There was a lot of BS flying around last night's GOP debate, but this line from Vivek Ramaswamy caught my attention: "The government pays single women more not to have a man in the house."
This is a demeaning and frankly, flat-out false statement. As one of Congress' only single moms of school-aged kids, I've called attention to how our tax code unfairly punishes single parents. When the Child Tax Credit was enacted during the pandemic, for example, married parents making less than $150,000 per year qualified for monthly payments. But for single parent families, you only qualified if you made less than $112,500 per year.
I fought this unequal treatment because there's no "single parent discount" for groceries, kids' shoes, rent, or childcare. By punishing single parent families, we punish the children whose families are often most in need of assistance.
When I was advocating against a single parent penalty, I asked why it existed in the first place. The answer was "no one's asked about it before." That might be because no single mom of young kids had ever served in Congress—until I was elected in 2018. If elected to the Senate, I'd be the first single mom of school-aged kids to serve there too.
We don't need guys like Vivek demonizing millions of single parents in America who need their government to work for them—we need leaders on the national level who will fight for all families and champion investments in schools, affordable childcare, and in paid leave policies.
That's why I'm running for the U.S. Senate, and I'd be so honored to have you on our team.
Katie Porter
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