In January, lawmakers hammered out a kids-and-companies tax deal: Congress would extend a few business tax breaks that had recently expired in exchange for expanding the child tax credit. The bipartisan compromise turned out to be a very good bill, painstakingly negotiated by serious lawmakers from both chambers of Congress.
Among other virtues, the legislation would improve the living standards of 16 million low-income kids and lift 400,000 children out of poverty in its first year. It would increase incentives for research and development. And the icing on the cake: The whole thing would be paid for by curbing a pandemic-era tax break that has produced an avalanche of fraudulent claims.
Today, Republican senators are trying to kill the legislation, with some of its GOP supporters saying it's on "life support."
Mike Crapo (Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, complained that the child tax credit measures might discourage parents from working, even though the bill has an explicit earnings requirement (i.e., it is available only if families work).
He and his Senate colleague Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have also complained about the bill's cost. They have both said they don't want to set a precedent of paying for tax cuts, since congressional Republicans have a multi-decade-long record of not doing so. As Tillis said in a committee hearing, "We have to have a discussion about whether or not we're setting a precedent on future tax provisions having a pay-for. We have not normally done that, but we've done that in this bill." He then explained that when it came time to extend the expiring provisions of the Trump tax cuts next year, he was worried Democrats might demand they be paid for (heaven forbid).
As a reminder, the pay-for in this bill is the elimination of a fraud-riddled pandemic program, whose continuation would waste tens of billions of dollars. Usually, ending a program like this is something Republicans would cheer. But not, apparently, if it threatens their ability to add to the debt in the future.
Please bookmark this article so it can be thrown into the discourse the next time a conservative tries to claim that Democrats don't care about the debt and deficits. In a normal non-Trumpian election year, an admission like Tillis' stood a chance of becoming a millstone place upon all his party's candidates proving yet again that Republicans don't care about debt when it comes to their main policy's costs.And now these clowns stand against impactful bipartisan policy that will help millions of American children living at the margin of our society. Nope, we won't help the children because it might help Biden get reelected and it sets a terrible precedent of paying for the tax cuts we demand to help our chief constituencies and donors.
Thoughts and prayers kiddos. Nothing can be done.
