@sys
I think this article does a pretty good job in summing up why I think it is important for the Democrats to pass the CTC, not means test it to death and also if possible make it permanent as well as expanding Medicare coverage. These are direct, relatively uncomplicated benefits that come directly from the government (the CTC is very unnecessarily complicated and a worse policy because it is routed through the IRS but still).
I know you just don't like the CTC, but I wonder if you disagree with the article.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-worry-a-lot-about-policies-that-win-elections-thats-short-sighted/
my understanding is that the typical timeline for newly introduced benefits is that they decline in popularity following introduction for like 4-5 years, then gain popularity.
i don't agree on the ctc. i think ctc proponents are deliberately (or perhaps, genuinely, but incomprehensibly) blind to the fact that it is not a universal policy. it explicitly is only available to parents of minor children, and i think it is unlikely that individuals to whom this benefit is not offered will come to love that it is offered to others and not to them - especially if it is available to people with much higher incomes than most of the people to whom it is not available.
that said, it is not now a high salience issue (look no further than the lack of discussion on this board) and i don't expect it will suddenly become a high salience issue in 2022. if adopted permanently, it will at some point by perceived as status quo and most people will not consider it either way in electoral decisions unless it is forced up as an issue.
Well by that standard Medicare and Social Security are not universal either, that is a dumb side step. I don't know the exact number, but a huge percentage of Americans have children at some point like 75% and 40% currently have children under 18. Are there people that will become enraged by this? Yes of course, but not that many and you are part of that minority.
As far as the actual point of the policy (poverty reduction) goes, Bruenig has talked about this a lot but there just isn't much poverty in households without non-workers and non-workers overwhelmingly fall in to one of the following categories: 1) Children 2) Disabled 3) Elderly 4) Caregivers 5) Students
We have Social Security benefits for the Elderly and Disabled categories, Caregivers had some benefits that were subsequently pulled from the infrastructure bill, Students are kind of a transitory category and we have federal subsidized student loans to target them and Children we have the CTC, which is not my ideal policy but addresses this group.
As for salience--A lack of discussion on this board of upper middle class white guys is not exactly a representative sample. I personally like having a good chunk of my hefty day care payments taken care of by Uncle Joe and absolutely think that while it could be branded and sold a little better, for millions of parents getting a check cut each month is a pretty big deal and can be pointed to and it would be a disaster to have it suddenly turned off on the democrat's watch.
As far as means testing it--the entire point of making it more universal is to make it more popular because the type of anti-poverty programs that are consistently cut, marginalized, demonized, and get way more hate are targeted, means tested, anti-poverty programs like SNAP, TANF, Section 8, Free and reduced lunches etc. I tend to think the reason why so many moderates/Republicans want to means test it is so they can kill it/demonize it as "welfare" for lazy/poor people like they do with our extremely weak welfare state already.
It is fine if you don't like it but it is a big improvement on the status quo and it is foolish to think that people won't miss it.
https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/basicfact-alt.pdfhttps://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspxhttps://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/09/18/the-best-way-to-eradicate-poverty-welfare-not-jobs/