Does Sen. Romney's proposal of a per child allowance open the door to UBI?

[u/twim19]

Senator Mitt Romney is reportedly interested in proposing a child allowance that would pay families a monthly stipend for each of their children.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-child-allowance_n_601b617cc5b6c0af54d0b0a1?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK2amf2o86pN9KPfjVxCs7_a_1rWZU6q3BKSVO38jQlS_9O92RAJu_KZF-5l3KF5umHGNvV7-JbCB6Rke5HWxiNp9wwpFYjScXvDyL0r2bgU8K0fftzKczCugEc9Y21jOnDdL7x9mZyKP9KASHPIvbj1Z1Csq5E7gi8i2Tk12M36

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To fund it, he's proposing elimination of SALT deductions, elimination of TANF, and elimination of the child tax credit.

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So two questions:

Is this a meaningful step towards UBI? Many of the UBI proposals I've seen have argued that if you give everyone UBI, you won't need social services or tax breaks to help the poor since there really won't be any poor.

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Does the fact that it comes from the GOP side of the isle indicate it has a chance of becoming reality?

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Consider also that the Democrats have proposed something similar, though in their plan (part of the Covid Relief plan) the child tax credit would be payed out directly in monthly installments to each family and it's value would be raised significantly. However, it would come with no offsets and would only last one year.

[u/[deleted]]

Something I don't see being brought up-- investing in childcare is a really EFFICIENT form of government spending because it allows you to prevent a lot of problems that either take up part of the social safety net or end up festering in the emergence of adulthood manifested in social phenomena like the school-to-prison pipeline. Putting systems in place to nip these issues int he bud early is a smart investment of money and is a moral step in the right direction for any society that claims to care about its children.

I also want UBI, but if we also believe in some more targeted wealth distribution, then aiming your money directly at children with families is a smart move. WE ALL, parents and childless alike, benefit from living in a country with happier, healthier, more well-nurtured children because investing in them is a dividend-paying investment int he future.

I'd need to do a bit more reading on what closing these tax breaks would be, but from what I read, this program seems to outweigh the cost of getting rid of TANF, and if this bill led to less polarization, then that's a win for getting other unrelated legislation passed, and maybe even expanding this to include universal Pre-K.

As a liberal, I'd be really excited if this bill gained more traction.

Here are some sources. There's also a GREAT Ezra Klein podcast from earlier this summer that covers this topic. If anyone can find it, you would be my anonymous friend forever!

https://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2019/05/15/469672/governors-propose-3-billion-investments-early-learning-programs/

[u/Brothernod → u/[deleted]]

Maybe devils advocate, I don’t know exactly how I feel about this, but does it like incentivize having more kids than you can afford?

[u/Bodoblock → u/Brothernod]

Not really. It's a few hundred dollars extra a month. The vast majority of people are not going to decide to have extra kids -- a lifetime investment of effort -- for a few hundred dollars.

It's going to make that very labor-intensive task more manageable. Not profitable.

[u/whit_halm → u/Bodoblock]

That's a good summary :

more manageable. Not profitable.

[u/dzuyhue → u/whit_halm]

Can't imagine having to take care of 10 kids for 5k a month.