The U.S. House voted 357-70 on Wednesday night to pass, in rare bipartisan unity, an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, with the bill passing tonight increasing the refundable portion of the CTC to $1,800 for 2023, $1,900 for 2024, and $2,000 for 2025.
The legislation now moves to the U.S. Senate, where only old fudgeballs like Chuck Grassley think it’s a bad idea, because it might somehow make President Biden look good.
Beware: this is going to be the argument against anything good coming out of Congress for the next nine months.
“I’m proud to vote to pass this bipartisan tax package which will deliver a tax cut for middle class families with kids, putting money back into the pockets of Virginians to help them afford the things they need like gas, groceries, child care, and other daily essentials,” Tenth District Democrat Jennifer Wexton said Wednesday.
Um, yeah. The Child Tax Credit, implemented in 2021 as a response to the economic crisis resulting from pandemic shutdowns, cut child poverty in half, but then Republicans, being Republicans, blocked the credit from being used in 2022.
Go figure, then child poverty doubled.
The bill passed by the House on Wednesday, styled the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, would increase the refundable portion of the CTC to $1,800 for 2023, $1,900 for 2024, and $2,000 for 2025.
The language in the bill also calls for the Treasury Department to recalculate the credit amount based on these changes for taxpayers who have already filed their 2023 taxes early, and would eliminate penalties for larger families to make sure this updated CTC phase-in is applied fairly to families with multiple children.
One last proviso that needs to be mentioned: the bill would adjust the CTC for inflation starting in 2024.
These changes would benefit an estimated 16 million children nationally, including 367,000 in Virginia, whose families do not receive the full CTC amount — or any amount at all — under current law.
Right now, Virginia children are ineligible for the full $2,000 per-child CTC if their families lack earnings or have earnings that are too low.
“Far too many families across the Commonwealth live paycheck to paycheck. For many of these families, just one emergency could lead to financial ruin,” Seventh District Democrat Abigail Spanberger said. “When we expanded the Child Tax Credit under the American Rescue Plan back in 2021, we slashed child poverty rates — and thousands of Virginia families breathed a sigh of relief when it came to keeping the lights on, paying for childcare, or filling up their cars. This tax deal brings our focus back on working families. Additionally, this tax relief would not only help keep families financially secure, but it would make commonsense changes to help our Commonwealth’s small businesses stay afloat, grow, and hire more Virginians.”
“This bill is not perfect; no bill ever is,” Eighth District Democrat Don Beyer said. “But this act is win, win, win: 400,000 children will be lifted out of poverty, 200,000 new affordable homes will be built, and research and development – the absolute essential investment for economic prosperity – will be incentivized again. Politics is the art of the possible; in a divided Congress, that is the best we can do.”
“I voted in support of the bipartisan, bicameral tax package to empower hardworking Virginian families and small businesses to achieve their financial goals,” Fourth District Democrat Jennifer McClellan said. “The enhanced Child Tax Credit and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit will make meaningful impacts in the lives of children and families across our nation. This package represents a bipartisan compromise and a step in the right direction that will provide much-needed relief to working families with children while supporting our nation’s small businesses.”
The bill now moves to the U.S. Senate, where Grassley, the Nebraska Republican, and resident ass clown, indicated that he won’t support it because it might make President Biden “look good,” which is a perfectly legitimate reason to keep millions of kids in poverty.
“Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be re-elected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” Grassley told reporters.
Those 2017 tax cuts, incidentally, yeah, they benefit the super wealthy.
If you’re a Republican voter, and you’re reading this – this is what you’re getting when you vote for these a–holes to own the libs.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is not Chuck Grassley, thankfully.
“I am encouraged by today’s House passage of a bipartisan tax bill that would lift nearly half a million U.S. children out of poverty,” Warner said.” As we saw during the pandemic, expanding the Child Tax Credit is a tried-and-true way to give struggling families a meaningful boost and help put food in the mouths of needy children. Especially now, with tax season around the corner, this legislation could provide near-immediate breathing room for millions of working families who live paycheck to paycheck – but only if the Senate acts quickly. As this bill makes its way to the Senate, I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to deliver for American families.”
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Chris Graham
