These Are The Fundamental Flaws In Vance's $9,000 Plan To Boost Parenthood Among Married Couples

With strong support from Vice President Vance, the Trump administration is crafting a rule that would allow certain parents to get money from Washington if they take care of their kids at home.

Details for eligibility, such as income levels, are being formulated.

One number being bandied about is that married couples could get up to $9,000 a year per child if one of the parents is at home to take care of the kid.

Advocates say it is only fair to subsidize stay-at-home parents.

After all, the federal government and states have an array of programs to help working parents get child care for their kids.

The main one is the Child Care and Development Fund, the CCDF, passed in the 1990s.

In fact, Vance would use money from the CCDF to fund his proposal.

That, of course, would be legally challenged.

But if necessary, there is nothing to block Congress from appropriating money for this purpose.

There are a host of details to work out before such a rule is finalized for implementation.

But at this point, the specifics are not relevant.

Despite good intentions, the actual proposal is, upon reflection, profoundly wrong.

The basic objection is that under the Democrats, who will someday return to power, the Vance plan will be the stepping stone for the universal income, whereby everybody gets paid a certain amount of money each year.

The far left badly wants it because it would massively increase the number of people dependent on government.

Millions would drop out of the workforce.

The social and political consequences would be ugly.

It would undermine support for free markets.

In addition, if it comes into being, the Vance plan would also lead to the government gaining very disturbing power over family life.

Government should not be in the business of trying to manipulate family life.

It should be going in the opposite direction, and that is creating conditions where people can carry out their own decisions about how they wish to live.

There are basic ways to give people maximum flexibility here.

Start with slashing income tax rates, or even better, enact the flat tax.

The burden of payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare can be sharply ameliorated by reforming the amount and the refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit, the EITC.

Technology can enable these payments to be made on a monthly basis instead of an annual basis while eliminating, and this is key, the rampant current fraud.

In essence, the EITC rebates those payroll taxes.