为什 么拜登总统的政府解决方案实际上会削弱美国家庭的基础设施.docx

KEY TAKEAWAYSLawmakers should reject the american Families Plan, a leftist wish list that does nothing to promote family stability and prosperity.This proposal asserts more government control over americans while failing to address the real child care, education, family leave, and health needs of families.The american Families Plan undermines families and discourages work, leaving americans with fewer opportunities and less control of their lives.Why President Biden's Government Solutions Would Actually Weaken the Infrastructure of American FamiliesRachel Greszler, Lindsey M. Burke, PhD, Marie Fishpaw, Matthew D. Dickerson, Leslie Ford, Robert Rector, Jonathan Butcher, Doug Badger, and Daren Bakst/一 trong families and hard work have formed the foundation for healthy development, mean- ingful relationships, and economic well-being ever since America's inception. Now President Joseph Biden has a new vision: one in which progressive politicians and government bureaucrats sit at the helm of American families, financed through $1.8 trillion in new taxpayer spending.Through unprecedented new federal education spending, new universal preschool and government child care programs, paid family leave, and new health care and welfare spending, the Biden Administration would significantly grow federal intervention in and control of some of the most personal aspects of family life. But by displacing the need for and value of things that families do to support one another, the Presidents American FamiliesThis paper, in its entirety, can be found at :The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts avenue, NE | Washington, DC 20002 | (202) 546-4400 | heritage.orgNothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.These proposed changes would make existing problems in the welfare state worse by undermining work and marriage. These very expensive and harmful proposals should be rejected. Otherwise, we will see fewer low-in- come Americans rise and flourish.Second-Largest Expansion of the Welfare State in U.S. History. The Biden plan would provide an estimated $78.6 billion per year in welfare checks to families with children who owe no income tax and $7.3 billion per year in EITC welfare checks to childless workers. This would constitute the second-largest expansion of means-tested welfare entitlements in U.S. history. In constant dollars, its annual cost would dwarf the initial costs of Medicaid, food stamps, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Only Obamacare would be more expensive. The 10-year cost would be at least $890 billion.The left is selling this policy based on the misperception that the U.S. has an inadequate welfare system that needs to be greatly expanded. In fact, the U.S. spends $1.1 trillion per year on means-tested welfare.35 In 2018, before the COVID-19 recession, the U.S. spent nearly $500 billion on means-tested cash, food, housing, and medical care for poor and low-income families with children. This is seven times the amount needed to eliminate all child poverty in the U.S.36 The Biden proposal would add another $78.6 billion in cash welfare to children on top of the nearly $500 billion in current spending.Child Allowance That Will Discourage Intergenerational Mobility. The proposed policy would permanently change the child tax credit into unconditional welfare checks. The refundable child tax credit used to require work. Families with no earnings were not eligible for benefits; to encourage work, benefits increased as work increased. The Biden plan would eliminate the need to work or prepare for work.Advocates claim that this unconditional welfare check will reduce child poverty. In fact, this allowance is more likely to take more parents out of the workforce, increase single parenting, and lead to fewer children experiencing intergenerational upward mobility.In the Covid stimulus package enacted early in 2021, Congress increased the current annual "child credit? from its current level of $2,000 per child under 17 years of age annually to $300 monthly checks for children under six and $250 monthly per child ages six-17.37 This is on top of any aid they already receive from food stamps; Medicaid; the Women, Infants, and Children program; housing; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (where nominal work requirements are frequently not enforced).If passed, these new welfare checks will set back the progress this country has made against child poverty. This policy will reverse the positive outcomes that came out of the 1996 bipartisan welfare reform.38 Before the 1996 reform, Aid to Families with Dependent Children operated exactly as the Biden plan would operate: providing monthly cash payments without expecting low-income recipients to work or prepare for work.Before the reform, work among the parents on the program was very low: nearly nine in 10 families were workless,39 leading to most families being stuck in long-term poverty. The majority of families received AFDC benefits for more than eight years.40 Unwed births rose year-over-year for decades.41 One of every seven American children was on the program.42 And all of this made intergenerational child poverty worse.For this reason, Republicans led the way to transform the safety net with the signature of President Bill Clinton and the vote of then-Senator Joseph Biden.43 For the first time, recipients had to work or prepare for work to receive cash benefits.We know the results. While the left claimed that poverty would increase,44 we witnessed the exact opposite.45> Dependence on welfare declined for the first time in a half-century.46« Employment rose, particularly among single mothers who did not graduate from high school.47 Child poverty, which had been static for decades, fell sharplyespecially among black children.48The U.S. experience with unconditional aid is clear: Subsidizing nonworking families generally leads to more families trapped outside the workforce. The policy will also subsidize single parenthood, especially among teens, thereby undermining the chance that children will be raised by a mature married mother and father.49 Any of these results will lead to fewer children experiencing social success and upward mobility. The plan would also provide the new monthly cash grants to illegal immigrants who have U.S.-born children.EITC for Childless Workers That Will Not Reduce Poverty or Increase Work. Today, the EITC primarily targets low-wage parents with children to support. However, the Biden plan would expand the EITC for workers with no children to support. It would raise cash grants for these childless workers from roughly $530 per year to nearly $1,100 per year.50 This would cost an additional $7.3 billion in cash grants each year.Supporters claim that the proposed expansion of the EITC would reduce poverty and encourage employment for low-income adults without children. Yet most of the recipients of this EITC expansion would not be poor: Most would have low individual earnings simply because they worked little in a typical year. Contrary to claims made by advocates, this EITC expansion would not increase work. Experiments expanding EITC to adults without children in New York City and Atlanta failed to reduce poverty or significantly increase employment. The policy would simply increase spending without achieving its alleged goals; it is simply an expensive waste of money.51Tax Increases Hurt FamiliesContinuing this Administration's harmful tax-and-spend ideology, to finance this plan, President Biden proposes tax hikes that would harm the economy. The fact sheet announcing the American Families Plan misleadingly claims that the President's new welfare spending proposals amount to “tax cuts for America's families and workers7552 In reality, the plan includes significant increases in the taxes paid by America's families.The White House even attempts to claim that the proposal is “tax reform.?，53 However, the proposal would only make the tax code more complicated and increase burdensome taxesgoals that are exactly the opposite of true tax reform.These tax increases would also come in addition to tax hikes on corporations proposed as part of President Biden's ""American Jobs Plan.” However, if enacted, those tax increases would be entirely shouldered by individuals and families.54 All business taxes are passed on to people and are borne by workers with lower wages, shareholders with lower shares of profits, and consumers with higher prices. A review of the economic research by the Heritage Foundation's Adam Michel "'shows that workers bear a majority of the economic burden of the corporate income tax in the form of lower wages. Labor bears between 75 percent and 100 percent of the cost of the corporate tax产Discouraging Investment by Increasing Taxes on Capital Gains and Dividends. The Biden plan would nearly double the tax on capital gains and dividends to 39.6 percent (the same as the rate for normal income) for households with incomes of more than $1 million. Including the Obamacare 3.8 percent “net investment tax；' the top rate on capital gains would reach434 percent. When state taxes on capital gains are factored in, the tax rate for investment income would top 50 percent in 13 states.56The tax code is already biased against investment and savings by taxing it twice.57 Instead of increasing taxes on investment, Congress should be lowering or eliminating the double taxation of capital gains and dividends.Analysis from the Tax Foundation shows that this tax increase would actually reduce federal revenue by $133 billion over the next decade because the high taxes would disincentivize people from realizing gains and paying the tax.58 This policy would reduce the size of the economy, reduce wages, and cost jobs.59Elimination of Stepped Up Basis: A "Second Death Tax.” The President would increase the tax burden on property left by deceased relatives to the next generation. Under current law, when the owner of a piece of property passes away and transfers it to an heir, the cost basis of the property is stepped up to its current fair market value for the purposes of capital gains taxation.The President's proposal would eliminate the stepped up basis for assets that are asserted to have a gain of $1 million or more. The fact sheet claims that there would be “protections” for “family-owned businesses and farms5, but provides no details.60A major problem with repealing stepped up basis is its actual implementation. It could be difficult or even impossible to go back in time and correctly assess the original value of an old asset. A similar policy was in law for a short period in the 1970s but was quickly repealed. Even The New York Times called it “unfair and impossibly unworkable7561The proposal has been decried as a “second death tax.?62 Instead of burdening families when a loved one passes away, Congress should repeal the death tax.63 Repealing stepped up basis would harm American families attempting to live the American dream by leaving their next generation better off.Carried Interest Taxation Not a "Loophole.” The Biden proposal would change the tax treatment of carried interest, decried as a “loophole” by the White House, and increase the tax burden on much-needed investments at a time when the economy is beginning to recover.Some investment managers are compensated with earnings from investments, which helps to incentivize the manager to invest well. Because the carried interest comes from gains on investments, it is taxed the same as other capital gains are taxed.64 The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act increased the length of time that carried interest must be held to three years from one year. This proposal would pick winners and losers and hurt investment.Hiking the Top Marginal Rate. The Biden plan would increase the top marginal tax rate for individuals to 39.6 percent from the current 37 percent rate. This proposal is premised on the mistaken notion that high earners do not “pay their fair share“ of taxes. However, the U.S. tax code is already extremely progressive. In 2018, the top 1 percent of earners brought home 21 percent of income and paid 40 percent of all federal income taxes.65 Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent earned 12 percent of income but paid 3 percent of income taxes.66 In recent years, according to data from the CBO, the progressivity of the tax code has increased.67Tax Enforcement That Empowers IRS Bureaucrats to See Your Bank Account. The President's fact sheet states that the federal government “would require financial institutions to report information on account flows” on the bank accounts of American citizens.68 Implementing this proposal would be an invasion of privacy.The proposal would also provide an additional $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, nearly doubling the funding for the agency in an effort to ramp up tax enforcement efforts.69 As The Heritage Foundation has written about tax enforcement:All taxpayers should, of course, pay the taxes that they legally owe. The best way to ensure compliance with the law would be to simplify the tax code, making compliance less complex, and to reduce incentives for avoidance by reducing the tax burden. However, the Presidents plan would instead further complicate the tax code and make compliance even more costly.70The White House claims that increased IRS tax enforcement would increase revenues by $700 billion, an estimate that is questionable at best.What Congress Should DoInstead of spending $1.8 trillion in taxpayer resources, redistributing those funds to inappropriate and ineffective benefits that the federal government creates, approves, and controls, Congress should stop the federal spending spree and focus on making existing funding work better for American families. Specifically, Congress should:> Make it easier for families to use existing child care subsidies at the provider of their choice, including friends and family care.' Eliminate unnecessary child care regulations that limit the number of child care providers, prohibit flexible options, and drive up costs, all without improving the quality of care.71Help to increase Americans' access to more flexible, accessible, and generous employer-provided paid family and medical leave by maintaining the low taxes and reduced regulations that contributed to a doubling of the percentage of companies providing paid parental leave over the past four years.72> Enact universal savings accounts so that workers can save in a single, simple, and accessible account to use toward any and all life events without penalties or double taxation.73" Allow low-income private-sector workers to choose between paid time off and overtime pay, as the Working Families F