Oren Cass Is Insisting That Starving Some Kids Is Important for Society
Despite branding himself as a fresh “pro-worker” conservative, former Mitt Romney adviser Oren Cass believes that excluding poor children from key social welfare benefits is good and we should do more of it. It’s conservative, all right — but the furthest thing from “pro-worker.”
Oren Cass appearing on Matter of Fact With Soledad O’Brien. (Hearst Television)
When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, she proposed increasing the benefit level of the child tax credit (CTC) by 100 percent, increasing the phase-in rate for the CTC from 15 percent to 45 percent, and starting the CTC phase-in at the first dollar of earnings.
Last month, Oren Cass released a proposal that calls for increasing the benefit level of the CTC by 90 percent, increasing the phase-in rate for the CTC from 15 percent to 100 percent, and starting the CTC phase-in at the first dollar of earnings.
If the Cass proposal sounds like déjà vu all over again, that’s because it is. It is eerily similar, not just to the 2016 Hillary Clinton proposal, but also to the various Marco Rubio and Mike Lee proposals over the years, the “reformocon” proposal, and the actual history of the child tax credit itself.
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