Biscuit of the Week!

Mitt Romney is this week’s winner of what will be an ongoing feature on the blog – The Biscuit of the Week!

Mitt has thrown himself on the inaugural altar of shame by coming out with a purely political popularity proposal where he suggests the United States should pay every parent $350 a month for each child they have younger than 6, and $250 a month for each child they have between age 6 and 17.

The goal?  Put a “serious dent” in child poverty.

You can read all about it here, if you’d like:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mitt-romney-child-allowance-150107102.html

Like most policy proposals that are politically popular and sound great on the surface this one is ripe with so many unintended consequences you’d think Mitt was a Democrat.  In fairness I don’t think Mitt knows what the hell he is except Mormon.  In his case the irony is not lost on me that you can’t spell Mormon without Moron (no offense to Mormons, this one applies specifically to this biscuit). Let’s focus both on the lunacy of the proposal, as well as the article written by those crack reporters over at HuffPost.

First, giving away money costs money.  Whoa, wait, Mitt has an answer for that.  You see, replacing your child tax credits with this monthly stipend is his idea.  Oh, and he also wants to completely eliminate the state and local income tax deductions (you know, the ones the people in New York went bat-shit crazy over when Trump limited them to a meager $10,000). No one will miss their giant tax refunds, right?

Perhaps he just doesn’t think anyone will notice.  Dangle $350 a month in front of someone and they just might not. And I’m no genius at math, but if you take away the tax credits that come all at once at tax time, and just spread them out over 12 months, how does this “put a dent” in anything?

The scary part is that in the beginning of a program you’d likely see a boost to the economy as people would be likely to spend it.  It would be temporary of course, but no one cares about the long term now do they. I’m sure proponents would jump up and down saying “see, we told you so!”

Second, Adrian Rogers once famously said “you cannot legislate poor people out of poverty.”  He’s not at all wrong.  Given an extra $350 a month (times up to 4 kids) what do you think will happen to the cost of a box of cereal?  What about rent? If I were a landlord, ahem, and knew a family with three kids had an extra $1,000 a month coming in do you think my rents would stay the same?  They would not.  It’s the market.  It’s supply and demand.  I dare say prices would be more likely to rise with a monthly stipend versus, again, getting a larger “lump sum” at tax time. If you don’t think prices would rise under such a scenario, well bless your heart – you’re a dumbass.

Finally, what do you think this will do from an incentive standpoint?  You don’t suppose it will make people, particularly poorer people, have more kids?  Do you see the cycle this creates?  At least Mitt has the forethought to “limit” this magical money from heaven to “up to four children.”  Thank God someone has carefully thought out what the maximum number of kids should be under such a program. Wait, Mitt has five kids, so one less than that should probably qualify. Got it.

What about rich people? Surely he’s not giving this money to rich people right? No way Jose! Only people making $400,000 or less would be eligible because, you know, anyone making $399,999 ain’t rich.

If the whole idea weren’t laughable enough the brilliant journalists at the HuffPost managed to find at least one non-biased source (ha) to show that this will “slash child poverty.”

They refer to the Niskanen Center (who?) as a “moderate think tank.”  Then proceed to at least admit the Center has “helped Democrats develop their tax credit ideas.”  I’m sure that anything being developed for Democratic policy these days lies squarely in the middle of the political spectrum.

Anyway, this think tank notes Romney’s proposal could bring down child poverty by 39%.  No, it will only increase the poverty line, the same that idiotic minimum wage policies will.  It’s amazing that things which make the rich richer and the poor only feel richer are so popular in this country. There is a reason why this blog uses the word ignorant in its definition of biscuit.

Lastly, and truly the reason Romney wins this prestigious title of Biscuit of the Week, is found in his failed 2012 presidential campaign.  He noted that work requirements being taken away under Obama’s aid programs was terrible.  “You wouldn’t have to work,” he said, “they’ll just send you a check.”  And now Mitt, eight plus years later… just wants to send you a check – for breeding.

Not surprisingly, Romney has no co-sponsors for his idea.  Maybe members of congress actually do have a brain.  I’ll need quite a bit more evidence, however, before accepting that as fact.