DeLauro, Dems Try Again To Expand Child Tax Credit

WASHINGTON — As part of their coronavirus stimulus package, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats increased tax credits for working families with and without children.

The Child Tax Credit helped 608,000 Connecticut children and halved child poverty nationwide, while the increased Earned Income Tax Credit provided enhanced benefits to 154,000 state residents, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group.

“It worked better than any other federal program that was out there,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D‑New Haven, one of the congressional champions of increasing benefits.

But the program was funded for only one year, and Congress failed to muster the votes to extend it again. That put 80,000 Connecticut children at risk of slipping below the poverty line or deeper into poverty. 

The House passed a scaled-down extension last year, which would have helped 40,000 Connecticut children under the age of 6, but the Senate never considered the measure. 

Now proponents are trying again. 

On Wednesday, DeLauro, lead Senate sponsor Michael Bennet, D‑Colo., and other Democratic lawmakers gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to announce they had introduced legislation to restore enhanced tax credits for working families with and without children. Connecticut U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal are also co-sponsors of the Senate bill.

“The moral obscenity of child poverty in America is not an inevitable conclusion, an inevitable reality. It is a policy choice,” said U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D‑N.J. ​“We are again faced with a choice. Do we prioritize our babies or our billionaires? Do we prioritize our moms or our millionaires?”

The bill would increase the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $6,360 for newborns, $4,320 for those between the ages of 1 and 6, and $3,600 a year for those aged 6 to 17. A newborn also would receive a $2,400 baby bonus in their first month of life. The benefits would be indexed for inflation.

The benefits would begin phasing out at the annual income of $150,000 for a married couple.

Just extending the tax credit passed in 2021 would lift 20,000 Connecticut children above the poverty line and boost the household income of 530,000 children, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“The Child Tax Credit is virtually essential to making America the kind of place we’ve always wanted it to be,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑N.Y.

Under the stimulus law, the Earned Income Tax Credit rose from roughly $530 to roughly $1,500, and the income cap to qualify increased from about $16,000 to at least $21,000. In addition, younger adults aged 19 to 24 who weren’t full-time students and workers aged 65 and over became eligible for the first time.

The Democrats’ proposal came on the same day House Republicans took action that will enable the party to bypass a filibuster in the Senate and renew the tax cuts approved during President Donald Trump’s first term, which gave almost two-thirds of its benefits to the wealthiest 20 percent of taxpayers, as the new proposal would, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group. 

That bill also penalized Connecticut and other high-tax states that send more money to Washington than they receive in services by capping the federal deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000.

“Congress will have to decide: Do we listen to the massive corporations, the biggest corporations, who are trying to lock in billions more in profit, or do we have a Child Tax Credit,” DeLauro said on Wednesday.

But even when Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they failed to extend the tax credits, thanks to the opposition of every Republican and one Democrat, then‑U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D‑W.Va.

Now Republicans own the trifecta, which proponents of the higher tax credits acknowledged made their job harder – but not impossible.

“I stand by two principles that my mother taught me years ago: Never give up and don’t take no for an answer,” DeLauro said. ​“If we can provide tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the nation, then, by God, they’re going to have a Child Tax Credit. Times change. Environments are different. I think we have one hell of a good case to make to the American people.”

As the Senate’s chief sponsor, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D‑Colo., put it: ​“Public pressure is the only thing that will change their minds. We have choices to make right now in America. This is a moral moment, We are making moral choices. Our view is we don’t want to leave America’s children behind as we make those choices.”