The Senate reconvened today at 10:00 A.M. and is expected to confirm the nomination of Dorothy Camille Shea to be Deputy Representative to the United Nations, and the Deputy Representative in the Security Council of the United Nations.
Around 1:45 PM, the Senate is expected to vote on the Motion to invoke cloture on motion to proceed to Cal. #349, H.R.7024, Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. Senate Republicans are expected to block the legislation that would cut taxes for working families and extend some corporate tax breaks, likely dooming a bipartisan compromise that the House had overwhelmingly approved and raising the stakes on taxes for this fall’s elections. The $79 billion legislation would expand eligibility for the child tax credit, or CTC, among the lowest-income families and adjust payments for inflation for the 2024 and 2025 filing years. It would also bolster certain business tax credits — including deductions for research and development, interest expenses and investments in equipment — that were limited in an effort to cap the total costs of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut law. The bill, the product of negotiations between Senate Democrats and House Republicans, passed the lower chamber with a large bipartisan majority in January.
Under the bill, low-income families could claim the child tax credit for multiple children; current law only counts it for one child for the lowest-earning families. Starting in 2025, the benefit would have been linked to inflation, which would add up to a roughly $100 jump. The Internal Revenue Service says it can apply the changes retroactively to taxes filed in April if the measure becomes law. Nonpartisan estimates say it would lift 400,000 children out of poverty. A previous, more generous Biden-era expansion of the credit kept 3 million children out of poverty, according to research conducted by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. The expansion expired at the end of 2021, and child poverty spiked immediately afterward.
