Jan Resseger and the Network for Public Education urge you to contact your Senators and members of the House to support reinstatement of the Child Tax Credit. It must happen before Republicans take control of the House. They inexplicably oppose reducing child poverty. Urge Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to support the Child Tax Credit. Find one Republican Senator, perhaps one who is retiring, and urge him or her to support the legislation.
Jan writes:
In case you missed this opportunity: Earlier this week, the Network for Public Education sent out an action alert urging Congress, during this lame-duck session, to take one step that would reduce child poverty by roughly 10 percent and help 1.7 million children.
If you missed the earlier request, please take a moment now to send the Network for Public Education’s letter to your U.S. Senators and your Congressional Representative. Right now members of Congress are negotiating to take the one action researchers say would do the most to ameliorate child poverty in the United States: make the Child Tax Credit fully available to the poorest families with children.
You will remember that Congress significantly reduced child poverty temporarily in 2021 by expanding the Child Tax Credit as part of the American Rescue Plan. But the changes were terminated at the end of 2021.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains: “The current Child Tax Credit has a major design flaw: millions of children are prevented from receiving the full credit because their families’ incomes are too low.” The Child Tax Credit phases in with taxable income. A home health aide making $15,000 annually cannot collect the full $2,000 per child, while married families with children—families whose income is as high as $400,000 annually—can collect the full tax credit per child.
Decades of research show that child poverty is the primary driving force behind educational opportunity gaps. As educators, we know that public schools alone cannot close opportunity gaps.
Please do send the Network for Public Education’s action letter right now. Ask your U.S. Senator and your Congressional Representative to vote, as part of tax policy, to make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable to the poorest families with children. Then share this request with your friends and colleagues.
Here are two resources for more information:
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ November 15, 2022 report.
- Blog post summarizing that report.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Done and shared on social media! In the absence of raising the federal minimum wage, this simple change could help millions of poor children.
Here is the response I got to my letters from one of my RI Senators, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D):
Dear Ms. Resseger:
Thank you for contacting me with your support for expanding the child tax credit (CTC) . I appreciate hearing from you .
As you know, in March, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act, major COVID-19 relief legislation. The law increased the CTC to $3,600 per child under the age of six and $3,000 per child ages six through seventeen for 2021. The law also established an advanced payment program for the credit and temporarily made the CTC refundable, meaning taxpayers benefit from it even if they owe no income taxes. Researchers project that expanding the CTC cut child poverty nearly in half. About 174,000 Rhode Island children benefitted from the enhanced CTC, helping families afford necessities like food, shelter, and medicine. Unfortunately, the program expired in December.
I agree that the CTC expansion should be revived and made permanent. I cosponsored the Working Families Tax Relief Act, which would make the expanded CTC permanent. I will also continue to push for its inclusion in the Build Back Better Act, legislation that would invest in our families, communities, and environment. While I am disappointed we have not yet been able to reach an agreement on either measure in the Senate, know that I am pushing to find a path forward.
Senator Whitehouse is a national treasure.
Urge Manchin to support the child tax credit?
That’s like urging a serial killer to become a Buddhist monk.
People need to cut the wishful thinking.
Manchin does not care what you or I think.
Lard knows, he doesn’t even care what his own constituents think (other than those who own coal mines, that is)
Republicans have waged an unending war for decades against abortions while doing all they can to increase child poverty rates.
The U.S. has the 2nd highest child poverty rate among developed countries and Republican inaction is evidence that they do not care about living children, only fetuses in the womb because it gains them votes from theofascist, fundamentalist, religious lunatics.
The only public platform for which I currently have an account is Instagram, which nobody ever includes a link to.
Sent from my iPhone
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