The earned income tax credit provides substantial assistance to low- and moderate-income workers. Benefits tilt heavily to families with children. Prompted in part by the success of the credit and in part by shortcomings in the credit, policymakers, advocates, and analysts have offered up reform...

Some recent analyses have claimed that the 75-year cost of extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts is as large as the funding imbalances in Social Security and Medicare. This article takes a critical look at these analyses and finds them flawed and misleading. Previous analyses have relied on...