Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks In Support Of The Newly Announced Bipartisan, Bicameral Tax Framework That Would Expand The Child Tax Credit And The Low Income Housing Tax Credit
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor in support of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith’s bipartisan and bicameral tax framework that would expand the Child Tax Credit, address the housing crisis, and help keep U.S. businesses competitive against the Chinese Communist Party. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
This morning, Senate Finance Chairman Wyden and House Ways and Means Chairman Smith announced a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a tax framework that will significantly improve the lives of millions of working families and help main street businesses grow in today’s economy.
It has taken a lot of hard work to come up with this framework, and I applaud the good work done by Chairman Wyden, Chairman Smith, and everyone on both sides who made this agreement possible.
I support this bipartisan tax framework because it makes important progress to expand the Child Tax Credit, helps address our affordable housing crisis, and helps keep U.S. businesses competitive against the Chinese Communist Party. As everyone knows, it takes bipartisan support to get things done, so I hope our Republican Senate colleagues are willing to work with us to keep this process going.
Now, this tax package has a great many provisions, but there are two that I think distill why it’s so important.
The first number is sixteen million. That’s the number of children from low income families that would benefit from this tax package’s expansion of the child tax credit. It goes a good part of the way towards restoring full refundability of the CTC, and the largest tax credits will go directly to families that earn the least.
For instance, under this tax package, a family with three kids, where one parent earns $32,000 a year, will receive almost $1,000 more from the CTC in the first year alone.
And a single parent with two children earning $13,000 part time would see their credit double, a gain of over $1,500 in the first year. That’s more money for parents to pay for groceries, diapers, baby formula, clothes, toiletries – the things parents absolutely need but in many cases struggle to afford.
The first number was sixteen million. Now, the second number of significance is 200,000. That would be the number of new affordable homes that would be made possible because of this agreement through the expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit.
I pushed very hard to make sure that strong Low Income Housing Tax Credit provisions were included in this tax agreement. I made it public that omitting it would be unacceptable and I could not support the package without it. The housing shortage is one of the biggest issues that we face in this country – it affects urban, suburban, and rural areas. It’s one of the biggest issues we face in New York, where we need to build more affordable housing.
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is one of the most effective tools in existence to increase the supply of affordable housing, and this package will make this credit far more generous and far more easy to access.
So once again, I commend Chairman Wyden, Chairman Smith for all their hard work in making this framework possible.
Again, it will take bipartisan support in both the House and Senate if we want to take the next steps forward. I hope members of both parties are willing to work with us on this package, because there are many things in it that both sides can celebrate. It represents a great opportunity to help working families, help main street businesses, and lower costs for people across the country.
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