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The White House‘s list of income priorities this month featured a significant omission: an enlargement of the child tax breaks, a scheme favored by a growing number of Republicans.
The GOP may have the opportunity to expand the Trump tax cuts from the 2017 and expand the tax code, or add new ones, as a result. Although Vice President JD Vance had pushed for increasing the child tax credit, the White House’s objectives have since been released, but they have not been included in the list.
A White House official sent a connection to a social media post list the Trump tax interests when the Washington Examiner inquired about potential changes to the child tax credit.
Among them are reducing taxes on ideas, ending levies on Social Security, lowering the cover on the state and local tax exemption, removing special tax breaks for businessman gymnastics team owners, closing the “loophole” for the carried interest tax deduction, and introducing tax breaks for made-in-America items.
The biggest piece of the pie, though, is the overall extension of the TCJA. If the tax cuts are extended, it would stop the credit from returning to the$ 1, 000 level, where it was before the TCJA was signed into law, even though the White House is not pushing for expanding the child tax credit from its current$ 2, 000 level.
An increasing number of lawmakers have pushed for a larger child tax credit and more economic incentives for family creation as the GOP increasingly embraces populism.
In a reconciliation effort, some Republican lawmakers are already urging a higher child tax credit.
For instance, Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) is pushing for his plan to more than double the child tax credit to be included in the legislative vehicle.
Despite a bigger child tax credit not being listed among the White House’s priorities, Moore said he hopes there will be a boost to the prized credit in reconciliation. He said he appreciated the Trump administration’s “whole-of-government approach” to family creation.
” The Trump-Vance administration has been vocal about their intention to promote pro-family policies, and I remain hopeful that child tax credit modernization will be included in reconciliation”, he told the Washington Examiner. We have a fantastic opportunity to achieve real results for Americans as we work toward this reconciliation, and I’m committed to supporting inclusion and adhering to Utah’s outstanding model of supporting families and creating strong communities.
The director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, Josh McCabe, said he was disappointed that the child tax credit’s language was left out of the White House’s list of priority tax priorities, but that he believes there is enough support to add an increase at some point in the reconciliation process.
” I saw that report and said,’ OK, you know, this is just sort of short-term politics,'” McCabe told the Washington Examiner. ” I believe there will be something on the CTC that will allow it to grow in some capacity,” the statement goes.
McCabe noted that the supporters of the child tax credit might not be the loudest audience members on Capitol Hill. For instance, those who support raising the SALT cap from$ 10,000 have been extremely vocal about including changes.
Given Republicans ‘ wire-thin majority, those who support a larger child tax credit will also have some powerful influence in the House.
In 2017, when the TCJA was first crafted, Republicans could spare to lose votes in the House, but the Senate was tighter. Only a select few House members can now withdraw their votes to make concessions because Republicans require every member’s support to pass legislation.
Notably, in 2017, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL ) successfully used the thin margins in the Senate to exact concessions and force lawmakers to include a bigger child tax credit. He threatened to withhold his decision to support the tax plan unless the credit was increased.
Some proponents of child tax credits argue that it is necessary for demographic reasons, as Vance has mentioned. For instance, in , interviews , with the , Washington Examiner, both Kari Lake, who ran for Senate in Arizona, and Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)  , brought up , the issue.
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The , total fertility , rate, or the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, plummeted to 1.62 in 2023, the lowest level in a century, according to the , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rate has trended down since 2007, when the total fertility , rate , reached the , replacement , rate , of 2.1 births per woman. Demographers define the , replacement , rate , as the number of births that will keep a population stable, with no growth or decline.