The proposed child-tax-credit expansion is bipartisan for a reason — it’s plain good policy that even politicians with major ideological differences can collaborate on.
The proposed child-tax-credit expansion is bipartisan for a reason — it’s plain good policy that even politicians with major ideological differences can collaborate on.
T he traditional March for Life snowstorm rolled in over D.C. last week, and the endless line of pink-cheeked pro-life marchers offered one kind of witness for women and children. Roe has fallen, and the marchers keep returning, no matter the weather, to let their bodies stand for the almost 1 million children who are killed, unseen, in the womb every year. The sustained witness of the March is important, but with abortion bans consistently losing the popular vote in state after state, the pro-life movement needs a clearer win. The proposed bipartisan Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion is the best victory on offer.
The proposed Smith-Wyden CTC package offers more targeted aid than the temporary, pandemic-era CTC expansion. It retains the traditional work requirement, rather than offering a fully universal benefit. It’s tailored to the pains of present inflation, not the pandemic. Until now, families have received an automatic cut to their CTC payments every year, because the per-child benefit was not indexed to inflation. It’s ludicrous at the best of times to imagine that raising a child gets cheaper each year. With working parents facing inflationary spikes and yet another formula recall and shortage, the automatic erosion of family support feels like a cruel joke.
The compromise bill would automatically index the payments to inflation, at least for the next two years, when a large chunk of tax cuts passed under President Trump in 2017 are scheduled to expire. The inflation-indexing smooths the way for parents over the next two years, and it lays a good foundation for the fight that’s coming over the CTC and other provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The proposed bill has several good fixes along these lines, helping families get more of the help that’s intended for them. Until now, bigger families were harshly penalized by the phase-in structure of the CTC. With every dollar a family earns above a minimum threshold ($2,500), they start receiving benefits with a 15 percent phase in — thus every $100 dollars earned above $2,500 unlocks $15 of the family’s potential benefit.
The new bill would phase in each child’s benefits simultaneously. A family with two children would phase in their CTC at $30 for every eligible $100 earned. A family of three would gain $45 for every $100 of earnings above the minimum. For working families earning minimum wages, this makes a difference of thousands of dollars. A family with three kids, supported by minimum-wage earnings, would go from being able to claim only $1,800 to claiming $5,400. It’s a good recognition of the way complications (and joys) multiply with additional children, especially as American women are disappointed by having fewer children than they hoped.
The proposed CTC expansion is bipartisan for a reason — it’s plain good policy that even politicians with major ideological differences can collaborate on. No one is getting her exact ideal — some Democrats would like the credit to be fully refundable, some Republicans would like the benefits to start pre-birth.
The new CTC plan isn’t going to close the birth gap or drive abortions to zero. But it’s a small cushion in hard times for families, when the natural family remains under attack and it’s hard for working families to meet their children’s needs. The typical woman seeking abortion remains a poorer mother, who is already caring for a big brother or sister to the baby in her womb. She’s a woman who knows she would struggle to cover the cost of an abortion, let alone the cost of raising a child.
The Dobbs decision means that pro-lifers are fighting a cultural battle, state by state, to keep killing from being the answer to poverty. At the same time, it’s essential that pro-lifers be explicit and enthusiastic backers of policies that would help the most vulnerable women choose life and hope for their children.
In the wake of Dobbs, many conservative, pro-life states finally opted into money for the Medicaid expansion that lets more poor mothers and children get insured and receive medical care. The next state-by-state fight is letting children who are food-insecure get summer support when schools are closed and the kids risk missing their one guaranteed meal of the day.
There aren’t many federal wins on the horizon, with Congress snarled in possible shutdowns and the election pending. The CTC deal, if it passes by January 29, would be retroactive and help parents when they file their 2023 taxes. The proposal takes the needs of children seriously and honors the promises that parents struggle to keep to their kids. Pro-lifers and parents both need this win.