July 15, 2021: It's a Start -

I'm currently on the hunt for bright spots, after four days out of town attending a "celebration of life" for a dear friend who died (cancer, not COVID). I'm not crazy about the "celebration of life" phrase. I have been calling the event a memorial. It wasn't somber. It was a celebration. But the phrase bugs me, and makes me feel that I'm letting the team down by feeling sad that my friend is gone.

Sadness is appropriate, is the thing. I suppose celebration is, too.

Maybe I'm quibbling. In any case, I'm on the hunt for bright spots, and I found one - the child tax credit that has begun hitting the bank accounts of 80% of American families-with-kids, as of today. I'm happy about the child tax credit.

But Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times says I'm jumping the gun. Mr. Appelbaum - a man I suspect is not given to inordinate enthusiasm - says it's too early to celebrate just yet. He has some good reasons for saying that, but I'm on the hunt, and his objections feel a bit like that saying about how The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good.

Anyway, one reason he gives is that it hasn't been publicized enough. Not enough people know about it. So I'm doing my bit, and publicizing.

Some of the people who qualify for the credit don't know they qualify, and it won't reach them automatically if they didn't pay any taxes for two years and they didn't apply for relief during the pandemic. I don't know them, but maybe you do. Let them know.

Oh, also, maybe let everyone know that Not One Republican voted for it. This is something we want people to remember the next time they vote, assuming they CAN vote.

Oops! I turned away from the bright spot, there. Turning back, now.

If half the kids living in poverty make it above the poverty line this way, even for the one year the tax credit is currently set to run, that's a start. Thanks, Democrats. Well done.