View this email in your browser

**OCTOBER 25, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

The Stupidity of Means Testing

Democrats particularly need to resist this Manchin ploy.

Before too long, we will know just what price Joe Manchin will exact for
letting Biden have some semblance of his urgently needed program. And as
Democrats resist other crippling cuts, they should especially resist
Manchin's latest hobbyhorse, means testing.

The crown jewel of Biden's March 2020 emergency program was a
universal child allowance (technically a refundable credit) that went to
all families except roughly the top 2 percent. If you had a relationship
with the IRS, you got a check. You did not have to establish
eligibility. This is how government programs should work.

Because of budget pressures, Biden has agreed to only a one-year
extension of the child allowance, rather than making it permanent. We
can fight that battle another day, if Democrats can manage to hold
Congress. But adding a means test-Manchin has proposed a household
income cap as low as $60,000-would be a travesty.

Our most comprehensive, best-run, and best-supported programs have no
means tests. That includes above all Social Security and Medicare. It
also includes public education. And Central Park.

But what about the risk that some rich person, who doesn't need the
benefits, gets some aid?

**That's why we have a progressive income tax**.

The cleanest solution is to make the benefit universal, and then tax
back the portion that goes to the rich, either by making the benefit
taxable or through general revenue. If this is the case with public
kindergartens, it should also be the rule for pre-K and child care and
elder care-universal, public, free, and tax-supported.

Once you get into the slippery slope of means tests, you get into the
political problem of programs for the poor being threadbare, intrusive,
and unpopular. We also get inevitable "cliff effects," where you lose
the benefit as your income rises.

But what about necessary targeting? Look deeper and you realize that in
most cases of income-targeting, we have means-tested programs like
Medicaid only because we lacked the votes to enact universal ones.

The single most important reason not to means-test is that universal
programs demonstrate that social outlays are for the middle class as
well as the poor-and that's a core appeal of the Democratic Party.

Biden is expanding social investment, something long overdue. If he
increases public outlay with one hand and means-tests it with the other,
we undercut the broad public support.

Manchin is doing damage enough with his demands for cuts in outlays.
Adding means testing would be even worse.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

Will Biden Rescue Vulnerable Student Borrowers From Default?

The president can relieve 7.3 million student debtors from default,
benefiting their credit scores and avoiding wage garnishment. He
hasn't committed to doing it. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

CBO's Metaphysical Medicaid Madness

Why does something Congress already paid for cost $300 billion,
according to the budget scorekeeper? BY JON WALKER

The Secretive Group Steering the Dems
The
Democratic caucus group that puts corporate Dems in key committee seats
won't release its rules or disclose its members. BY DONALD SHAW

[link removed]

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

 

Click to Share this Newsletter

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
Copyright (C) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.

To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here .
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States