Stephen Moore wants everyone on the Right to get along, and he proposes the traditional plan of action to achieve Reaganite unity: Everyone who disagrees with him should stop. In particular, those of us who favor expanding the child tax credit should quit, and we should all rally around the un-Reaganite idea of making people who don’t pay income taxes pay them.

I think there are two better ways to promote conservative unity. One would be to be careful in describing the views of conservatives with whom we have fraternal disagreements. None of us involved in these disputes is ever perfect on this score, of course. But I might suggest that in the future Moore avoid saying things like this: “One plan being floated would increase the child credit to help families with children, but marginal tax rates would have to rise to pay for it.” That’s just not true. The leading proposal to expand the child tax credit, that of Senator Mike Lee, cuts the top marginal tax rate, and makes up the lost revenue by shrinking tax breaks and flattening tax rates.

Second, we could stop setting up false oppositions. There is no reason we cannot have a tax code that is more pro-growth, more pro-family, simpler, and fairer than the current code. Senators Lee and Rubio are working toward that goal. Why not join them? We can fight later about whether to attempt to make the code marginally more pro-growth than that.