Mitt Romney introduces new plan to send most parents up to $350 monthly checks per kid

• Romney rolled out a measure to provide up to $350 monthly checks to most families with kids.
• Only families earning at least $10,000 annually would qualify for the full cash payments.

Sen. Mitt Romney introduced a new version of a proposal on Wednesday that would issue up to $350 monthly checks per kid to most American families in an effort to revive interest in Congress for a cash payment program during a stretch of painful inflation.

The updated measure would provide a $350 direct payment each month for most parents with children age 5 and under ($4,200 annually) while issuing $250 to families with kids between age 6 and 17 ($3,000 each year).

"We must do better to help families meet the challenges they face as they take on the most important work any of us will ever do — raising our society's children," Romney said in a statement. "This proposal proves that we can accomplish this without adding to the deficit or creating another new federal program without any reforms."

However, households would only qualify for the full cash benefit if they earned at least $10,000 every year, an amount meant to be indexed to inflation. Families making less than $10,000 would recieve a proportional share of the total benefit based on how close they are to that income target.

That would shut out the poorest 6% of households from getting larger checks under the Romney program, according to data from the Census bureau. It's a break from Romney's earlier plan that would have provided checks to families who earned no taxable income.

"The feedback I got from people outside of government and inside government is you need to have some connection to work," Romney said in a brief interview. "People need to be participating in the workplace."

The monthly cash program would start phasing out for individuals earning $200,000 and couples making $400,000.

Romney unveiled the plan along with Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Steve Daines of Montana. It would be paid for by modifying federal programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and eliminating a federal tax break for state and local taxes commonly used by wealthier Americans.

Scott Winship, director of poverty studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, wrote on Twitter that the measure would reduce poverty and achieve conservative goals of stronger work and marriage incentives.

An analysis released Wednesday from policy analysts Joshua McCabe and Robert Orr at the Niskanen Center indicated the Romney proposal would slash child poverty by roughly 13%.

It's unlikely to reach President Joe Biden's desk anytime soon. Democrats are likely to initially balk at the plan's income threshold for families to qualify. It's a sharp change from the Biden child tax credit that was briefly in place last year which issued checks to families whether they paid federal income taxes or not. That program expired due to resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sided with Republicans in opposition.

"I'm sure there are things in the proposal that I won't agree with, but I'm pleased to see more people signing onto the idea that we should be reducing child poverty," Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, an architect of the enhanced child tax credit program that ended, told Insider.

The measure also falls far short of gaining 10 Senate Republican backers, the amount needed for the plan to advance under the Senate's 60-vote supermajority threshold. Many GOP senators remain wary of providing advance payments with few strings attached to families.