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Child Tax Credit expansion faces uncertain path in Senate after House passage
Washington — The House saw a rare moment of bipartisanship late Wednesday when lawmakers approved a major tax bill that would expand the Child Tax Credit and extend some business tax breaks. But whether the Senate can maneuver the legislation to passage is another question.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 357 to 70, earning more support from Democrats than Republicans. Next up is the Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to send the bill to President Biden’s desk.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, unveiled an agreement on the legislation last month. They celebrated what they called a “common sense, bipartisan, bicameral tax framework” that they said will “promotes the financial security of working families, boosts growth and American competitiveness, and strengthens communities and Main Street businesses.”
“If Jason Smith and Ron Wyden can agree on something to this degree, that’s this complicated, I start with the notion that it’s certainly serious and we’ll take a look at it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who said he’s undecided on the bill, told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated on Wednesday that he supports the bill, and said he’s working with Wyden to determine the “best way forward.”
Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The legislation, known as the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, would enhance the Child Tax Credit to provide relief to lower-income families. The enhancement is smaller than a pandemic-era increase but it could still lift at least half a million children out of poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Nevertheless, opposition is expected from some Senate Republicans who have expressed concerns about the cost and the possibility of bolstering Mr. Biden’s reelection bid. And on the left, some progressives are also expected to oppose the legislation in its current form, arguing that it doesn’t go far enough to support low-income Americans.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, told reporters on Thursday that he’s “not inclined” to support the bill, noting that while he supports the tax provisions, he doesn’t support “adding a new entitlement that’s going to end up costing about $800 billion over a decade.”
The bill that passed the House would expand the credit for three years at a cost of roughly $33 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in November that an earlier version of the package would have cost about $825 billion over the course of 10 years if the tax breaks were made permanent. But the final deal included various offsets to pay for the tax breaks, and the CBO estimates it would have little impact on the deficit over the next decade.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa also reportedly expressed reservations about approving the bill during an election year.
“I think passing a tax bill that makes the president look good, mailing out checks before the election, means he could be reelected and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” he said Wednesday, according to Semafor, referring to a looming fight over Trump-era tax breaks, many of which are set to expire in 2025.
Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, said he thinks the legislation will have “good support” across the chamber, calling it a “good bill” negotiated on a bipartisan basis.
Cramer noted that “perfect can’t be the enemy of good,” pointing positively to the tax benefits for businesses while saying that the child tax credit elements could be tightened up.
“But when there’s enough for everybody to like most of it and enough for at least several to not like parts of it, it looks like a bipartisan deal,” Cramer added.
The bill would make it easier for more families to qualify for the Child Tax Credit, along with increasing the amount from $1,600 per child to $1,800 in 2023, $1,900 in 2024 and $2,000 in 2025. It would also adjust the limit in future years to account for inflation.
Adding to the possible roadblocks to the bill’s passage in the upper chamber is its already busy agenda. Senate negotiators have for months been embroiled in talks over a border security agreement tied to a supplemental funding bill. Lawmakers expect that agreement to come out any day, which would likely spur floor action that would occupy the chamber’s time.
Congress is also heading toward a funding cliff, with deadlines to stave off a government shutdown next month. And a possible trial, should the House vote to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, could further limit the Senate’s availability to take up the tax bill.
Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s top official for freeing Americans held overseas, on Friday arrived in Damascus, Syria, for a high-risk mission: making the first known face-to-face contact with the caretaker government and asking for help finding missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice was kidnapped in Syria 12 years ago during the civil war and brutal reign of now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For years, U.S. officials have said they do not know with certainty whether Tice is still alive, where he is being held or by whom.
The State Department’s top diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, accompanied Carstens to Damascus as a gesture of broader outreach to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, the rebel group that recently overthrew Assad’s regime and is emerging as a leading power.
Near East Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein was also with the delegation. They are the first American diplomats to visit Damascus in over a decade, according to a State Department spokesperson.
They plan to meet with HTS representatives to discuss transition principles endorsed by the U.S. and regional partners in Aqaba, Jordan, the spokesperson said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Aqaba last week to meet with Middle East leaders and discuss the situation in Syria.
While finding and freeing Tice and other American citizens who disappeared under the Assad regime is the ultimate goal, U.S. officials are downplaying expectations of a breakthrough on this trip. Multiple sources told CBS News that Carstens and Leaf’s intent is to convey U.S. interests to senior HTS leaders, and learn anything they can about Tice.
Rubinstein will lead the U.S. diplomacy in Syria, engaging directly with the Syrian people and key parties in Syria, the State Department spokesperson added.
Diplomatic outreach to HTS comes in a volatile, war-torn region at an uncertain moment. Two sources even compared the potential danger to the expeditionary diplomacy practiced by the late U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who led outreach to rebels in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and was killed in a terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound and intelligence post.
U.S. special operations forces known as JSOC provided security for the delegation as they traveled by vehicle across the Jordanian border and on the road to Damascus. The convoy was given assurances by HTS that it would be granted safe passage while in Syria, but there remains a threat of attacks by other terrorist groups, including ISIS.
CBS News withheld publication of this story for security concerns at the State Department’s request.
Sending high-level American diplomats to Damascus represents a significant step in reopening U.S.-Syria relations following the fall of the Assad regime less than two weeks ago. Operations at the U.S. embassy in Damascus have been suspended since 2012, shortly after the Assad regime brutally repressed an uprising that became a 14-year civil war and spawned 13 million Syrians to flee the country in one of the largest humanitarian disasters in the world.
The U.S. formally designated HTS, which had ties to al Qaeda, as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018. Its leader, Mohammed al Jolani, was designated as a terrorist by the US in 2013 and prior to that served time in a US prison in Iraq.
Since toppling Assad, HTS has publicly signaled interest in a new more moderate trajectory. Al Jolani even shed his nom de guerre and now uses his legal name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
U.S. sanctions on HTS linked to those terrorist designations complicate outreach somewhat, but they haven’t prevented American officials from making direct contact with HTS at the direction of President Biden. Blinken recently confirmed that U.S. officials were in touch with HTS representatives prior to Carstens and Leaf’s visit.
“We’ve heard positive statements coming from Mr. Jolani, the leader of HTS,” Blinken told Bloomberg News on Thursday. “But what everyone is focused on is what’s actually happening on the ground, what are they doing? Are they working to build a transition in Syria that brings everyone in?”
In that same interview, Blinken also seemed to dangle the possibility that the U.S. could help lift sanctions on HTS and its leader imposed by the United Nations, if HTS builds what he called an inclusive nonsectarian government and eventually holds elections. The Biden administration is not expected to lift the U.S. terrorist designation before the end of the president’s term on January 20th.
Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder disclosed Thursday that the U.S. currently has approximately 2,000 US troops inside of Syria as part of the mission to defeat ISIS, a far higher number than the 900 troops the Biden administration had previously acknowledged. There are at least five U.S. military bases in the north and south of the country.
The Biden administration is concerned that thousands of ISIS prisoners held at a camp known as al-Hol could be freed. It is currently guarded by the Syrian Democratic forces, Kurdish allies of the U.S. who are wary of the newly-powerful HTS. The situation on the ground is rapidly changing since Russia and Iran withdrew military support from the Assad regime, which has reset the balance of power. Turkey, which has been a sometimes problematic U.S. ally, has been a conduit to HTS and is emerging as a power broker.
A high-risk mission like this is unusual for the typically risk averse Biden administration, which has exercised consistently restrained diplomacy. Blinken approved Carstens and Leaf’s trip and relevant congressional leaders were briefed on it days ago.
“I think it’s important to have direct communication, it’s important to speak as clearly as possible, to listen, to make sure that we understand as best we can where they’re going and where they want to go,” Blinken said Thursday.
At a news conference in Moscow Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had not yet met with Assad, who fled to Russia when his regime fell earlier this month. Putin added that he would ask Assad about Austin Tice when they do meet.
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran, worked for multiple news organizations including CBS News.
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