S15 EP160: Hour 2 - The Diet Coke of Socialists

Erick takes apart the Trump administration's draft rule, championed by JD Vance, that would let married couples with a stay-at-home spouse collect roughly $9,000 per child from a Health and Human Services child care fund built in the 1990s to move single working mothers off welfare. Erick's verdict: it is the Diet Coke of socialism, and you cannot beat the real thing. He walks the $75,000 income cliff, the promotions dad will never take, the marketable skills mom will never rebuild, and offers his own alternative: a $15,000 per child tax deduction with no cap, plus deducting local school property taxes for homeschool and private school families.

• The New York Times report on the JD Vance child care subsidy, the 870,000 families now on the program, and why redirecting money from single working mothers guts the whole point of 1996 welfare reform
• Congress never voted on it: Article I Section 8, the Necessary and Proper Clause, US v. Butler, and why judges will probably stop the end run around the legislature
• The $75,000 hard cap trap: two kids, $18,000 a year, a 10 percent raise dad cannot accept, and a couple stranded at 50 with no promotions and no marketable skills
• Erick's alternative to turning parents into welfare queens: a $15,000 per child tax deduction through age 18 (21 in college), no cap, plus deducting school property taxes for private and homeschool families
• Kevin Roberts and the post liberal Heritage Foundation, Lawrence Jones on Fox and Friends, the EBT card nanny-state hypocrisy, and Reagan's "a choice, not an echo"
• Plus the Rams and 49ers flying 15,000 miles for a 10:35 a.m. Friday game in Melbourne, and the NFL's bet on supersonic travel