Washington
CNN
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Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance is dealing with criticism over his earlier feedback about individuals with out youngsters, together with one 2021 remark denouncing “childless cat women” in authorities and another through which he mentioned that, as a way to “tax the issues which can be dangerous and never tax the issues which can be good,” individuals with out youngsters ought to pay the next tax charge than individuals with youngsters.
Vance is now making an attempt to show the tables on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Vance said, “I feel numerous dad and mom and numerous non-parents have a look at our public coverage during the last 4 years and ask, ‘How did we get to this place? How did we get to a spot the place Kamala Harris is looking for an finish to the kid tax credit score?’”
Details First: Vance’s declare that Harris is looking to finish the kid tax credit score is fake. In actual fact, it’s the reverse of actuality: Harris has known as for years to extend the kid tax credit score. As vp, she has advocated for the everlasting adoption of the enhanced child tax credit that was quickly in impact in 2021 underneath a pandemic reduction regulation – a regulation that was signed by President Joe Biden after it was handed by Congress with solely Democratic assist.
Spokespeople for Vance and the Trump-Vance marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to CNN’s Monday requests to supply any substantiation for Vance’s declare. However a Vance spokesperson, William Martin, argued to ABC News last week that “the coverage Senator Vance proposed is mainly no completely different than the Baby Tax Credit score, which Democrats unanimously assist.”
That’s a much more debatable assertion than Vance’s personal declare on Fox Information that Harris is looking to finish the kid tax credit score, which is simply mistaken. Erica York, senior economist and analysis director at The Tax Basis suppose tank, mentioned in a Monday e mail that Vance’s declare is “false.”
“VP Harris has not known as to finish the kid tax credit score, has frequently highlighted the numerous enlargement of the credit score the Biden-Harris administration oversaw throughout the pandemic, and has a historical past of supporting expansions to the credit score,” York mentioned.
Vance prefaced his 2021 feedback about tax coverage and youngsters by talking of his want to make use of coverage to “reward the issues that we predict are good” and “punish the issues that we predict are dangerous.”
York famous that the “final impact” of the kid tax credit score is that folks with youngsters have decrease tax charges than individuals with out youngsters, however she mentioned Vance “misleadingly” equated the Harris marketing campaign’s criticism of his 2021 feedback with opposition to the existence of the kid tax credit score.
Vance’s declare on Fox Information was not a one-time slip. He made an analogous remark final week in an interview with conservative host Megyn Kelly, saying, “Why do now we have the Harris marketing campaign popping out this very morning, Megyn, and saying that we should always not have the kid tax credit score?” The Harris marketing campaign has not mentioned that.
Harris has repeatedly known as to increase the kid tax credit score
Harris’ assist for an expanded baby tax credit score predates her vice presidency. In 2018, as a US senator for California, Harris co-sponsored a Democratic invoice to extend the credit score. She co-sponsored another version of that expansion bill in 2019, when she was operating within the Democratic presidential main.
As vp, Harris has made quite a few feedback in assist of returning to the improved baby tax credit score that was licensed as a one-year non permanent measure by Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan pandemic reduction regulation.
The non permanent expansion – which elevated the utmost quantity of the credit score, made the credit score absolutely refundable so the lowest-income households might qualify and despatched out half of the credit score in month-to-month funds – was a major contributor to a steep decline in baby poverty in 2021. Baby poverty then spiked in 2022, roughly to pre-pandemic ranges, after Congress allowed the expanded credit score to run out towards the needs of Biden and Harris.
A bipartisan House bill that will increase the kid tax credit score once more has stalled in the Senate this year amid Republican opposition.
Harris posted on social media in March: “President Biden and I lower baby poverty practically in half after increasing the Baby Tax Credit score for hundreds of thousands of working households. It’s time for Congress to revive the total expanded Baby Tax Credit score.” She posted in March 2023: “The expanded Baby Tax Credit score lower the kid poverty charge practically in half throughout the first yr of our Administration. Our finances restores this tax credit score completely as a result of we consider it’s our obligation to spend money on our nation’s youngsters.”
She has additionally talked up the 2021 enlargement of the kid tax credit score on the marketing campaign path in current weeks.
In a July 18 speech earlier than Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, she said, “Whereas the final administration gave tax cuts to billionaires, we gave tax cuts to households by means of the kid tax credit score, which lower baby poverty in America by half.” She touted the enlargement once more in a speech to a traditionally Black sorority after Biden dropped out, saying, “We consider in a future the place no baby has to develop up in poverty, which is why I helped go the kid tax credit score, which lower baby poverty in half and lower Black baby poverty much more.”
CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this text.