Aug. 1 (UPI) — A bid by Democrats to pass an expansion of the popular Child Tax Credit already agreed to in the House was blocked by Senate Republicans on Thursday amid a feud over remarks by Sen. J.D. Vance about “childless cat ladies.”
The proposed Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which would expand the Child Tax Credit to provide relief to lower-income families, failed in a vote of 48 in favor to 44 opposed. Sixty votes were needed to approve the measure.
The $78 billion measure passed the House with wide, bipartisan majorities in January following months of negotiations between House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Under its provisions, the maximum child tax credit would be hiked from $1,600 to $2,000 per child through 2025. The majority of the provisions would benefit 15 million children from lower-income families.
Among its other provisions, the deal restores three business tax deductions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of the Trump administration, which include allowing businesses to deduct research and development costs every year instead of over a five-year period. It also kills the fraud-plagued Employee Retention Tax Credit program, which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some Republican lawmakers, however, have remained critical of the bill, contending that “more than 90%” of the benefits are “new welfare cash payments, not tax cuts for working families” and weakens work requirements, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
Thursday’s move by Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, D-NY., to bring the stalled measure up for a vote just before the August recess despite unresolved Republican concerns came as Democrats lobbed heavy criticism at Vance, former President Donald Trump‘s vice presidential choice, for his remarks characterizing Democrats as “childless cat ladies” who are opposed to traditional families.
“It’s good to talk about standing up for families and business, but not if you then turn around and then vote against them here in the Senate,” Schumer said before the vote. “Today is a good opportunity for both sides to show we back up good talk with strong action.
“So, if you care about helping families, vote yes.”
Following the failed vote, Wyden said: “There’s always a lot of talk among Republicans about supporting families, competing with China and cracking down on fraud in government programs, but they just rejected a bill that would accomplish all of that in one package.”
Some analysts dismissed the vote as political theater on the part of Democrats, who knew the measure would fail but brought it to floor anyway in hopes of depicting Republicans as hypocritical on issues of family.
“The Democrats will then make commercials saying, ‘See? Republicans not only have a vice-presidential candidate who talks about cat ladies, but given the opportunity to actually help families with children, they didn’t do it,'” Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center senior fellow Howard Gleckman told The Hill.