Senate Republicans block a child tax credit expansion

Senate Republicans blocked legislation Thursday to cut taxes for working families and extend some corporate tax breaks, dooming a bipartisan compromise that the House had overwhelmingly approved and raising the stakes on taxes for this fall’s elections.

The $79 billion legislation would have expanded eligibility for the child tax credit, or CTC, among the lowest-income families and adjust payments for inflation for the 2024 and 2025 filing years.

It also would have bolster certain business tax credits - including deductions for research and development, interest expenses and investments in equipment - that were limited in an effort to cap the total costs of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut law. The bill, the product of negotiations between Senate Democrats and House Republicans, passed the lower chamber with a large bipartisan majority in January.

But Senate Republicans mostly opposed the measure, reasoning that they could write a more conservative tax bill in 2025 if they win control of Congress and the White House. Tax legislation will be high on the agenda for the next Congress: Major provisions of Trump’s tax law are set to expire next year, which would sharply increase taxes on individuals and families, while leaving massive tax breaks for corporations in place.

The measured fell short of the 60-vote threshold required to defeat a filibuster, on a 48 to 44 vote. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against the bill, arguing it did not do enough to balance tax cuts for families with breaks for businesses. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) changed his vote to “no” to make it easier to bring the bill up again for a future vote.

“Instead of focusing on the election, Republicans maybe should focus more on the fact that this bill actually helps families,” Schumer said Thursday on the Senate floor.

Democrats did not expect to win the vote, and instead planned to use it to train focus on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (Ohio). He voiced support for the legislation before he was tapped as Trump’s running mate and has since come under fire for past comments about the U.S. birth rate.

In recently resurfaced comments, for instance, Vance suggested that Americans with children should have more voting power than childless voters. He also described Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and has aggressively supported policies to encourage parents to bear more children. Advocates of the child tax credit expansion say it would do just that.

Democrats have leveled a pointed attack at Vance over these issues, repeatedly calling him “weird.” He missed Thursday’s vote for a campaign event in Arizona and earlier in the week falsely accused Vice President Harris of opposing the child tax credit. The vice president supports the legislation, and the Biden administration issued a statement Thursday urging passage.

“There’s a lot of weird, bizarre stuff going around. Everyone is going to find out on Thursday who’s a supporter, particularly of large families,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said ahead of the vote.

The legislation was the product of a compromise between Wyden and Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.), the chairs of Congress’s tax-writing committees. But the proposal had lost momentum in the Senate months ago after Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), in line to chair the Senate Finance Committee if Republicans win control of the chamber, announced his opposition.

“I expect most Republican senators are going to stick together and back Crapo. We can get a much better deal if we wait. We’re going to get one shot at this, and to waste that shot on this bill - in my judgment - would be foolhardy,” Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) told The Washington Post.

Crapo exited negotiations over the legislation months ago over concerns that the bill did not have sufficient work requirements for CTC recipients. Other Republicans opposed a provision that allowed undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizen children to receive the credit.

“The critical flaw with the bill is that it fails to provide meaningful tax relief to working families and instead goes too far toward the Democrats goal of turning the child tax credit into a subsidy untethered to work which is fundamentally contrary to what the credit was created to do,” Crapo said on the Senate floor.

Wyden shot back at Republicans moments later in floor remarks: “What are sure to be their plans to for the future? Lock in even more handouts to big corporations in the wealthy.”

Lawmakers and both presidential campaigns are already staking out their positions on taxes in preparation for a bruising legislative fight next year.

Vice President Harris has backed President Biden’s plan to preserve the 2017 law’s individual tax cuts while increasing rates on businesses and people earning more than $400,000.

Trump has vowed to preserve individual tax cuts and also potentially lower corporate taxes from 21% to as low as 15%.

“If the argument is, ‘We can get a better deal later,’ that’s if we win the Senate, if we win the House, and if we win the White House - if that’s the argument for not doing it, then why can’t, if those ifs come true, we do a better tax bill?” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who supports the legislation, said before the vote. “I like the sure thing.”

Under the bill, low-income families could have claimed the child tax credit for multiple children; current law only counts it for one child for the lowest-earning families. Starting in 2025, the benefit would have been linked to inflation, which would add up to a roughly $100 jump. The Internal Revenue Service says it could have applied the changes retroactively to taxes filed in April if the measure becomes law.

Nonpartisan estimates say it would lift 400,000 children out of poverty. A previous, more generous Biden-era expansion of the credit kept 3 million children out of poverty, according to research conducted by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. The expansion expired at the end of 2021, and child poverty spiked immediately afterward.

Business groups in Washington have also rallied around the corporate tax provisions. Officials say limiting deductions on research and development have restrained spending on product innovations that could bring down consumer costs. Without them, industry leaders say, small businesses could struggle to afford investments, such as new equipment and larger payrolls. That policy remains a GOP priority in a 2025 tax bill, lawmakers say.