Obama chronicler Jonathan Alter writes
No one, for instance, expects the earned income tax credit, the most successful anti-poverty idea in a generation (enacted in 1975 under Gerald Ford and significantly expanded by Reagan), to survive a Republican takeover of Washington
Huh? No one? I expect the earned income tax credit to survive a Republican takeover of Washington. It’s a popular program that’s survived for decades, in part because it is work-tested–unlike welfare, you only get it to the extent you earn income. Republican Sen. Don Nickles took a run at the EITC several years ago and didn’t get far. Sure, advocacy groups worry that it might be cut, and you can find the occasional right-wing blogger who opposes it, but that’s a long way from saying it’s doomed. Robert Greenstein, to whom the EITC is like a firstborn child, doesn’t even mention the tax credit in his critique of the Ryan Plan. … His organization, the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, does note that Romney’s budget would fail to extend a relatively modest temporary expansion of the EITC enacted in 2009, but it mentions no threat to the basic EITC itself. If Greenstein’s not worried I’m not worried. …
I suspect Alter was misinformed by a source when he compiled his scare list of GOP “savage cuts.” …
Update: Romney apparently told a closed-door meeting of Florida contributors his secret plan to cut the Department of Housing and Urban Development, shrink (but preserve) the Department of Education, and end the mortgage interest deduction for the second homes of “high income people.” That is so … not scary at all. … I think Alter might even endorse it. …