Re: HOMESTEAD: Bush promotion of marriage

[Michael Bindner <bindner@IowaFiscalEquity.net>]

I hear you.  It will take much more to encourage marriage.  If he were to increase his child tax credit by a factor of 5 and invite states to match it - and make it a refundable credit at withholding you will see much more results - although the cost will be greater.  To do this you would have to switch to a VAT and give the tax credit to firms, who would pass it along as higher pay.  This would be the only politically palatable way to have such a large credit.

 

Michael Bindner

Keith Wilde <keithwilde@sympatico.ca> wrote:

I suppose we can expect that the $1.5 billion budget allocation for this initiative will be directed to reversing the incentives that exist under current welfare regulations for fathers to desert their wives and children?

 

Who can we expect to be picking up on this issue and pushing it?

 

Keith Wilde