A recent Washington Post editorial addressed Michael Bloomberg and the earned-income tax credit. I include an excerpt:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he is not running for president. Yet that didn’t stop him from coming to Washington last week to promote an expansion of the earned-income tax credit as the next phase in the war on poverty. The EITC has been around since 1975 and is widely considered the single most important and effective policy for reducing poverty. According to a 2006 report from the Brookings Institution, “In 2003, the EITC lifted 4.4 million people in low-income, working families out of poverty, more than one-half of them children.” Mr. Bloomberg is right to focus on its expansion.
In a speech at the National Press Club, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire former Democrat, former Republican and now independent who many believe is mulling a White House bid, noted that welfare reform and the EITC “incentivized work among women with young children.” But, he said, “fathers are missing from our strategy to drive down the poverty rate.” He proposed to triple the size of the maximum credit received, to $1,236 per year, and to eliminate the marriage penalty now at work. He would raise the maximum income for EITC eligibility from $12,100 to $18,040 and lower the qualifying age from 25 to 21, to make stable employment more attractive to young men. And he would make the EITC expansion off-limits to fathers who are behind on child-support obligations.
As far as government policies go, the earned-income tax credit has a lot of potential. I support almost anything that reduces taxes for the working class.
Most of all, I agree with Bloomberg’s point about fathers. Missing fathers contribute to poverty, especially that amongst children and single mothers. Incentives such as the EITC can help get more fathers to take care of their children. Unfortunately, no government program will get rid of all deadbeat dads. Plus, some children become fatherless other ways, such as when their fathers die or go to jail.
Let’s not let children suffer in poverty because of their fathers’ absence.
We can fully put a stop to this by changing the way society works so that children do not require a father to grow up in proper conditions. In other words, we can make sure children do not need financial support from their parents. We can do this by making sure all children have direct access to food, clothes, shelter, healthcare and education. I suggest doing this by making sure all children can get student loans for boarding schools which would not only provide education but also would provide food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare.
If all children can have their needs met without the financial support of their parents or deadbeat father, and if the children get a quality education, then they will not fall into the poverty trap. As adults, with their quality education, they will have the ability to get a job that pays them enough to fully support themselves, which includes paying off the student loans.
I agree with penalizing deadbeat dads. I agree with offering incentives for parents to take care of their children. However, if we want to end poverty for all children, we have to help children directly, because the world will always have deadbeat parents no matter how many incentives and penalties we impose.