U.S. Senator Michael Bennet had a few comments to offer his Senate colleagues earlier this week, concerning Child Tax Credits, and he posted a video of his remarks, as captured by C-SPAN.
As a person who enjoys editing, I edited the video slightly to fit it into 4 minutes. (You can view the entire video here.)
According to Finance Committee chair, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, Senator Bennet has “been in this fight since Day One…”
The fight — mostly a partisan fight, at this point — concerns a proposal to help lift American children out of poverty through the mechanism of “tax credits”. The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 was scheduled for a procedural vote yesterday, August 1, in the Senate. According to news sources, “Senate Republicans” blocked the $79 billion legislation.
Senator Bennet began by telling his colleagues he didn’t want to give them a “long history lesson”.
So he gave them a short history lesson.
Part of his history lesson touched on the “Trickle-Down Theory” of national economics. Here’s the edited video.
Michael Bennet began serving as Colorado’s U.S. Senator in 2009, when he was appointed to fill Senator Ken Salazar’s remaining term, when Salazar became Secretary of the Interior under President Obama. He’s been consistently re-elected since then, every six years. Prior to 2009, he held a number of political positions, including chief of staff for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, and as superintendent of Denver Public Schools.
The legislation Senator Bennet has been promoting would expand the Child Tax Credit to provide relief to lower-income families. Although it’s more modest than the COVID-era enhancement of the credit — which greatly reduced child poverty but ended in 2021 — it could still lift roughly half a million children out of poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, unveiled an agreement on the legislation in January, calling it a “common sense, bipartisan, bicameral tax framework.” Later than month, the House approved the legislation by a 357 to 70 vote… in a rare moment of bipartisanship. (Emphasis on the word “rare”.)
The bill would make it easier for families to qualify for the Child Tax Credit, along with increasing the amount from $1,600 per child to $1,800 in 2023; $1,900 in 2024; and $2,000 in 2025. It would also adjust the limit in future years to account for inflation. The credit expansion would cost roughly $33 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It includes various offsets to pay for the tax breaks, and the CBO estimates it would have little impact on the deficit over the next decade.
The bill also includes some revived tax cuts for businesses — worth about $46 billion — for things like research and development.
In his speech, Senator Bennet proposed that the current political divisiveness in our country has come about because “people in America have lost that sense of having economic mobility for themselves and their families.”
“You know, the whole idea of the American Dream was that, if you worked hard enough, that your kids were going to do better than you did, and that your grandkids were going to do better than they did. And that’s been lost.
“It’s not irrecoverable, but there are so many families in Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon… they’re going through the same thing that people all over America are going through, which is, they’re working harder than ever before, and they’re bring less home.”
While “the people at the very top” are doing better than ever, he said. Without working harder?
Senator Bennet asserted that “we have a tool — the Child Tax Credit — that will actually lift half a million American children out of poverty…”
But as with any federal legislation, the devil is in the details, and political gamesmanship is in play. For whatever reasons, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act sat on the Senate’s back burner since January, to be brought out at the very end of the summer session, before Congress heads home to campaign for re-election.
NBC News shared a story yesterday by journalists Sahil Kapur, Julie Tsirkin, Kate Santaliz, Frank Thorp, Syedah Asghar and Ava Thompson.
The vote on the bill, which would provide the most financial help to multi-child households, comes as Senator JD Vance, R-Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee, faces heated criticism over past remarks disparaging “childless cat ladies” and questioning the character of women who choose not to have kids.
Vance is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday and is expected to miss the vote. His office didn’t say how he’d vote if he were in Washington.
Asked about Vance’s labeling Democrats “anti-family,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who negotiated the bill with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., responded: “There’s a lot of weird stuff going on here.”
Senator JD Vance has been in the news lately, of course — not for any outstanding achievements in the U.S. Senate, but rather because of comments he’s made, prior to, and after, his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate.
Some of his comment have referenced the positive benefits when women have children, and his belief that Americans ought to have more children. In fact, he once proposed that children ought to be granted voting rights, with their parents handing the actual casting of the votes, on their behalf. Of course, he’s speaking in general terms.
Senator Bennet was also speaking in general terms. Although he’s not suggesting voting rights for children, he would like to see them lifted out of poverty.
We all love children.
But do we really?