Action 40 - Give feedback to Rep. Golden on his FISC Act

Background

Rep. Jared Golden sent out this recent email wanting feedback on his new tax credit bill:

 Middle-class families need help. Even with two income earners in the home, wages for many working parents have stagnated to the point where it's difficult to support their children. Some are even prevented from having as many children as they’d like, when they want to have them. 

 While the Child Tax Credit (CTC) is the primary federal program to support these families, its poorly targeted, inefficient design falls far short of what’s truly needed. That’s why I’ve introduced a new bill, the Family Income Supplemental Credit Act, which would replace the flawed CTC with a new, more generous program of monthly child payments specifically for working middle-class families. 

 Families need a steady stream of income to make ends meet, not annual tweaks to the tax code. So for a single parent earning the median Maine income with a 2-year-old and 10-year-old, the FISC would deliver up to $650 per month — more than twice what the CTC delivers. And because research overwhelmingly shows that children do best in two-parent households, the FISC also provides a 20 percent bonus for married couples. 

 Action:

Please contact Rep. Golden to give him feedback on this concept.  One person’s response is below, under “Extra Credit”.

 Contact:

            D.C.:  202-225-6306            Bangor:  207-249-7400 
            https://golden.house.gov/contact 
            Under “issue of concern”, select Taxes

 Urgency:  Unknown if this bill will make it out of committee.  Golden would like feedback asap.

 Extra Credit:

1.    A substack he wrote:  https://jaredgolden.substack.com/p/the-american-family-needs-help

2.    Explainer page:  https://golden.house.gov/fisc-a-better-way-to-support-children-and-families

 3.    Sample email concerning the need for the credit, and the 20% he’d give to married parents but not single parents.   

 Rep. Golden,
Thanks for attempting to improve the Child Tax Credit and asking for feedback concerning your proposed Financial Incentive Supplemental Credit Act.
1. You may want to first acknowledge (at least to yourself) that the reason families need financial credits is because:

·      corporations are not paying living wages (nowhere near keeping up with inflation),

·      corporations are keeping excessive profits for the executive band, and frankly,

·      corporations and billionaires are not being taxed enough or even paying the taxes they owe, by a lot. (This does not include small businesses in most cases.)

2.  Your 20% credit for married couples with children and not for single parents should be the OPPOSITE!

·      it adds to bad political social engineering.

·      it’s more than insulting to struggling single parents, and

·      it punishes single parents who can least afford it.

 If you need the wrong-headed 20% incentive to sell this to your “conservative” colleagues, don’t bother. Strip that from your FISC bill, or give the 20% to the single parent of children who need it more, as obviously they earn less and will get less credit because they are single.

 A child is a child, no matter how many parents they have. Try again!

 Thank you for your serious consideration and action to correct this.

Your Constituent,  name withheld