House Republicans are advancing a bill that would create new tax penalties for marriage, warned Bradford Wilcox in an op-ed for the conservative Washington Examiner on Friday.
This comes, Wilcox warned, as Pew Research Center data reveals 1 in 4 Americans under 40 have never been married as of two years ago, a record high.
"Digging further into the Pew data reveals that this retreat from marriage and family life has hit vulnerable populations the hardest: minorities, the working class, and poor Americans. The upper classes continue to marry, forge stable unions, and enjoy a reasonably happy family life, while the lower classes drift into a world of relational chaos," wrote Wilcox. "Against the backdrop of this bad news, a new tax proposal put forward by Republicans in the U.S. House would further erode and undermine the institutions of marriage and the family."
House Republicans would make this situation even worse with the newly-advanced Tax Cuts for Working Families Act, which not only penalizes marriage but effectively creates a new subsidy for unmarried cohabitation, Wilcox warned.
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"The legislation also fails to extend the federal child tax credit. The value of the credit doubled — from $1,000 to $2,000 per child — under former President Donald Trump, but that increase is set to expire at the end of 2025. Remarkably, the bill in question does nothing to lock in the credit’s current value for families. For a proposal that purports to be about helping families financially, this is a serious miss," wrote Wilcox. "Rather than explore ways to shore up the credit to support families in their key child-rearing years, the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act would simply increase the standard deduction for all households — $2,000 for singles, $3,000 for heads of household, and $4,000 for married couples. Most of the law’s benefits would flow to affluent households rather than to the middle- and working-class families who need the most help." And under the bill, an unmarried couple would actually pay less in taxes than a married one.
This comes amid a number of other GOP controveries over how they gatekeep the institution of marriage. Iowa Republicans recently attacked their own Sen. Joni Ernst after she backed President Joe Biden's landmark bill protecting same-sex marriage rights. On the flip side, some Republicans have been trying to oppose laws curtailing child marriage, including five lawmakers in Michigan.
