The Democratic Party used to call itself the party of working people and hail the "dignity of work." No more. Now Democrats want to guarantee people who choose not to work an income funded by the suckers who do the right thing by showing up for work, caring for their family and paying taxes.
Fortunately, these self-supporting Americans just dodged a bullet. The failure to pass Build Back Better in Congress, thanks to holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) means that the monthly checks or automatic bank deposits to parents with kids, sometimes dubbed Biden Bucks, come to an end this month.
For working people, the monthly payments were merely an advance on their tax refunds -- but parents who choose not to work have been getting no-strings money to support their nonworking lifestyle.
Using the pretext of pandemic relief, Democrats enacting the American Rescue Plan last March changed a feature of the tax code -- the child tax credit available to adults who work and pay taxes -- into a grant paid unconditionally and monthly to almost all adults with kids, whether they work or not.
Democrats have been pushing to extend the monthly payments through 2022 as part of the Build Back Better Act, with a plan to make them permanent.
Manchin saw right through what his party intended: a socialist-style universal basic income. Manchin objected to the unconditional monthly cash grants: "There's no work requirement whatsoever." "Don't you think if we're going to help the children," Manchin asked, the parents "should make some effort?"
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