A bipartisan bill that would expand the child tax credit and restore several business tax breaks was blocked by Senate Republicans Thursday. The procedural vote was 48 to 44, with the bill falling well short of the 60 votes required for advancement.
The $78 billion package would aid millions of families by making more of the child tax credit refundable, providing larger cash payments to households with children. It would also restore tax breaks for research and development expenditures that had expired as part of the 2017 tax law. The cost of the tax breaks would be offset by ending the Employee Retention Tax Credit, a pandemic-era support program that has been marred by fraud, ahead of schedule.
The legislation, co-authored by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Republican Rep. Jason Smith, easily passed the House earlier this year in a bipartisan 357 to 70 vote. Although it was clear that the bill would not pass the Senate due to Republican opposition, based in part on a lack of work requirements for the child tax credit enhancement, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the substance of the bill should be enough to push it through. “This should be a no-brainer,” Schumer said. “Even House Republicans united long enough to pass this.”
But Senate Republicans showed little interest in handing Schumer a victory ahead of an election that could deliver control of the upper chamber to the GOP in just a few months. “I think we can do better next year,” said Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.
The vote provided Democrats with an opportunity to attack Sen. JD Vance, the Ohio Republican who is now former President Donald Trump’s running mate. Vance, who missed the vote to attend a campaign event, has disparaged Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies” who have no stake in the future of the country. Democrats were happy to highlight Republican opposition to policies that help ordinary families.
“Senate Republicans love to talk about how they are the party of family and business. So it’s very odd to see them come out so aggressively against expanding the child tax credit and rewarding business with the [research and development] tax credit,” Schumer said.
Wyden, the bill’s co-author, made a similar argument earlier this week. “[Republicans] just haven’t been willing ... to actually follow through with their kind of rhetoric. The rhetoric is that they care so much about kids and family,” he said. “But then when you look at what happened ... they haven’t been there.”
Sen. Mike Crapo, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, dismissed the whole thing as a “show vote” held on the last day before the Senate’s long summer break. Crapo accused Democrats of “fabricating a narrative that Republicans don’t support small business, children or alleviating poverty.”
The bill also had the backing of big business, and lobbyists expressed frustration at the lack of progress on the measure. “The prolonged uncertainty surrounding the extension of these policies has curtailed American businesses’ ability to invest, compete and grow, and we urge Congress to find a path to restoring them this year,” said Watson McLeish, the senior vice president for tax policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
