Traditionally, when Democrats and Republicans come together and forge a bipartisan compromise on a key issue, the legislative wheels on Capitol Hill start turning in a constructive way. There are, however, exceptions. NBC News reported:
Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill on Thursday to expand the child tax credit and provide some tax breaks for businesses, all but sinking it for the rest of the year. The vote was 48-44, with the vast majority of Democrats supporting it and most GOP senators voting against it.
The vote was largely, but not entirely, along party lines: Three Senate Republicans — Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Florida’s Rick Scott, and Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin — voted for the measure, while two independents who caucus with Democrats — Vermont’s Bernie Sanders and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin — voted with the GOP minority. Even if Sanders and Manchin had sided with the majority, it wouldn’t have mattered: This was a procedural vote that required a 60-vote majority.
(The final tally was initially 49-43, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer switched his vote for procedural reasons.)
In case anyone needs a refresher, as the year got underway, Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced a breakthrough on tax policy. It appeared at the time as if both sides were prepared to get something important.
For Republicans, the compromise deal included an extension of Trump-era tax breaks for businesses. For Democrats, the bill included an expansion of the child tax credit that the party has championed in recent years.
In a written statement, Wyden explained after the bipartisan agreement came together: “Fifteen million kids from low-income families will be better off as a result of this plan, and given today’s miserable political climate, it’s a big deal to have this opportunity to pass pro-family policy that helps so many kids get ahead.”
As we’ve discussed, this isn’t as ambitious or as generous as the original Democratic policy from 2021, but it was a plan that was poised to help millions of families.
It was against this backdrop that the House voted with uncharacteristic speed, passing the deal on tax policy just a couple of weeks after it came together. The final vote in the lower chamber was 357-70 — a lopsided margin in a House that tends to be evenly divided along partisan and ideological lines.
The legislation’s prospects were bright, right up until they weren’t.
Senate Republicans raised a variety of objections. Some questioned the bill’s impact on the deficit; some wanted more work requirements (which already exist in the CTC policy); and others said they prefer to incorporate the relevant provisions into a larger debate next year when Trump-era tax breaks are set to expire.
What’s more, some of the more candid GOP senators admitted that they simply didn’t want to give the Democratic White House an election-year victory.
Whatever the Republicans’ motivations, the end result was the same. “This should be a no-brainer,” Schumer told reporters Thursday. Evidently, 43 of the New York Democrat’s colleagues disagreed. As for electoral considerations, Sen. JD Vance has spoken quite a bit lately about families and his belief that policymakers should do more to reward parents. But when it came time to vote on this extension of the child tax credit, the Ohio Republican and GOP vice presidential nominee didn’t show up for the vote and did nothing to encourage his Senate colleagues to support the bipartisan compromise. “Today, Senate Republicans voted to block a $700 average tax cut for working families with children and the construction of 200,000 homes with affordable rents—even though this bill passed the House with strong bipartisan support and comes at no cost to the federal deficit,” White House National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said in a statement. “That is a vote against giving families with children a tax cut, against reducing child poverty, against lowering rents, against fiscal responsibility, and against bipartisanship. The President and the Vice President will continue to fight for an expanded Child Tax Credit and to expand the supply of homes with affordable rents at a time when the cost of living is too high for so many Americans.” This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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