The child tax credit has become an important issue in the U.S. elections that are coming up. During the most recent presidential debate, Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, talked about her plan to give $6,000 to families with babies.
She stressed the need for more help for parents in the first year of a child’s life. Harris said that the goal of this program is to make it easier for families to pay their bills during a very important time in a child’s growth.
During the discussion, Harris talked about how important it is to help young families more. As part of her plan, she wants to raise the child tax credit for parents with kids younger than one year to $6,000.
This plan would keep the current scheme going, which gives $2,000 to each child under 17 who lives with their parents. Harris’s plan would give parents of babies a lot more financial help, which would be very helpful at a very important time in their child’s development.
An expanded child tax credit: Kamala Harris’ proposal
The idea of expanding the child tax credit has been talked about among Democrats, especially since the American Rescue Plan went into effect in 2021. This plan is not completely new. This short-term move raised the child tax credit to $3,600 for kids younger than six and $3,000 for kids six to seventeen.
Even though the increase was only temporary, it made a big difference in lowering child poverty, which is what Harris wants her new plan to do.
How the new child tax credit would work
At the moment, the child tax credit gives parents up to $2,000 for each kid who lives with them, with $1,600 of that amount being refundable. And this means that parents can get that amount back as a return even if they owe little or no tax. The $400 that is left can only be used to lower the amount of taxes that are owed.
Harris wants to go even further by giving $6,000 for the first year of the baby’s life. So that this amount can cover some of the big costs that families have in the first few months, like clothing, food, medical care, and other necessities.
Like the 2021 expansion, Harris’s plan would get rid of the work and income requirements so that all qualified families could get the full credit, no matter how much money they have.
Why is this proposal important?
Parents have to pay a lot of money in the first year of their child’s life. Families often have to pay for medical bills, buy things the baby needs, and lose money if one parent has to take time off to care for the baby.
Harris wants to raise the child tax credit to $6,000. This will help families with money problems so they can focus on taking care of and improving their kids’ health without having to worry about money issues.
Also, increasing the child tax credit could make a big difference in lowering the number of poor children, as we saw with the brief rise in 2021.
The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University says that the 2021 increase cut the number of poor children living in poverty each month by almost 30%. If Harris’s plan is put into action, it could repeat this success and help millions of kids grow up in homes with more money.
Comparison with Republican proposals
Some Republicans are also interested in raising the child tax credit, even though Democrats have made it a top priority to do so. For example, during his campaign, Donald Trump, the former president, said that he might think about a “significant expansion” of the child tax credit. But he hasn’t said exactly what his plan would be.
In a separate interview, Trump’s running mate on the Republican ticket, Senator J.D. Vance, said that he would like to see a child tax credit of up to $5,000 per child. However, both Vance and Trump agree that any plan to increase the child tax credit would rest on talks with Congress and how well the idea would work financially.
How would the expanded child tax credit be funded?
How Harris’s plan would be paid for is one of the main questions that people have about it. Harris has talked about the idea of raising taxes on big businesses and people with lots of money to pay for her economic plan, which includes the bigger child tax credit and other steps to help families.
However, the details of these tax hikes have not yet been made public, which makes it unclear how the plan would be fully paid for.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that while increasing the child tax credit is a good idea, the tax hikes that are needed to pay for it must be clear and able to be kept up over time. Harris keeps saying that her plan would help working families and help reduce child poverty, even though these things worry people.
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