This Is Another Bad Argument, or, Uninformed and Unfiltered Thoughts about Child Tax Credits

The Romney plan has been critiqued by (if memory serves) AEI, and Romney's fellow senator Mike Lee, but praised by Lyman Stone.  The reasons are complicated, and the internet will no doubt yield up its details to you (translation: I am too time-pressed to look for good links right now, and too scrupulous to tack in subpar ones).  But to prepare you for your own research, and your duty of forming a personal opinion on the matter--and I do think, unlike many things, it is worth your time to consider this sort of issue, so as to better decide what sort of candidates to support--let me point out one really bad argument.

AEI (and others) have raised skeptical brows at the plan for its potential to reduce employment, via subsidizing parents with young children.  Translation: if you give people who have children more money, they are likely to work less, and spend more time with said children.

Now I quite understand that we don't want a world in which having children is so lucrative that people have more children--children they may even proceed to neglect--just so that they can sit back and live the good life on government checks.  I am quite aware of the potential pitfalls of welfare--as I am of the necessity for some sort of welfare system.  (Hello, Catholic Church and others ...)

But criminitly, folks, is it really so terrible if our GDP goes down because parents are spending more time with their kids?  Really???  If, I dunno, dad and mom are both making 20K each, and neither can afford to stop working, so their three wee tots end up in cheap after-school activities year-round ... is it really so bad if an extra 10K from the government enables one of them to quit work, cancel those activities, and spend the after-school time going on long walks as a family?

"Reduce employment," forsooth!

That, my friends, is a Bad Argument.

Unless, of course, you have another argument prepared for why, exactly, Employment As High As Possible is the best thing since sliced bread.  You'd still be wrong, of course; but your argument would be a darn sight better.