The Volokh Conspiracy
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J.D. Vance, Taxing the Childless, and the Power of Framing
The controversy over Vance's advocacy of higher tax rates for childless adults illustrates the power of framing.
I am, to understate the point, no fan of Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance and the "national conservative" ideology he espouses. But much of the backlash generated by his 2021 statement that childless adults should pay higher tax rates is a matter of framing. It highlights how people can have widely divergent reactions to similar policy proposals, depending on how they are described.
Many are forgetting that the childless already pay higher taxes than parents with the same incomes. Under current law, most parents are entitled to the child tax credit. My wife and I have two kids, and we claim it whenever eligible to do so (under current law, whenever our household income is under $400,000). When we take the credit, we end up paying less in taxes than would a childless couple with the same income.
The child tax credit enjoys broad bipartisan support. Many Democrats argue it should actually be bigger. Why is it so popular? Because it's framed as giving parents lower tax rates, rather than making childless people pay higher ones. Described in those terms, almost everyone loves it!
On the other hand, when Vance says childless people should pay higher tax rates and takes swipes at "childless cat ladies," he comes off like an intolerant, misogynist creep, and many people hate him. Maybe that's exactly what he deserves; I'm not shedding any tears for him. But most of the same people are happy to support much the same policy if it's described in different terms.
Lower tax rates for parents and higher ones for childless adults are two sides of the same coin. One unavoidably implies the other. The different reactions to the two descriptions are the result of a "framing effect:" where views on policy ideas are driven by wording rather than substance.
In a world where voters are highly knowledgeable about policy and carefully evaluate alternative ideas, framing effects wouldn't matter much. But, in reality, most voters are rationally ignorant about policy, and often do a poor job of evaluating the information they do get. For that reason, framing effects often have a big impact.
If I were advising Vance (don't worry, it's never going to happen!), I would tell him to stop talking about cat ladies, and instead say something like this:
"I want to give a bigger tax break to America's hard-pressed parents, so they can better provide for their children. Parents and kids need a break from heavy taxes and high prices. After all, children are our future!" Maybe combine it with an ad in which Vance appears with a group of mothers and kisses some babies.
Is the child tax credit actually a good idea? Should we increase it? I'm far from certain. But framed in these positive terms (as tax relief for parents, rather than as forcing the childless to pay higher taxes), it sure sounds good to most people.
One can tell a similar story about Vance's advocacy of giving extra votes to parents. He described it as forcing childless people to "face the consequences and the reality" and not get "nearly the same voice" in our democracy. That sounds awful and predictably generates negative reactions. But the same idea can also be described as providing greater voice for children's interests by allowing parents to represent them more effectively. Indeed, that is precisely how extra-votes-for-parents has been defended by left-liberal advocates, such as Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, and political commentator Michael Kinsley (Peterson would give parents the option of letting the kids cast the vote themselves if the parents believe their children are up to it).
They didn't frame the idea as penalizing the childless, but rather as giving greater clout to children's interests. But, as with relative tax rates, the two are just different ways of describing the same thing. Since political influence is a zero-sum game, giving more votes to Group A necessarily reduces the proportional electoral weight of B, C, and D.
I am not convinced parents should get extra votes for their children. On the other hand, I have tentatively defended the idea of letting knowledgeable children (those with political knowledge levels at least as great as that of the average adult voter) cast votes for themselves. I think that would improve the quality of political decision-making at the margin. But I have to acknowledge it would reduce the political power of adult voters. Still, I don't frame it that way when I argue for it.
I came up with this idea before I had kids of my own. But my nine-year-old is now a big fan of it!
Here, my point is not to defend any particular voting scheme, but to highlight the framing effects. Peterson, Kinsley, and others didn't get as much backlash as Vance, in large part because they described the same idea in more positive terms: as increased voice for parents and children, rather than as decreasing the power of the childless.
