Direct payments to families should replace backdoor tax breaks, which obscure the failures of capitalism to sustain social reproduction.
President Joe Biden’s expansive American Families Plan, announced last month and now being debated in Congress, proposes almost $2 trillion in spending on a wide range of social services, from paid family and medical leave, subsidized child care, and universal prekindergarten to free community college and health insurance subsidies. Amidst these ambitious initiatives, it is easy to miss adjustments to the federal tax code. But one quieter proposal extending the already increased child tax credit that came into law in March through the American Rescue Plan Act has dramatic implications for reducing child poverty and supporting working families, and more broadly for the way we think about the provision of social welfare in the United States.
American Families Plan: Joe Biden s Playbook to Save the Middle Class
The “American Families Plan,” President Biden’s economic recovery package, contains nearly $2 trillion in additional spending for America’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Congressional Republicans have criticized the package for its enormous cost; Democrats, however, have argued that the spending is badly needed to jump-start the U.S. economy after more than a year of lockdowns and stagnation.
The “American Families Plan,” President Biden’s economic recovery package, contains nearly $2 trillion in additional spending for America’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Congressional Republicans have criticized the package for its enormous cost; Democrats, however, have argued that the spending is badly needed to jump-start the U.S. economy after more than a year of lockdowns and stagnation.