President Bush Supports Children

February 6, 2004

Volume 6/ Number 5

Dear Colleague:

There’s good news from the Bush White House for parents with children. President Bush has urged Congress to make permanent his $1,000 per-child tax credit.

Strengthening the economy by strengthening families is the right way go. People are our greatest resource. And the family is the fundamental unit on which American society is based. The contribution that families make in raising the next generation of Americans cannot be exaggerated.

Protecting families from exorbitant taxes is in concert with the Administration’s goal of implementing an economic policy which strengthens families.

Steven W. Mosher

President

President Bush Supports Children

President Bush, during his State of the Union address this January 20, 2004, reminded Members of Congress that they “have doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.” He warned, however, that “The tax reductions you passed are set to expire.”(1)

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 established per-child tax credits of $500 per child. This was later increased to $1,000 per child. However, per-child tax credits will only remain effective until 2010. Only with new legislation can the per-child tax rebate be made permanent.

So President Bush exhorted Congress: “Unless you act… unless you act… Unless you act, millions of families will be charged $300 more in federal taxes for every child.”(2)

This strong exhortation to make the per-child tax credit permanent is right on target. America absolutely needs to support parents as they undertake the crucial task of raising children. Young couples, especially, need to know that society will support them as they accept God’s gift of children. They need to know that, as they work, and plan, and sacrifice to raise their children, that their fellow Americans are behind them. It is fitting, therefore, that per-child tax credits be made permanent.

President Bush’s initiative will receive immediate support from the U.S. House of Representatives. It is likely, however, to meet opposition from within the Senate. Many Senators prefer to tax parents into penury, or even childlessness, in order to fund government entitlement programs. Instead of allowing parents to invest their hard-earned dollars in their own children, they demand exportionate taxes. These are the same Senators who, by and large, are weak on marriage, pro-abortion, and pro-population control. They are not worried about imposing higher taxes on parents who have to work to make ends meet and, as believers in the myth of overpopulation, are happy to make it more difficult financially for parents to have children.

In China, government officials impose heavy fines on families which want to have more than one child. They describe these fines as “important disencentives” to childbearing. But are onerous taxes, disproportionately levied on those who choose to have children, that much different” Pro-population control Senators might as well be saying to young, struggling American couples, who dream of having children, “We will tax you into infertility!”

Daunted by the costs of raising children, many young Americans today are opting out of childbearing altogether. Without children, marriage loses that concrete expression of two becoming one: children who bear the image and likeness of both father and mother. Divorce rates rise and cohabitation becomes common. Child tax credits help to stem these social ills.

Economic policies should not be based on what President Bush calls “narrow interests or organized envy.” Economic policies and tax plans should take people, families and children in account. “My tax plan is not just about productivity,” said the President, “it is about people”.And my plan sets out to make life better for average men, women and children.”(3)

President Bush is right. People are our greatest resource. Children are our future. Children are raised by parents in families. Making per-child tax credits permanent will be a direct and permanent investment in the future of America. Twenty-two billion dollars will stay in the pockets of families in the first year alone, and progrsssively more in the years to come.

The larger economic benefits that flow from financially secure families are already beginning to manifest themselves. Thanks in large part to President Bush’s tax cuts, the economy is on the rebound. Unemploymnet claims are decreasing and the job market is growing.(4) This is happening in large part because American families have more to spend and invest. America is on its way to family-driven economic expansion. May it continue.