Evan Vucci/AP Photo
President Joe Biden talks with reporters on the Ellipse on the National Mall after spending the weekend at Camp David, April 5, 2021, in Washington.
Biden’s recently enacted American Rescue Plan provides the credit for one year. It needs to be permanent.
The tax credit is transformative. It gives all but the richest a basic income of $3,000 per year per child under 18, topped up to $3,600 for kids under six. This will cut the child poverty rate in half.
President Biden personally told the House Democratic Caucus, in response to a question from Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state, one of the three prime sponsors of the credit, that he favors making it permanent. This was confirmed by press chief Jen Psaki, speaking to reporters on Air Force One.
However, some senior administration staffers favor extending it only four years, to limit the cost and need for offsetting tax increases. Biden will decide which way to go sometime in the next week, and his decision will be reflected in his next major bill, the American Families Plan.
A mere four-year extension would be a huge mistake. We don’t know who will be president and who will control Congress in 2025. We don’t know who will be House Speaker. The current speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been a powerful supporter of a large and permanent children’s allowance.
The time to get this done—permanently—is now.
The credit costs about $113 billion a year. In that sense, the Child Tax Credit is competing with other Biden public-investment priorities that also need to be financed by tax revenues.
Biden’s first cut at a tax bill would raise some $300 billion a year by increasing individual and corporate tax rates. But there is more room, since Biden’s plan goes only partway to restoring the tax rates that were in effect under Obama.
There is also more revenue to be had from better tax enforcement, since virtually all of the big-ticket tax evasion comes from the very rich. Natasha Sarin, recently appointed as a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, calculated in a paper with Larry Summers for the National Bureau of Economic Research that better tax compliance could bring in about $100 billion a year, roughly the cost of the Child Tax Credit.
Let’s see—give all of America’s kids a fairer start in life, or let the richest get away with evading taxes? Bring it on!
