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How To Save the Child Tax Credit — and Build Back Better
President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is in deep trouble. Negotiations with pivotal fiftieth Senate vote Joe Manchin ran into a ditch this week, effectively shelving the bill until 2022 at best.
Mixed reports have suggested that Manchin particularly objects to extending the Biden Child Tax Credit. This is alarming, given that this year’s reinvention of the tax credit into a more generous monthly child allowance made historic gains against child poverty and is poised to become a signature legacy item for the Biden administration.
However, Manchin’s more fundamental — and valid — objection to the current contours of Build Back Better is that the bill stuffs miniature versions of a lot of programs into a single reconciliation package with an artificially low sticker price. It functions as a sample pack of the full Democratic agenda: a few years of pre-K, a single year of a child allowance, a handful of years of childcare, and so on.
Both sides recognize that this sample pack is meant to become a permanent purchase. Progressives want these programs to be reauthorized to stay in place for the long haul, which is precisely what Manchin fears, for it would balloon the “true” cost of the legislation.
