We give it to the parent because the child isn’t even able to spend it for himself. It is NOT welfare for the parent.
January 5th, 2013 | 1:38 pm
This area is probably the best to show why Christians should walk carefully with “economic conservatives”. Economic conservatives of libertarian bent,often seek to remove morality from economic discussions while moralistically speaking of property rights. They have done good work in trying to explain to a distracted culture how government intrusion hinders economic well-being of citizens. But when did it become conservative to defend the most successful revolution of the 1960′s – the sexual revolution?
January 6th, 2013 | 3:21 pm
“…being a parent—the single most important act of citizenship anyone can perform”
This is an extreme overreach. What about people who give their lives in service as first responders, nurses, soldiers, holders of high office, etc.? Are we saying that the WORST parent is more important than the BEST priest?
The next time I’m scheduled for heart surgery and the surgeon cancels because his kid’s ballgame got rescheduled and now conflicts with my procedure, should I be OK with that?
Reproduction is a hard-wired biological urge practiced even by solitary animals in the wild. It does NOT have anything particular to do with citizenship.
This is pandering to the masses FT. Huge miss.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact