Critics say that Democrats who want to give the $500 per child tax credit to those who don't pay any taxes are involved in a sleight-of-hand that disguises welfare as "tax fairness."

Republicans point out that the working poor already get substantial help through the Earned Income Tax Credit established in 1975. Its purpose is to offset Social Security and other payroll taxes on the working poor, and to encourage low-income people to seek employment rather than welfare.

• The EITC tax offset will reward those eligible with $26 billion this year -- up from less than $6 billion in 1988.

• Of the $26 billion, more than $22 billion will go out in the form of checks -- with the rest reducing income tax liabilities.

• So less than 15 percent of the credit goes to workers who pay income taxes.

The President has proposed that low-income workers be allowed to use the $500 child credit to offset the payroll taxes they pay -- even though the EITC already partially offsets payroll taxes in addition to income taxes.

But some analysts suggest that payroll taxes shouldn't be treated like income taxes, since Social Security is a social insurance program. Lower-income workers receive a much higher return on their "investment" when they retire than higher income workers.

• A study by C. Eugene Stuerle of the Urban Institute found that a two-earner couple -- both with low incomes and retiring in 2010 -- will get $38,500 more in Social Security, in constant 1993 dollars, then they paid in.

• But a two-earner couple retiring in 2010 -- one earning a higher salary and the other at the average -- will actually pay almost $80,000 more into Social Security than they will get from it.

Source: Editorial, "Welfare by Any Other Name," Investor's Business Daily, July 14, 1997.