“Despite surface attractiveness and support for such programs by alleged conservatives, sending money to people who haven’t earned it violates the primary underlying principle of a free society: the right to private property. To say that what one earns isn’t his unless the government says so turns sovereign citizens into slaves.”
President Obama’s proposal to double the earned income tax credit (EITC) for the working poor on March 4 came with all the promises of attendant benefits that such an expansion would provide: It would reduce poverty while encouraging people who are not working to get jobs, and it would expand existing law to cover an additional 16 million families, with 30 million children.
In his State of the Union address in January, the president warned this was coming, while noting that good conservatives like Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) endorsed such an increase:
Right now, [the EITC only] helps about half of all parents … but I agree with Republicans like Senator Rubio that it doesn’t do enough for single workers who don’t have kids.
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