Posted on 11/08/2017 1:24:53 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Does the leadership of this party have actual, diagnosable brain damage? Of all the places in the tax code they could try to find some extra revenue, the supposedly pro-life GOP decides to squeeze … middle-class adoptive families?
While funding Planned Parenthood in their budget?
While our billionaire president is grumbling privately to Democrats that they should repeal the estate tax, which only bites the mega-rich?
We’re past the point of wondering whether the GOP wants to lose. The question now is whether they deserve to lose. Judging from this account by Haley Byrd of the IJR, all signs point to yes:
A GOP lawmaker told me ystrday he was surprised leadership didn’t think ending it would anger pro-lifers. But not seeing much of a fuss.
— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) November 8, 2017
The adoption tax credit only costs $300 million per year. It’s not even pocket change for Uncle Sam. For the GOP, allegedly the party of social conservatives, to nuke it over a pittance of savings feels like almost deliberate sabotage of adoptive families. What the hell are they thinking?
But it gets worse. As John McCormack points out, in the long run the adoption tax credit pays for itself, in both tangible and intangible terms:
“What they don’t factor in is the total cost to society with a child in foster care,” Johnson tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The costs to taxpayers of keeping a child in foster care—health care, food, housing, social workers, and administrators—are far greater than the one-time tax credit adoptive families may receive.
“Comparing the per-child cost of subsidized adoption from foster care with the cost of maintaining a child in foster care, one concludes that the child adopted from foster care costs the public only 40 percent as much as the child who remains in foster care,” according to a report from the National Council for Adoption. “The difference in cost per child per year amounts to $15,480.”
Paul Ryan had the balls earlier today to shrug off complaints about repealing the adoption tax credit by noting that it primarily benefits the upper class. Meanwhile, notes McCormack, the GOP bill would reduce revenue from the estate tax — which only benefits the very uppermost of the upper class — by $172 billion over the next 10 years. Eliminating the adoption tax credit, by comparison, would save the government just $3.8 billion. Ryan’s willing to lose 50 times the amount of revenue that would be lost by saving the adoption tax credit in the name of letting mega-millionaires pass more money on to their kids. Bananas.
Even his point about the credit mainly benefiting higher-income individuals is misleading. It’s true that upper-middle-class families tend to claim the credit but that’s because adoption is so fantastically expensive that only upper-middle-class families can afford to do it. Forget the day-to-day costs of caring for an adopted infant; the adoption process itself can cost $35,000 or more. This Twitter thread by a Google engineer laying out the hardships of adoption went viral a few days ago because of how shocking the sums were. He claims to have spent $50,000 on adopting his first child, which includes fees for the adoption agency, lawyers, travel, hotels, medical care, and other miscellaneous expenses. The only reason he was able to afford it, he notes, was because he had Google stock to sell and even then he was stretched. Some adoptive families take out second mortgages, borrow from relatives, and so on. The tax credit gives them back $13,000 to help defray that. And even that comes with strings: David French, an adoptive dad himself, notes that the IRS audited nearly 70 percent of the families that received the credit recently to check for fraud. It found none.
The only principled argument for ending the adoption tax credit is if you believe the government shouldn’t redistribute taxpayer money via credits of any sort. That’s a fine libertarian view but it ain’t the GOP’s view; in fact, their tax reform plan proposes expanding the child tax credit modestly. If you’re going to have credits in the code, a robust one for adoptive families is a no-brainer. If anything, the mismatch between the current value of the credit and the reality of much more exorbitant adoption fees means Republicans should seize the opportunity to expand the credit. Shave $50 billion off those estate-tax cuts for the mega-rich and apply it to adoption so that more than just Google engineers and lawyers can afford to adopt. If you’re going to be a “pro-family” party, be pro-family.
On the other hand, there are many foster children who a very badly treated by their adopted family. That system is broken very badly.
Everything the feral government touches becomes astronomically expensive and turns to excrement.
The GOP Establishment wants to kill Trump at any cost.
They HAVE killed their own party instead.
Here is the problem. If you want a simplified tax code and lower tax rates then that necessarily requires the elimination of many individual deductions. Every single deduction in the tax code is a sacred cow to someone.
We have adopted three times. Yes, we used the adoption tax credit. However, agency and attorney fees went up dramatically to match the tax credit increases in our cases. A net financial gain still, but not by as much as you would think.
Reducing the red tape (three or more attorneys are routinely involved in every adoption, and a home study can cost several thousands of dollars) and removing some of the disincentives to adoption from the big social welfare NGOs would be even more welcome.
We gotta fund abortion but allowing Americans a tax credit to raise adopted children is too expensive.
The GOP could pay for this tax credit by eliminating PP’s subsidy. But it won’t do that.
Its not called the Stupid Party for nothing.
We really should be considering the promotion of DOMESTIC adoption and the support of Orphanages if we are going to do battle with abortion rights advocates.
If a teenage pregnant girl or a pregnant rape victim cannot afford or does not want to be the mother of the baby, I cannot think of a better argument to counter the pro-abortionists than to day that there are thousands of women waiting to adopt babies and if you do not want to be the mother of the baby, others are willing to be.
But this repeal of the adoption tax credit is NOT HELPING.
We really should be considering the promotion of DOMESTIC adoption and the support of Orphanages if we are going to do battle with abortion rights advocates.
If a teenage pregnant girl or a pregnant rape victim cannot afford or does not want to be the mother of the baby, I cannot think of a better argument to counter the pro-abortionists than to day that there are thousands of women waiting to adopt babies and if you do not want to be the mother of the baby, others are willing to be.
But this repeal of the adoption tax credit is NOT HELPING.
I don’t know....Maybe stop overseas adoption UNLESS its from your native country.
The GOPe is true to form: totally tone deaf and cruel.
I’m not so sure. Perhaps families who can afford to adopt children without subsidies would be better for the children in the long and short run. Welfare-like funding always seem to be scammed.
The Stupid Party (R) is going to eliminate deductibility of alimony.
If so, I’ll quit working.
Go Galt! REPUBLICANS will make it so.
“We’re past the point of wondering whether the GOP wants to lose. The question now is whether they deserve to lose. Judging from this account by Haley Byrd of the IJR, all signs point to yes.”
No. The real question many of us are asking is whether they deserve a public execution. Different question. Same answer.
OTOH, there are a whole LOT of now no longer deductibles, such as this one, that are in this POS proposition, that shouldn't be.
They COULD add the deduction as a line item after the selection of Standard or Itemized deductions.
They won’t.
But some deductions should be on top of the Standard deduction. Just like they do with the POTUS Campaign funding.
Foster children are NOT adopted; they are like “renters” as opposed to owners. Some children who once were FOSTER children, do get adopted, though.
HORSESHIT!
If you want to get angry at the GOP about tax deductions, then get angry with them for not having the balls to lower all taxes with a lower fixed universal flat tax applicable to everyone with zero deductions, exclusions, exemptions or credits. Most people will come out no worse than in the present system of higher taxes offset by a maize of deductions, exclusions, exemptions and credits. Everyone, including all the unemployed tax accountants would have lower and simple tax a school kid could figure out on April 14th: income times tax rate = tax, period.
But the GOPe does not have the gonads to revolt 100% from the Progressives’ tax system of social and economic engineering. Why? There is too many votes to by by promising to exchange whose ox is being gored to whose ox will not be gored. There would be no such political payola in a universal flat tax system.
Only women?
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