Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets
A last-minute revision by House and Senate leaders in the tax bill that President Bush signed today will prevent millions of minimum-wage families from receiving the increased child credit that is in the measure, say Congressional officials and outside groups.Hmmm…. THEN WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU MAKE THE TAX CUTS YOU’RE GIVING THE RICH FUCKERS A LITTLE LESS?!?!?!!!! Holy Christ on a cracker, you’re denying cuts to people who needs this money the most! How the hell can you excuse that? These people on the bottom are the ones that fund this economy, not those on the top. It’s the bottom buying things that promotes a good economy. It’s the bottom actually having the money to spend on things like food and shelter and maybe some toys that allows the economy to grow. But, no, let’s give it to the rich who are going to put it into a nest egg because they know they sure as hell can’t rely on the stock market or Social Security to pay for their retirement. Yeah, let’s give it to the people who don’t need it and therefor aren’t going to spend it. That makes a lot of sense.Most taxpayers will receive a $400-a-child check in the mail this summer as a result of the law, which raises the child tax credit, to $1,000 from $600. It had been clear from the beginning that the wealthiest families would not receive the credit, which is intended to phase out at high incomes.
But after studying the bill approved on Friday, liberal and child advocacy groups discovered that a different group of families would also not benefit from the $400 increase — families who make just above the minimum wage.
Because of the formula for calculating the credit, most families with incomes from $10,500 to $26,625 will not benefit. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group, says those families include 11.9 million children, or one of every six children under 17.
“I don’t know why they would cut that out of the bill,” said Senator Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who persuaded the full Senate to send the credit to many more low income families before the provision was dropped in conference. “These are the people who need it the most and who will spend it the most. These are the people who buy the blue jeans and the detergent and who will stimulate the economy with their spending.”
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A spokeswoman for the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, Christin Tinsworth, noted that the provision was included in an agreement reached last week by Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, the committee chairman, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
That agreement would have cost $380 billion, but it fell apart when an important swing senator, George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, said he could not approve any bill that exceeded $350 billion. To satisfy him and the Senate, Ms. Tinsworth said, the child credit provision was dropped, along with other costs.
“The Senate preferred to have $20 billion in state aid,” she said. “But when we had to squeeze it all to $350 billion, they weren’t talking about the child credits. This bill does a lot to help people who need help. But its primary purpose was to generate jobs. Apparently, whatever we do is not going to be enough for some segments of the population.”
