Eric and Jackson dig into why everyone is mad about means testing (it's often bad!), why TANF is evil (it is!), and a review of various child tax credit and child allowance proposals (they're mostly good, especially Mitt Romney's!). Also featuring musings on topics ranging from Britney Spears to the Seattle Seahawks Defense circa 2014, and of course, our interest in having Mothman run for office in West Virginia. Stick around for a ranking of our favorite and least favorite welfare policies at the end.

Sorry all our pods are long; we're very bad at keeping track of time.

We highly recommend folks check out Jeff Stein's (@JStein_WaPo)  reporting and everything Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig)  does over at the People's Policy Project, but here are other helpful reading materials:

• What the Fight Over Means Testing Is Really About 
• The Problems With Means-Testing Are Real 
• To Lessen Hardship, States Should Invest More TANF Dollars in Basic Assistance for Families - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Child tax credit in Biden stimulus package gets drafted by Democrats 
• Mitt Romney to introduce child benefit for millions of American families 
• $3,000-per-child benefit: Senior Democrats prepare plan for Biden stimulus 

Class is *clap clap* in session