The child tax credit is a conservative dream fulfilled. Let’s help make it permanent.

As a general matter, the defense of bossy social welfare bureaucracies sounds strange from the mouths of conservatives. But the main argument in favor of child allowances is that the family — the primary mediating institution — is under serious economic stress. Though a refundable credit may have some influence on workforce participation among the poor, the effect is likely to be small, while the overall help to struggling families will be large. And in some cases, enabling a parent to stay home with a young child is not an unwelcome outcome.

There are other good, conservative reasons to favor refundable child credits. They are likely to encourage greater fertility, in a country whose entitlement system depends on a supply of young workers that can come only from births and immigration. These credits also partially redress the imbalance of a tax system that takes huge amounts of cash from younger Americans to subsidize entitlement programs for seniors. A government that encourages the well-being of families with children is investing in the future, not only honoring the promises of the past.

And there is a related argument that conservatives should not share with their progressive friends, lest liberals everywhere begin to have serious second thoughts about their support for the measure. A $3,600 benefit, paid in a check to a parent at regular intervals, would defray most of the cost of sending a child to a Catholic elementary school (which now averages about $4,800 a year). For many parents, a child allowance will be the functional equivalent of a school voucher — money they can use at any private or religious school. This is the fulfillment by liberals of a conservative policy dream.