Congress Is Poised to Take a Step to Help Families

Jan. 24 2024

While there have been no shortage of policy proposals in recent years that are supposed to make life easier for families, and even encourage family formation and child bearing, there is little consensus about what exactly will accomplish these aims. But a compromise recently reached by a House Republican and a Senate Democrat could make a real difference. The editors of the Washington Examiner write:

The deal modestly expands the child tax credit while not going so far as Democrats did in Biden’s first year, when they transformed the credit into a large monthly child allowance. The deal indexes the credit for inflation [and] increases the amount available as a cash payment to low-income families, but preserves work requirements.

The worst thing about the . . . fix is that it is temporary. The changes expire in 2025. Temporary tax breaks are almost always bad policy, and short-term moves are particularly inapt when it comes to family policy.

Raising children is a long-term project. Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment. Raising children is at least an eighteen-year commitment (but really, it’s a lifelong thing). Millennials are extraordinarily risk-averse, and that’s a reason they aren’t having children. This is all exacerbated by laws that create a future in which the tax code might or might not count children as people.

Read more at Washington Examiner

More about: Congress, Family policy, U.S. Politics

 

After Taking Steps toward Reconciliation, Turkey Has Again Turned on Israel

“The Israeli government, blinded by Zionist delusions, seizes not only the UN Security Council but all structures whose mission is to protect peace, human rights, freedom of the press, and democracy,” declared the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Wednesday. Such over-the-top anti-Israel rhetoric has become par for the course from the Turkish head of state since Hamas’s attack on Israel last year, after which relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been in what Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak describes as “free fall.”

While Erdogan has always treated Israel with a measure of hostility, the past few years had seen steps to reconciliation. Yanarocak explains this sharp change of direction, which is about much more than the situation in Gaza:

The losses at the March 31, 2024 Turkish municipal elections were an unbearable blow for Erdoğan. . . . In retrospect it appears that Erdoğan’s previous willingness to continue trade relations with Israel pushed some of his once-loyal supporters toward other Islamist political parties, such as the New Welfare Party. To counter this trend, Erdoğan halted trade relations, aiming to neutralize one of the key political tools available to his Islamist rivals.

Unsurprisingly, this decision had a negative impact on Turkish [companies] engaged in trade with Israel. To maintain their long-standing trade relationships, these companies found alternative ways to conduct business through intermediary Mediterranean ports.

The government in Ankara also appears to be concerned about the changing balance of power in the region. The weakening of Iran and Hizballah could create an unfavorable situation for the Assad regime in Syria, [empowering Turkish separatists there]. While Ankara is not fond of the mullahs, its core concern remains Iran’s territorial integrity. From Turkey’s perspective, the disintegration of Iran could set a dangerous precedent for secessionists within its own borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Iran, Israel diplomacy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey