State of Virginia Archives: on Welfare & Poverty

Don Beyer: Expand the EITC, a successful anti-poverty program

The EITC could do so much more with 3 expansions. First, we should expand the benefit for childless workers. A full-time, minimum wage worker with no children is not currently eligible for EITC.

In addition, we should lower the EITC age threshold for childless workers, some of whom are actually noncustodial parents. Today, a childless worker younger than 25 is not eligible for EITC. That threshold should be lowered to 21.

Finally, the maximum tax credit available to childless workers should rise from its current level of about $500 to at least double that amount.

Robert Sarvis: Foster a competitive market for community-based services

A: Preference for cash subsidies, which empower patients to choose the best care options for their individual needs, and which foster a competitive market in which more providers offer home- and community-based services at a reasonable price. Investigation and prosecution of fraudulent schemes that channel patients, especially children, disabled, and mental-health patients, into expensive facilities away from home/community to reap federal dollars at taxpayer expense.