Catherine Rampell of The Washington Post pointed out in a spectacular column on Friday that the Trump administration and congressional Republicans want to implement totally contradictory policies when it comes to the working poor and middle class having sex.
That’s right: Contrary to their protests that they want the federal government nowhere near it, the GOP is looking directly into your bedroom.
Rampell notes that, on the one hand, the press release sent to Congress by President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (It wasn’t a “budget;” please don’t call it that.) last Thursday includes eliminating federal support for Planned Parenthood. That will increase the number of children who are born and should also increase the number of children put up for adoption.
But, led by Kevin Brady (R-TX), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, congressional Republicans are planning to eliminate the federal adoption tax credit that encourages working poor and middle class parents to adopt by giving them a small amount of financial assistance when they do.
The Brady plan is a tax increase on adoption.
The GOP has said for years that imposing or increasing a tax means you’ll get less of something. Therefore, by its own reckoning, there will be fewer adoptions .
In stark and soulless economic terms, the Trump budget combined with the Brady plan means there will be a federal government-caused increased supply of American-born children to adopt at the same time there’s a Washington-caused reduced demand by American parents to adopt them.
In more human, humane, ethical and moral terms, this will be a totally outrageous change in federal adoption policy.
It’s hard to comprehend what the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are thinking.
It’s certainly possible that this is a case of the right hand not having a clue what the left hand is doing. Even if the White House and congressional Republicans had an idea about where the other was coming from on family planning and the adoption tax, they probably didn’t sit down ahead of time to ask how these two proposed policies would interact if they were both enacted. For some reason, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney rushed to release his document and likely spent little time conferring with his former House colleagues before he did.
If the Trump administration and the House Ways and Means Committee staff did discuss this in advance, they should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s also possible that the combination of these two policies is exactly what the White House and congressional Republicans want: less federal government-encouraged specific behavior even if, as in this case, there will be the disastrous result of more births and fewer adoptions.
This could also be a GOP plan to make having sex more expensive for the working poor and middle class and, therefore, to reduce it, or to increase the value to them of using birth control.
At the very least, let’s hope it’s not anything more nefarious and sinister, like creating an economic disincentive for less economically well off American families to procreate
That’s right: Contrary to their protests that they want the federal government nowhere near it, the GOP is looking directly into your bedroom.
Rampell notes that, on the one hand, the press release sent to Congress by President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (It wasn’t a “budget;” please don’t call it that.) last Thursday includes eliminating federal support for Planned Parenthood. That will increase the number of children who are born and should also increase the number of children put up for adoption.
But, led by Kevin Brady (R-TX), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, congressional Republicans are planning to eliminate the federal adoption tax credit that encourages working poor and middle class parents to adopt by giving them a small amount of financial assistance when they do.
The Brady plan is a tax increase on adoption.
The GOP has said for years that imposing or increasing a tax means you’ll get less of something. Therefore, by its own reckoning, there will be fewer adoptions .
In stark and soulless economic terms, the Trump budget combined with the Brady plan means there will be a federal government-caused increased supply of American-born children to adopt at the same time there’s a Washington-caused reduced demand by American parents to adopt them.
In more human, humane, ethical and moral terms, this will be a totally outrageous change in federal adoption policy.
It’s hard to comprehend what the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are thinking.
It’s certainly possible that this is a case of the right hand not having a clue what the left hand is doing. Even if the White House and congressional Republicans had an idea about where the other was coming from on family planning and the adoption tax, they probably didn’t sit down ahead of time to ask how these two proposed policies would interact if they were both enacted. For some reason, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney rushed to release his document and likely spent little time conferring with his former House colleagues before he did.
If the Trump administration and the House Ways and Means Committee staff did discuss this in advance, they should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s also possible that the combination of these two policies is exactly what the White House and congressional Republicans want: less federal government-encouraged specific behavior even if, as in this case, there will be the disastrous result of more births and fewer adoptions.
This could also be a GOP plan to make having sex more expensive for the working poor and middle class and, therefore, to reduce it, or to increase the value to them of using birth control.
At the very least, let’s hope it’s not anything more nefarious and sinister, like creating an economic disincentive for less economically well off American families to procreate
