On Friday, Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy blasted Sen. JD Vance’s idea of taxing childless adults at a higher rate than parents with children.
The Ohio senator floated the idea on a podcast with conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in 2021, saying that “we should reward the things that we think are good, and punish the things that we think are bad.”
“Let’s tax the things that are bad, and not tax the things that are good,” Vance, now Donald Trump’s running mate, said at the time. “If you’re making $100,000, $400,000 a year, and you’ve got three kids, you should pay a different, lower tax rate than if you’re making the same amount of money and you don’t have any kids.”
ABC News first reported on the unearthed clip on Friday. In response, a spokesman for Vance told the outlet that the idea was “basically no different than the Child Tax Credit,” a policy that Democrats have long supported.
But that idea didn’t go over well with Portnoy, who called it “fucking idiotic.”
“You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? We sure this dude is a Republican? Sounds like a moron,” Portnoy wrote on X. “If you can’t afford a big family don’t have a ton of kids.”
This is fucking idiotic. You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? We sure this dude is a Republican? Sounds like a moron. If you can’t afford a big family don’t have a ton of kids. pic.twitter.com/oPCYMkq3G1
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) July 26, 2024
Though the missive may seem to simply be the opinion of one man, it’s indicative of a broader ideological fault lines in the modern GOP.
Portnoy is himself an influential figure on the right, whose media empire has helped to popularize a strain of political thinking dubbed “Barstool Conservatism.”
That movement, popular especially with young men, is defined by a strong opposition to political correctness or “wokeness,” a generally libertarian outlook, and at times, more socially liberal impulses. Portnoy, for example, opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
On the other hand, Vance is closely associated with the New Right and national conservatism, defined by its championing of nationalism and social conservatism, but also populism and a willingness to use governmental power to achieve certain ends. Both strains of conservatism have seen their influence grow in the Trump era.
Having been selected as Trump’s running mate, Vance is now in a strong position to lead the party after a second Trump term.
But the popularity of his ideas, and of national conservatism more broadly, remains to be seen, and for now appears particular vulnerable to criticism in a movement that’s long been defined by libertarian thinking.
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