IN Senators vote against a bill that would have expanded the child tax credit

INDIANAPOLIS — A vote in the U.S. Senate could have expanded the child tax credit for working families, but the bill failed to gain enough support despite passage in the house earlier this year.

It comes at a time when lingering inflation continues to be top-of-mind for many Americans.

For parents, it makes stretching their monthly income more difficult.

"Even when you are responsibly spending your money, you're going to go to Aldi you're going to use a coupons,” Rachel Heinbaugh, mother of five said. “It just does not go as far as it use to."

Heinbaugh and her family is not low income, but she says in the past, the child tax credit helped with living expenses for their family.

"It just helps alleviate some of the additional childcare costs,” Heinbaugh said. “For example on our kids has braces I have 5 teens so they are going through drivers ed you know that's expensive and there is just a lot of ongoing costs that we incur as parents for our kids."

Senators voted Thursday afternoon on a bill called The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024.

The measure would have expanded the federal child tax credit and assisted in the construction of affordable housing. Prosperity Indiana believes it would benefit Hoosiers drastically.

"This bill would lift 326,000 Hoosier children out of poverty by extending the federal tax credit,” Andrew Bradley the Senior Director of Policy and Strategy at Prosperity Indiana said.

Prosperity Indiana released the fact sheet below detailing how the bill would impact the country as well as Indiana. They say that when families has access to the child tax credit, they were lifted out of poverty, now that they don’t that isn’t the case.

“We’ve actually seen families that were lifted fallback in to poverty because of congress inaction,” Bradley said. “ This bill is that opportunity to re-establish this proven poverty fighting and economic opportunity.”

The bill did not pass the senate both Indiana senators voted against it. Senator Mike Braun's office sent the following statement as to why.

“There are provisions in this bill that should be pursued, but the bill isn’t ready for primetime: it has no guardrails to make sure the tax credits are only able to be claimed by American citizens and would cost $78 billion with no real cuts to spending after our national debt passed $35 trillion this week.”

Senator Todd Young also sent a statement as to why as well.

“For months, I have spoken with colleagues on both sides of the aisle about how to advance the House tax package in the Senate. In particular, encouraging R&D activities here in the United States is critical to outcompeting the Chinese Communist Party, and I am generally supportive of this bill’s goals. Unfortunately, today’s vote was not a serious effort to pass a bipartisan tax bill. This was a rushed process designed to score a political point for Senate Democrats. My hope today is that Democrats return to the negotiating table and work with Republicans to find a path forward on a solution in the September work period.”