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Good morning,
It was a late but historic night in the Senate. After hours of pointless delay by Mitch McConnell, we finally passed the American Rescue Plan, our comprehensive bill to crush the virus, support workers and families, and put us on a path to reopen the country as safely and quickly as possible.
There are so many critical parts to the bill – from investing in vaccines, to helping students return to class safely, to supporting state and local governments. Today, I want to focus on one part that’s especially meaningful to me: expanding the Child Tax Credit.
I began working on this effort several years ago, and it’s beyond gratifying to see it on the cusp of becoming law. Once President Biden signs the bill, almost every family in America will receive $3,000 per child, and $3,600 for kids under the age of six over the next year. After so many people have lost jobs and incomes during the pandemic, the expanded benefit will help families buy textbooks, groceries, clothes, diapers, laptops, and cover the thousand other expenses that come with raising a child in America.
This expansion to the Child Tax Credit will benefit almost 90 percent of kids under 18 in Colorado, including 350,000 kids who didn’t fully benefit from the existing credit because of its current design. It will lift 57,000 kids in Colorado out of poverty, and slash child poverty nationwide almost in half. It will cut poverty for Hispanic kids by more than 45 percent, for Black kids by more than 50 percent, and for Native American kids by more than 60 percent.
This will be the most significant victory against child poverty in generations, but we can’t stop there. The stronger child benefit will expire after a year, so if we’re going to secure our gains against child poverty and provide lasting support to families, we have to do everything we can to make it permanent.
I may have only slept for a few hours, but I’ve never felt more energized by the opportunity in front of us.
Onward,
Michael
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