LARRY KUDLOW: Everyone should keep more of what they earn

Larry Kudlow is right about the headline and still manages to step on a rake in the fine print. “Everyone should keep more of what they earn” is the kind of guiding idea Republicans used to say without immediately reaching for a new program to prove we meant it. Then we get the curveball: subsidies for stay-at-home spouses. That’s not keeping more of what you earn. That’s Washington deciding who gets a check and why.

We’re sympathetic to the family economics behind it. In plenty of households, one parent staying home isn’t some lifestyle flex, it’s the only way the math works when child care costs more than a second income, or when a kid needs more attention than a daycare can give. The problem is that once you call it a subsidy, you’re inviting every lobbyist in America to fight over the definition of “deserving” family. You also turn a personal choice into a federal category, complete with forms, rules, and the quiet, permanent growth of the agency that administers it.

If Kudlow wants to help single-income families, there’s a cleaner way: stop punishing them in the tax code. Let married couples file in a way that doesn’t penalize a one-earner household. Expand the child tax credit in a way that’s simple and predictable, not a maze of phase-ins and monthly gimmicks. Cut payroll taxes if you’re serious about letting working people keep their money. Those are broad, pro-growth moves that don’t require Washington to pick the “right” family arrangement.

Conservatives can’t spend the last decade mocking Democratic social engineering and then pivot to our own version because it feels culturally comforting. Tax cuts aren’t subsidies. If the goal is an America where families can afford to make the choices that fit them, the answer is less extraction and less distortion, not another benefit with a noble name and a bureaucratic tail.