Unfortunately, on its face, the Romney plan is very difficult to differentiate from a big-government welfare program and is actually even more generous than the Biden plan. Romney’s program would send payments of $350 per month to families for every child under six and $250 per month for children between six and 17. The payments would be sent beginning four months before a child’s due date and administered through the Social Security Administration rather than the IRS. Because the benefits would not begin to phase out until income levels of $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for married couples, upper-middle-class families with four children could be receiving monthly payments of $1,250 from the federal government. (The payments would be capped at $15,000 per year.)

Romney’s pitch to conservatives is that the program would be fully paid for by scaling back or eliminating existing benefits. It would replace the existing child-care tax credit, eliminate the state and local tax deduction, get rid of head-of-household status, eliminate block grants to states administering the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and limit the Earned Income Tax Credit.

However, as I have previously detailed in my criticisms of Biden’s fiscal proposals, conservatives should oppose more spending, whether or not it’s “paid for.” The reason is that any combination of tax increases or spending cuts that would be used to fund new spending could otherwise be applied to reduce current deficits.