Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill from the House on Thursday, ending for now the hope of much-needed financial relief for low-income families. This House of Representatives—the House of Chaos—managed to pass this bipartisan bill with a majority of GOP votesbut Senate Republicans wouldn’t let it happen.
After the House passed the bill, the Senate GOP made it very clear why they wouldn’t allow it to get any further. In January, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley admitted that “passing a tax bill that makes the president look good mailing out checks before the election, means he could be reelected and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” referring to the tax cuts that passed under President Trump and benefited the rich.
True to form, Republicans wouldn’t give the Democrats and low-income households this win.
The bill would have expanded the child tax credit and allowed low-income families who don’t now get the full credit to claim it, helping about 16 million children. About half of children’s families would receive $630 or more, according to an analysis by Center on Budget and Policy Prioritiesa progressive think tank. The bill also included a temporary extension of a handful of business tax benefits from the Republicans’ 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire, as well as disaster relief for recent hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Following the vote on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted his GOP colleagues.
“Senate Republicans love to talk about how they are the party of family and business. So it’s very odd to see them come out so aggressively against expanding the child tax credit and rewarding business with the [research and development] tax credit,” Schumer said.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who negotiated the bill with GOP House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith of Missouri, hit a brick wall in the Senate Finance Committee while trying to negotiate a compromise bill with ranking Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho.
“[Republicans] just haven’t been willing, as I said, to actually follow through with their kind of rhetoric,” Wyden said. “The rhetoric is that they care so much about kids and family. But then when you look at what happened in February, in March, in April, in May, in June—you just go on and on—they haven’t been there,” Wyden said.
For his part, Crapo complained about the bill helping poorer families too much. “[M]ore than $30 billion of the cost to expand the child tax credit in this bill … would go to individuals who pay no federal income tax. That isn’t tax relief—it’s a subsidy,” he said.
That was indeed the intent of the bill: to help the people who make too little to owe income taxes. Incidentally, it would aid a lot of families in Crapo’s home state of Idaho, which still has a $7.25/hour minimum wage.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance was not there, as expectedsince he was too busy campaigning as Trump’s running mate. This could have been a good vote for him, showing that he cares more about helping children than punishing people who are childless. Despite general Republican opposition to the bill, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Rick Scott of Florida all broke with their colleagues and voted for it.
But the supposedly pro-family Republican Senate is still led by Mitch McConnell and his rules: Don’t let Democrats win, even if it means lifting children out of poverty
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