WASHINGTON – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is challenging Republicans to vote against a bipartisan tax cut package that aims to expand the child tax credit to millions of families and restore some tax breaks for businesses.
And Republicans appear poised to do just that on Thursday, with many arguing they will have more power to pass the tax changes they want if their party wins control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in the November elections. . Big parts of the tax cut package passed under republican control in 2017 are expected to expire after 2025, putting fiscal issues at the forefront.
“I think we can do better next year,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
It’s expected to be the final vote senators will take before they return home for their August recess, and it underscores how both parties are trying to highlight issues they believe will resonate with voters in November. Democrats are also seeking to counter claims by Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, that Democrats are “anti-family.”
“The American people will have the opportunity to see which senators actually support tax cuts for parents, businesses and housing, and who opposes it,” Schumer said.
The package of around US$79 billion was approved in the Chamber overwhelmingly in January, 357-70. But he was paralyzed in the Senate. The procedural vote to advance the measure will require the support of 60 senators, which is unlikely.
The bill was crafted through negotiations between Representative Jason Smith, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. It would restore the full and immediate deductions that companies can make for the purchase of new equipment and machinery and for internal research and development expenses. It would also help more low-income families take better advantage of the child tax credit.
The changes to the child tax credit would lift up to 500,000 people out of poverty when the proposal is fully in place, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In total, the families of around 16 million children would benefit, the liberal think tank said.
The bill is paid by accelerating the deadline by which companies could file retroactive claims for employees they kept on payrolls during the COVID pandemic. The IRS said a significant majority of retroactive claims are at high risk of fraud.
With the bill apparently lacking the support needed to overcome procedural hurdles, Schumer chose for months not to put it up for a vote. But election season presented an opportunity for Democrats to focus on the issue and also shine a spotlight on Vance. Schumer even referenced the “junior senator from Ohio” when speaking on the Senate floor, leaving no doubt that he was part of their thinking in carrying out the vote.
Vance stated in an interview with Fox News that Vice President Kamala Harris was calling for an end to the child tax credit. But the Biden administration has led the effort to strengthen child tax credit during the pandemic and unsuccessfully fought to continue the expansion, which temporarily increased the credit to $3,000 a year, added 17-year-olds and increased the amount to $3,600 for children under six.
Schumer called Vance’s claim “old nonsense” and said the 2021 expansion was one of the most significant achievements Democrats have had under the Biden-Harris administration.
Vance also suggested in 2021 that political leaders who did not have biological children “don’t really have a direct interest” in the country. He doubled down on those remarks after clips of the remarks resurfaced, saying earlier this week on the SiriusXM radio program “The Megyn Kelly Show” that the Democratic Party had become “anti-family and anti-child.”
“Republicans have been making big speeches about how they are pro-family and pro-children, and they say it over and over again. But when it comes time to vote, they disappear,” Wyden said. “Now, they will get the vote out and we will be able to see who will be there for the children and families.”
Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, both in competitive races this fall, spoke extensively on the Senate floor in support of the bill. But Cornyn, the Texas Republican, called Thursday’s action the latest in a series of “spectacular votes” destined to fail but that would give Democrats “a talking point or two in the campaign.” He said the bill should have been the subject of a Senate committee hearing that would have allowed lawmakers to shape it before it reached the floor.
Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said he expects some Republicans to vote in favor of the measure, but anticipated it would not be enough to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the bill. He said there are good things in the legislation, but “if we are in a position to do it next year, it will be a much stronger bill.”
Thune said it won’t be difficult for Republicans to dismiss criticism that they haven’t sufficiently supported tax cuts for businesses and families.
“There are certain issues that voters instinctively know Republicans are better on,” Thune said. “They can try to make that argument in a political ad, but I think it will be difficult to sustain it when most voters know that it was the Republicans in 2017 who cut taxes and that next year it will be the Republicans who extend those tax cuts. if we have the majority.”
