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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.”
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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.
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Malaysia agrees to launch new search for MH370 plane, which vanished a decade ago with 239 people on board
Malaysia announced on Friday it has agreed to launch a new search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared 10 years ago in one of aviation’s greatest enduring mysteries.
The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has never been found. Malaysia’s prime minister said 17 days after the plane disappeared that, based on the satellite data, his government had concluded that the plane crashed down in a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, and that there were no survivors.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Malaysia had agreed to a new search operation by maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which also carried out an unsuccessful hunt in 2018.
The company’s first efforts followed a massive Australia-led search for the aircraft that lasted three years before it was suspended in January 2017.
Loke said a new 5,800 square mile area of the southern Indian Ocean would be scoured by Ocean Infinity, which is based in the United Kingdom and United States.
“The new search area proposed by Ocean Infinity is based on the latest information and data analysis conducted by experts and researchers,” Loke said.
“The proposal for a search operation by Ocean Infinity is a solid one and deserves to be considered,” he told reporters.
The government said it agreed to Ocean Infinity’s proposal “in principle” on December 13, with the transport ministry expected to finalize terms by early 2025.
The new search will resume “as soon as the contract is finalized and signed by both parties”, Loke said.
“They have informed us that the ideal time for the search in the designated waters is between January and April. We are working to finalise the agreement as quickly as possible,” he added.
“I truly hope there will be an end to the loss of MH370. May all questions be answered,” Malaysian Rosila Abu Samah, 60, the stepmother of one of the passengers, told AFP.
Supian Ahmad/NurPhoto/Getty
Malaysian Shim Kok Chau, 49, whose wife was a flight attendant on the ill-fated flight, said he had come to accept her fate but hopes to know what happened to the plane, “why it happened and who did it.”
Among the other victims was a celebrated group of 24 Chinese calligraphy artists coming from an exhibition of their work. Two young Iranian men on the plane, 18-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad and 29-year-old Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, were traveling on stolen passports to seek better lives in Europe.
Two of the U.S. citizens on the plane were young children, Nicole Meng, 4, and 2-year-old Yan Zhang.
Philip Wood was the only American adult on the flight. The IBM executive had been living in Beijing and was planning to relocate to the Malaysian capital with his girlfriend, Sarah Bajc.
“No find, no fee”
The new search will be on the same “no find, no fee” principle as Ocean Infinity’s previous search, with the government only paying out if they find the aircraft.
The contract is for 18 months and Malaysia will pay $70 million to the company if the plane is found, Loke said.
He said the decision to agree to a fresh search “reflects the Malaysian government’s commitment to continuing the search operation and providing closure to the families of the MH370 victims.”
The original Australia-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean but found hardly any trace of the plane, with only some pieces of debris picked up.
In July 2015, an airplane fragment later confirmed to be a flaperon from MH370 was found washed ashore on the western Indian Ocean island of Reunion. It was the first hard evidence that the plane had gone down in the area. More debris was later found washed up on the coast of eastern Africa.
YANNICK PITOU/AFP/Getty Images
The plane’s disappearance has long been the subject of theories — including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.
A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.
Asked if he was confident the plane will be found during the new search, Loke said: “At this point, no one can provide guarantees.
“It has been over 10 years, and it would be unfair to expect a concrete commitment. However, under the terms and conditions, any discovery must be credible. It cannot just be a few fragments; there are specific criteria outlined in the contract.”
A Utah mother who police believe was shot and killed by her husband along with three of their children was a refugee who fled violence in Myanmar and dreamed of thriving with her family in the U.S., relatives said Thursday.
Police believe the husband killed his family before shooting himself, and a teenage son was badly wounded.
The bodies of Bu Meh, 38, along with her daughters Kristina Ree, 8, and Nyay Meh, 2, and son Boe Reh, 11, were found in their home in West Valley City, a Salt Lake City suburb, on Tuesday. A handgun was found under the father Dae Reh, 42, leading police to believe this was a murder-suicide, but no evidence of a motive has been released.
One child, 17-year-old Sha Reh, survived being shot in the head and is hospitalized with a severe brain injury, police said.
Bu Meh, a member of Myanmar’s Karenni ethnic minority, fled what her relatives described as ethnic cleansing in the Southeast Asian nation about 10 years ago. She and her small family lived for a time in a refugee camp in Thailand, then came to the United States “with little more than the clothing on their backs,” the family said in a statement.
She taught herself English, learned new skills and worked hard to support her growing family, achieving a way of life “far beyond the nightmare of her former country or the refugee camp,” the family said.
“For reasons that we cannot comprehend, her husband robbed her and their children of that security and their very lives,” her family said.
Police believe the shooting happened over the weekend.
Police initially went to the home Monday night after a relative asked them to check on the family but did not find any sign of an emergency that would allow them to enter the home. The relative went to the home Tuesday, saw Sha Reh wounded in the garage and called police, who found the bodies inside the home.
In their statement, relatives called Sha Reh their hero and said he faces a “long and complex road to recovery.” An online fundraiser is collecting donations to pay for his care and to help him go to college.
“After moving into their own home and finally enjoying a level of prosperity far beyond the nightmare of their former country or the refugee camp in Thailand in which they lived for a season, and for reasons that we cannot comprehend,” the family wrote, “her husband robbed her and their children of that security and their very lives.”
Neighbors hadn’t reported any gunshots in the area over the weekend, police spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said at a news conference Wednesday. The family had no previous reports of domestic violence or other disturbances.
One neighbor spoke to CBS affiliate KUTV about the shock they felt.
“How can a father shoot his children?” neighbor Mike Webster told the station. “I just can’t grasp for that concept at all. I can just see that poor little two-year-old looking at her daddy.”
This Utah case is the 38th mass killing in the United States this year. At least 165 people have died this year in U.S. mass killings, which are defined by the FBI as cases in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer.
Mark Barden, whose child was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, urged Utah lawmakers to pass Red Flag laws after the incident in Utah, KUTV reported.
“When it is recognized that an individual is in crisis, measures to safely and temporarily remove firearms from their possession are proven to save lives,” Barden said.
A journalists’ association says two journalists working for Kurdish media outlets were killed in northern Syria while covering fighting between Turkish-backed fighters and Syrian Kurdish militia.
The Turkey-based Dicle-Firat Journalists Association said Friday that Nazim Dastan and Cihan Bilgin were killed Thursday when their vehicle was reportedly targeted by a Turkish drone on a road near the Tishrin Dam.
Tishrin Dam, located some 56 miles east of Aleppo, has been the scene of clashes between the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF, and the Turkey-backed opposition forces.
There was no immediate comment from Turkish officials.
Bianet, a news website dedicated to human rights issues, said Bilgin was a reporter for the Kurdish Hawar News Agency, while Dastan worked as a freelance journalist for the Firat News Agency, which is associated with the militant group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because its main component is a group aligned to the PKK.
The group has been engaged in an armed struggle against the Turkish state since the 1980s in pursuit of its objective of securing autonomy for Kurds in the country.