What the hell is happening in the Wonkosphere II (really III)

Suzy Khimm too

She wrote

The Earned Income Tax Credit, in particular, was created to encourage low-income people to work, diverting government resources from handouts toward incentives built into the tax code. That’s why Reagan expanded the tax break — which was created in 1975 — and Clinton used its expansion to complement welfare reform, with full support from Congressional Republicans.

Use the Wikipedia.  Use Google.  Stop embarrassing yourselves.

I comment.


There you (wonkbloggers as a group) go again.  Your claim that "Clinton used its expansion to complement welfare reform, with full support from Congressional Republicans." is absolutely 100% false.  Clinton did sign a bill which expanded the EITC.  He signed it in 1993 and it had the support of 0 (zero) Congressional Republicans.  No Republican Senator voted for the bill and no Republican representative voted for the bill.  It was the first major bill in recent decades to pass with no support at all from one party.  The bill is better known for its other features -- raising the income tax on the top 1 or 2% and raising the gasoline tax by 4.7 cents.

That bill passed in 1993 with no support at all from Congressional Republicans may have complemented welfare reform, but it was the least bipartisan bill in recent history (now equalled by the ACA).

The welfare reform bill of 1996 did not include any expansion of the EITC.   Look at the graph in this blog of  the fraction of families paying no federal income tax.  You will see it moves up and down but nothing much happens when the welfare reform bill written by Congressional Republicans was enacted.

I think the Washington Post has to run a correction.  Your claim is simply in error.