'Hurt the Republican ticket': Conservative mom of 6 says Dems better on family policy

Even a former Heritage Foundation writer is now saying that Democrats are the better party when concerning policies that are most beneficial to parents.

In a recent op-ed for Newsweek, conservative activist Bethany Mandel — who went viral following an interview last year when she couldn't define the word "woke" after railing against it — admitted that the Democratic Party has consistently been a better ally of working-class Americans who are currently raising children. As a mother of six, the 38 year-old Mandel wrote that one major advantage Democrats have in arguing that they're better for families is their willingness to go to bat for the child tax credit.

"Just last week, Senate Republicans blocked an effort to expand child tax credits, especially those targeted at low-income Americans. [JD] Vance, a United States Senator who could have voted for child tax credits now, skipped the vote, as did a half dozen other Republican senators," she wrote. "I'm not one to give credit to the Democratic Party on anything, but credit where credit is due. And it's going to hurt the Republican ticket, especially when it tries to paint itself as pro-family."

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As Mandel noted, Senate Republicans earlier this month shot down a bipartisan bill that would have expanded the child tax credit, which is $2,000 per child, by making more of it refundable. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) dismissed it as "cash welfare instead of relief for working taxpayers."

The Associated Press (AP) reported that during the Covid-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden's administration temporarily increased it to $3,000 per child (and to $3,600 for every child under age six) and included 17 year-olds in the covered group. In 2022, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia), who was a Democrat at the time, proved to be the deciding vote in allowing Senate Republicans to block prolonging the expansion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that the expansion of the child tax credit kept half a million kids out of poverty.

"There’s always a lot of talk among Republicans about supporting families, competing with China, and cracking down on fraud in government programs, but they just rejected a bill that would accomplish all of that in one package," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the AP at the time.

In addition to the child tax credit, Mandel wrote that Democrats also demonstrated their pro-family credentials when the Biden administration imposed a rule on airlines cracking down on the practice of charging parents extra to sit next to their children on airplanes. She lauded Biden for halting airlines' practice of "charg[ing] families for the 'privilege' of sitting next to one another."

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"Families with young children basically have to pay a tax if they want to guarantee they will be seated next to their kids. As a mother of six children aged 1 through 10, I need to sit next to my kids," she wrote. "It's not so much that I want to, but if we hit turbulence or need to move quickly to open an air sickness bag, it's probably preferable for all involved that I'm sitting next to my kids."

"The Biden administration decided to try to step up for families in the air, and Democratic legislators did the same with their work trying to advance the child tax credit," she added.

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Click here to read Mandel's full op-ed.