Sen. Mike Lee Calls for Per-Child Tax Credit

Would ultimately be worth $40,000 per child

Parents get taxed twice because of the nature of the entitlement system, according to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, so he developed a tax reform plan that would mitigate this "parent tax penalty," as well as begin to turn the lessons of the 2012 election into policies that clearly benefit the middle class.

Lee wants to give all parents an annual $2,500 tax credit for each child they have. "Our system, as it's set up today, depends for its existence, for its vitality, on children being born today, on children being raised today who will become the workers of tomorrow and who will be able to pay into the system to fund those [entitlement] programs," he told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview Wednesday evening.