Welcome to Our Research Archive
Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
January 11, 2024
Tax Credit Nation — Politicians Are Casting New Spending As ‘Tax Cuts,’ Hiding Their True Cost
…benefits. According to a Tax Foundation analysis, between 1990 and 2020 the value of tax credits “increased nearly 10-fold after adjusting for inflation, reflecting how lawmakers have increasingly relied on the tax…
January 11, 2024
To Better Promote Work, Stop Subsidizing More Benefit Collection
…of other government benefits in determining eligibility. Yet liberal policymakers today are proposing not only massive federal benefit increases, but also ensuring that growing largess is ignored by programs designed…
January 10, 2024
Even Congress’s “Tax Extenders” Are About More Benefits
Congress’s long list of unfinished business for the new year includes “tax extender” legislation, which is normally considered before lawmakers adjourn for the holidays in December. The fact that this…
January 9, 2024
Let’s Expand the Child Tax Credit a Little Bit
…child from its current level of $2,000. Some lawmakers want to expand the child tax credit massively. Others don’t. There’s a middle course that involves moderately growing the credit, mostly by folding…
December 8, 2023
Room for Compromise on the Hot Foods Act
…foods—such as prepared foods and sugary beverages. When federal lawmakers first created the program in 1939, policymakers chose to allow recipients to purchase any food items except “drugs, liquor, and items consumed…
December 1, 2023
Making the Child Tax Credit “Fully Refundable” Converts It into Welfare Checks
…According to press reports, policymakers are apparently negotiating a possible year-end tax package that would temporarily expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and revive certain business tax breaks….The CTC expansion reportedly includes full…
December 1, 2023
Cities Use Covid Funds to Run Guaranteed-Income Experiments
…let it expire amid legitimate concerns over excess federal spending. Lawmakers also worried that the child tax credit would severely inhibit workforce participation. University of Chicago researchers estimate that if…
November 30, 2023
A Valuable New Perspective on America’s War on Poverty
…This relative measure adjusts yearly thresholds in line with median income changes. “The dramatic reduction in poverty by 2019 based on President Johnson’s absolute 1960s standards suggests that policymakers might…
November 21, 2023
Defining Poverty Up
…and destructive behavior” such as soaring out-of-wedlock childbearing behind increased welfare dependence. Policy-makers responded to Moynihan’s call, and the bipartisan 1994 crime bill (which Moynihan supported) and 1996 welfare-reform law…
October 31, 2023
Lawmakers Continue Trying to Revive Pandemic-Style Benefits
…[is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Lawmakers applied Rahm’s rule liberally during the pandemic, providing record stimulus checks, massively expanding unemployment benefits, and far…