Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bipartisan bill to expand tax credits for parents as Republicans and Democrats clashed over comments by Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Senators voted 48-44 to pass a bill co-authored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri) that would increase the Child Tax Credit (CTC), eliminate the fraud-ridden Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) program, and restore other tax credits for businesses.
The bill needed the support of at least 60 senators to get past its first hurdle on Thursday.
Only three Republicans voted in favor of moving the bill forward: Sens. Josh Hawley (Missouri), Rick Scott (Fla.), and Markwayne Mullin (Okla.). Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vermont, I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin (Va., Iowa) voted against the bill.
Senator Vance and seven other senators did not vote.
The Wieden-Smith bill easily passed the House of Representatives in January with broad bipartisan support but stalled in the Senate because Republicans worried it could hand Democrats a major victory before the election. Senate Republicans also said the bill did not impose strict enough work requirements on CTC recipients.
But following Vance’s controversial comments in which he dismissed Democratic leaders as “childless, cat-loving women,” Democrats seized the opportunity to turn the argument against Republicans and put the CTC expansion to a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., prepared to put the bill to a vote last week before the Senate recess.
“Senate Republicans often say they are the party of families and business, so it’s very odd that they would vehemently oppose expanding the child tax credit and providing subsidies to businesses. [research and development] “I’m going to propose a tax credit in Congress,” Schumer said.
Schumer initially voted for the bill but then reversed his vote, a procedural step that allows him to call for another vote on the bill.
Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, made a similar argument Monday.
“[Republicans] “Like I said, they’re not willing to actually follow through on what they claim to do. In their claim, they say they care deeply about children and families. But if you look at what happened in February, March, April, May and June, they were not there,” Wyden said.
Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, countered that Democrats were well aware of Senate Republican concerns about the bill for months but failed to make an effort to reach an agreement. He accused Democrats of holding certain business deductions “hostage” to a “cynical” political maneuver.
“The sham voting could not be more evident than today’s vote just before the August recess,” he said.
Crapo said Democrats engineered Thursday’s vote “hoping to manufacture a narrative that Republicans don’t support small businesses, children or poverty alleviation.”
“It seemed likely that Senate Republicans would be well-received if they asked the Finance Committee to amend the bill, but those requests, which began in January, continue to be ignored,” he added.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told reporters: Earlier this year He said passage of the bill could “improve the image” of President Biden and help his reelection campaign, but it could also jeopardize the 2017 Trump tax bill, which Republicans want to renew.
Republicans oppose the bill on the grounds that it does not have sufficient work requirements to expand the child tax credit and that it could potentially apply to non-U.S. citizens.
Sen. John Thune, D-Lausanne, told The Hill in May that it would take “a while” for the bill to gain traction as far as Republicans are concerned.
“I think it’s going to take some time to get back on track. Right now the Senate doesn’t have the votes to move the bill,” he said.
But analysts said Thursday’s vote was less about the policy design than the political prospects of the bill’s failure, especially in light of Vance’s recent comments calling Democratic leaders “a bunch of childfree catwomen who are miserable in their lives.”
“Then Democrats will make a commercial that says, ‘Look, not only do the Republicans have a running mate who talks about women who love cats, but they actually had an opportunity to help families with children and they didn’t do it,'” Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told The Hill.
“That’s the game. It’s just a little bit of congressional drama, a little bit of Senate drama,” Gleckman added.
Garrett Watson, a senior analyst at the Tax Foundation, said that if the tax bill had passed, it would have been a bigger win for Democrats than Republicans.
“Generally speaking, that’s the consensus,” he told The Hill. “If Democrats get the CTC expansion done, as it is in this bill, it would be a surefire way for them to have more influence going into next year.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) emphasized that point after Republicans rejected the tax cuts in the Senate on Thursday.
“The next time I hear them talking about the need for tax cuts, I’m going to ask my colleagues how they voted today. How did they vote when they had the opportunity to provide tax cuts for ordinary people? Maybe the issue isn’t tax cuts, but who are they cutting taxes for?” he said.
Alice Foley contributed.
Updated 2:58 p.m.
