The harmful divisiveness at the heart of President Obama's tax plan
President Obama's tax plan shows the kinds of families progressives favor
In his State of the Union address, President Obama unveiled a tax plan. With a Republican-controlled Congress, it almost certainly won't pass. It is purely a bit of politics — but that's what makes it interesting. It is less a policy agenda than a statement by the most progressive president in a generation about what the good society looks like. And it is telling indeed.
The plan includes some provisions to help families, particularly low-income families, raise children. Smart conservatives have been calling for action on this front for a while now, and so it is to be applauded. But the best way to do this is for families get a simple refundable child tax credit. That way, in some families, both parents can decide to work full-time and use the money to pay for childcare; in other families, one parent can decide to work less and spend more time with the kids.
Instead, Obama's proposal mostly takes the form of an expanded child care tax credit, and of a new "second-earner credit" for families in which both parents work. While the double income trap is real, its root causes won't be fixed by a tax credit.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But what's interesting is what kind of families the plan favors, and what kind of families it doesn't. There's nothing wrong with families, like mine, in which both parents work, but it's still striking to see a proposal specifically engineered to favor those families at the expense of single-earner families.
This is of a piece with contemporary progressivism. Usually, progressives portray themselves as people who simply want to give everyone an equal chance to fulfill their potential, contrary to conservatives who want to tie everyone to the Procrustean bed of their very specific model of "the good life." But in the case of the family, we see that it increasingly isn't the case. Smart conservative proposals like those of Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah) wouldn't privilege one kind of family over another. It is progressives who put forward a specific model of "the good life" and who are using government policy to nudge — or virtually force — people into it.
Indeed, President Obama is also the politician who gratuitously decided, in flagrant disregard of the Constitution, to pick a fight with religious institutions over a government mandate to subsidize contraception for everyone. A society where contraception is seen as so essential that it is not only made available but mandated and subsidized is one that has in mind a very specific picture of the good life — and is willing to use government force to bring it about.
Another progressive obsession is funding day care for everyone (for the record, they often point to France as a model, even though the model doesn't work in France), which, again, is a proposal that specifically favors one type of family over the other.
(Not everything is bad about this vision, far from it — witness Obama's proposal for mandatory paid maternity leave.)
This has always been a conservative paranoia: that progressive talk of open-handed pluralism is really just a different kind of authoritarianism, one just as interested in coercing people to embrace their visions, and just as liable to.
Now, there's nothing totalitarian about a going-nowhere proposal for a few tax credits. But it is still a reminder that contemporary progressivism is not about a neutral vision of securing people's negative and positive rights; it represents a very specific political, moral, and — dare I say it — metaphysical worldview that, like every other one, contends for power over society.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.
-
6 queer poets to read whenever but especially now
The Week Recommends April is National Poetry Month
By Scott Hocker, The Week US Published
-
How women's pain is often ignored in health care
the explainer The gap in care is especially glaring compared to how men are treated
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
6 serene homes in Vermont
Features Featuring a four-level Shaker barn in Hartland and a Scandinavian-inspired home in Stowe
By The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published