Something for nothing

[Spongebob]

I've been an advocate of ending child subsidies for decades but of course when I speak about this to virtually any other human I get eviscerated.  Americans are indoctrinated to believe that child tax credits are a birthright.  And the more children you have, the more credits you get.  This makes absolutely no sense in a country that isn't hurting for population.

I think it makes all kinds of sense in a country full of poor children.  

At the very least we should stop any credits at 2 kids. 

What reason would you give to help two poor people that didn't apply to three poor people?

No one is having children to get tax credits.  It's not a thing.  Cutting tax credits won't stop people from having kids anymore than birth control can save our ass on the climate front.  The cost to raise them (to some nebulous standard) is calculated to be about a quarter million dollars.  That's a grand a month per head - not tax credits.  It seems obvious, but if we have to say it...states take a keen interest in the welfare of children in their borders.

---

Let me be more specific.  The vast majority of people in the US don't actually need this child tax subsidies.  As you said, people don't have children just to collect tax subsidies.  This supports my case.  Most of us don't need this extra money.  It doesn't make that much difference, but hey, we'll take it.  Child tax subsidies, like many things, is a political football.  Both parties like to dole out a few extra hundies for the rugrats whenever their poll numbers are down and the economy sucks, and that's on top of the usual annual deduction.  All of this has conditioned Americans to expect tax breaks for having children and regardless of reason, it factors into their decision making.  Even Republicans don't get how nonsensical this is.  

Poor people should consider postponing children until they can properly provide for them.  That's just simple human math.  It makes no sense to give people a monetary incentive to reproduce, especially when our country does not have a low population problem.  Taxes are used all the time to incentivize behaviors and in this case it's incentivizing the wrong behavior, whether the people believe it is necessary or not.

Now, to address your question of people in poverty, we should continue to provide food and monetary support for those who fall on hard times.  This should always be considered a temporary situation unless the person is physically or mentally incapacitated.  But again, do the math.  What sense does it make to incentivize poor people to reproduce when they can't provide for themselves?  We do, in fact, have more effective and better targeted programs like earned tax credits and early learning that puts money in the hands of the poor and helps children but doesn't incentivize reproduction.  But, as you like to point out, the elite class likes to have a large body of penniless drones to do the work that no one else wants to do and maybe that's the reason we still have these subsidies.  And as you've also pointed out, many such subsidies like this are actually the government masking poor wages paid by companies.  Many of those poor people are working poor.  They have jobs, sometimes multiple, but they don't pay enough.  So the government steps in and shuffles out a few coins.  It's embarrassing.

I suggested stopping at 2 just as a compromise because that's how we've typically gotten things done in the US.  I'm pragmatic, after all.

But, as I've said, this is all rhetorical because nothing will change, so I'm not going to defend this philosophy.  The second a politician supports this idea, his/her career is over.