Why Republicans and Democrats in Congress Are Working Together to Lift 400,000 Kids out of Poverty
A new deal on the Child Tax Credit shows how the Republican Party is changing
Missouri Republican Congressman Jason Smith is no liberal. He’s long been a critic of Democratic policies and once went viral for lampooning the other party’s support for greater taxes.
“You know, I love ice cream,” he said during a meeting with his colleagues in Congress six years ago. “Ice cream’s probably not the most healthy thing to eat. Why is there not a tax on that? You know what if you look at the number one cause of skin cancer, it’s not tanning beds. Do a Google search. It’s the sun! So I know the people over here haven’t found too many taxes that they dislike. So why have they not proposed a tax on the sun?!”
But that same Congressman recently worked alongside Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden to unveil a package last month that would expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in a way that could lift an estimated 400,000 children out of poverty.
Smith, who helms the Ways and Means committee in the House, and Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, included the provision in a larger tax deal they worked out that would offer more tax relief to some businesses, among other provisions.
The package, if passed, would boost the amount of money that poor families can get from the tax credit by changing the way that it’s phased in so that it’s easier to get the full benefit; it would also index those benefits to inflation. Under current law, the tax credit is refundable up to $1,600 per child; if the Wyden-Smith version is passed into law, the credit’s refundability would increase every tax year until 2025, when it hits $2,000. There are also other changes to the credit including indexing the total for inflation.
It’s not quite as generous as the now-expired extended child tax credit that was implemented by Biden and the Democrats in 2021 – that one offered benefits to families even if parents had no income at all – but it’s a substantial improvement over the status quo. (You can read a more detailed analysis of the changes here.)
And this past week, it won a lot of Republican support. The tax deal sailed through the House of Representatives on a 357 to 70 vote (twice as many House Republicans voted against it as House Democrats). Now it’s up to the Senate to take up the bill, and many observers believe that while the upper body of Congress may make some changes, some form of expanded CTC will pass.
What explains how so many Republicans are increasingly open to supporting working families with government aid? Public spoke to long-time conservative operatives to find out.
A Republican Party That Is Slowly Evolving Toward a New Base
