A Child Tax Benefit Deadline
Terry H. Schwadron
Jan. 4, 2022
Return of Congress means the clock is now officially ticking on aid to children, as monthly government payments bundled as child tax credits run out this month.
The disagreement among Democrats continues about how much, how big, how expansive a big spending proposal should be, and we can now expect to hear of backdoor wheeling and dealing to capture the vote of Sen. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, towards an effort to keep the program alive.
We can also expect maneuvering to find the best legislative vehicle for doing so, possibly as a standalone measure separate from any other spending bill.
In an evenly split Senate, Manchin’s opposition effectively killing Joe Biden’s proposed Build Back Better legislation necessarily has included a forced end to these child credits that are seen as having had a significant impact on child poverty by presenting the credit in the form of monthly checks to families.
The New York Times reported that researchers at Columbia University estimate that the payments kept 3.8 million children out of poverty in November, a nearly 30 percent reduction in the child poverty rate, and other studies have found other benefits to hunger and financial survivability through monthly payments.
Congress approved the program for one year as part of relatively temporary covid aid to families, but many progressives had wanted its extension through the larger Biden bill.
In knee-capping the overall approach to improvements in a wide number of social services, Manchin did say he would work on a more targeted approach to the child tax credit, insisting that it needs income caps to help only the poor. Republicans unanimously blocked the earlier bill for child tax credits.
The Returning Congress
So, here we are, back with a Senate that has a long agenda, simmering political distrusts, and no agreement about rules changes that would allow some of the log-jammed legislation to move through on majority vote short of the 60 votes required to beat a filibuster.
Support in the House to continue the aid is easier to come by.
Even if new legislation is crafted narrowly to Manchin’s specifications — a prospect that seemly likely to win wider support from Democrats eager to put a win on the electoral board — it still needs 10 Republicans.
Since their opposition to the idea a year ago, Republicans have proved somewhat more open to a program they recognize has been popular and effective, though they want to kill off most spending proposals from the Biden administration. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and even Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex, have made favorable statements.
Actually, the idea of child tax credits was a product of Republican-backed legislation when it began in 1997.
The idea a year ago was to put more cash in the hands of families beset by covid, as part of an overall strategy to allow families to get through the effects of pandemic and to stimulate an economy that would have to recover from lockdowns. Thus, the American Rescue Plan legislation got through Congress last year, including the monthly child payments.
By now, however, a lot of the congressional talk is about the long-term effects of stimulus, and open questioning of whether programs including the monthly supports of this child program will encourage families to avoid taking jobs. Various studies since the new child benefit took effect, however, have found no evidence that it has done much to discourage people from working, and some researchers say it could actually lead more people to work by making it easier for parents of young children to afford child care.
The Covid Effect
Of course, we never got over covid, and instead have seen that the combination of wide-enough vaccine resistance and continuing mutation of the basic covid disease continues to plague us.
For those who measure covid only through its effect on the national or global economy, the results are mixed at best. Jobs have returned as a byproduct of both spending demand and a desire to go to work, and there are fewer people reported to be looking for work or leaving the job marketplace than a year ago. But prices on selected goods also have soared, replacing questions of stalled economic activity with concerns about built-in inflation.
For those who measure covid by effect on families, there is no question that allowing the child benefits to end as the result of political gridlock in Washington will create a measurably deterioration in basic survival for those hovering near the national poverty line.
For those betting primarily on the politics of all this, watch for Manchin to press his colleagues and Biden to dramatically lowers the income caps for eligible families, to include enough off-setting taxes to fully pay for the benefits, and possibly to suggest that the quickest way to a bill is by separating it from a rebuilt social services and climate bill.
It’s hard enough to do all this under the continuing 50–50 split in the Senate. It’s harder to see success emerging under pressure of deadline with voting rights, filibuster rules, climate, budget authorization and a looming Russia-Ukraine impasse over invasion looming over all the discussion.
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