The editors of the Wall Street Journal, who have disliked the child tax credit for decades, start their latest criticism of it by saying that “a group of conservative media types has lectured Republicans that the key to their political salvation is to expand the child tax credit.” (Thank goodness that the Journal never lectures.) In reality, nobody has made the assertion that the Journal is ridiculing. Some people have, however, argued that there is a strong case on the merits for expanding the child credit and that it would be more politically attractive than such favored Journal causes as cutting the top income-tax rate.

Hillary Clinton has now proposed an expansion of the child credit, and the Journal argues that we should draw a “political lesson” from her move: that liberals will always outbid conservatives when the latter try to use the tax code for social policy. As wise as the Journal editors are about so many things, I don’t think this argument fits with the timeline that they themselves present.

Did Donald Trump call forth Clinton’s proposal by coming out with his own child-care tax ideas? No: The editorial notes that Clinton “began her campaign with a promise to increase the credit.” Did the Republican Congress that created the child credit and then expanded it set off a bidding war that they lost? No: As the editorial points out, the key legislation was enacted in 1997 and 2001, and since then nothing much has happened.

But what if the Journal were right? Then we’d have to conclude that those of us who think a tax cut for parents is a good idea had succeeded in moving the Democrats in our direction by advocating for it. That’s supposed to be a bad thing?

Maybe the real political lesson here is that cutting taxes for parents is a popular idea, and that each party, though it would undoubtedly like to devote the money to other projects more dear to its heart, from time to time responds to that sentiment.