Caring for seniors is mandatory; investing in kids is discretionary
The United States might be headed for an unprecedented default on its national debt. But another kind of default has become shamefully routine in American politics: broken promises to children and their families.
In Washington, Republicans have floated budget cuts that could kick 380,000 children out of care programs and take food aid from 1.7 million women and their young children. In New York City,
Mayor Eric Adams has simply stopped paying prekindergarten providers. Owed a combined total of nearly $400 million, some centers have already shut for good.
These abandoned pledges speak to children’s lack of political power. And they result from the way lawmakers have structured key benefits programs. Keeping the nation’s promises to senior citizens is mandatory. Caring for children is, literally, discretionary.
One way to avoid this recurring intergenerational battle would be to treat kids more like retirees. Some essential children’s benefit programs should be made permanent and funded more clearly and generously. Paying seniors what they’ve earned through a lifetime of work is only fair. Supporting kids consistently is an investment in the future.
America’s main obligations to retirees represent around half of mandatory federal spending. The government is legally obliged to pay the Social Security benefits that participants have earned and to provide health insurance via Medicare for Americans aged 65 or older. The huge commitment to those programs — $2 trillion dollars in 2022 — is in part a measure of retirees’ political power: They make up almost one-quarter of all registered voters and turn out for elections in the highest numbers. Even Republican leaders eager to cut spending this year intend to leave these programs alone.
Children do benefit from some mandatory federal programs. But, as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget pointed out in a series of papers, Congress must reauthorize many of these programs regularly.
One example is the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It provides coverage for around 7 million children. (Another 35 million or so are enrolled in Medicaid.) In 2017, when Congress allowed CHIP funding to lapse for 114 days, states had to scramble to cover the shortfall. And CHIP, as a block grant, does not grow automatically to accommodate more participants or keep up with inflation, as Medicare does.
An idea to give children and adults equal status is to make the child tax credit fully refundable. Currently, families who owe a lot of tax can use the nonrefundable credit to shrink their bills, but those who owe little don’t get cash back. This means that parents with lower incomes lose out, explains Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children, a bipartisan advocacy group for children’s interests.
Another alternative would be to make the credit part of Social Security, funded by its own dedicated revenue stream and delivered to families monthly. That would stabilize the program and underline that America’s commitment to kids is nonnegotiable and year-round.
The Biden administration experimented with this idea through its pandemic aid package, the American Rescue Plan. That law expanded the credit and advanced it to parents as monthly payments. The experiment did lift children out of poverty and stabilize family incomes.
Democrats gambled that the plan would be so popular that it would become permanent. They lost that political wager: In January 2022, when the expanded credit expired, 3.7 million children fell below the poverty line again.
A further option would be to turn CHIP into something more like Medicare: a permanent entitlement rather than a capped block grant.
These changes would cost money at a time when it’s nearly impossible to build consensus for new federal spending. But at least children age out of federal supports in a predictable time, unlike seniors, who live longer in part because of the protections afforded by Social Security and Medicare. And by spending on kids, the federal government can reap long-term returns. Those might come in the form of taxes these future adults pay on higher earnings or the medical care they don’t need because they’re healthier.
It’s cruel to give kids health care and then take it away. It’s careless to bankrupt child care providers. It’s brutal to lift families only temporarily out of poverty. Most of all, it’s a shame for our budget processes to draw the country ceaselessly back into the past instead of carrying the nation boldly into the future.