Once again, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) wants the federal government to bring back the expanded child tax credit during the 2025 legislative session.
She visited the West Haven Community House on Tuesday to speak with advocates and families about the benefits of an expansion.
“The child tax credit helps kids learn more, earn more, and grow up healthier,” said DeLauro, who has advocated for the credit for decades. “It improves educational attainment. It lowers health care costs. It reduces encounters with the justice system, and it lifts lifetime earning potential.”
The child tax credit was enacted in the late 1990s. It provides around 40 million families with up to $2,000 per child per year.
It was temporarily expanded in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. More families became eligible for more money, and it became a monthly payment.
DeLauro said that year-long expansion cut child poverty in half.
“We only had it for a year. It worked,” DeLauro said. “It worked better than just about any other government program in history.”
Her bill, the American Family Act, would make it permanent. The AFA has been introduced in previous congressional sessions, but DeLauro said this year it is especially vital because Trump-era tax cuts from 2017 expire and will need to be replaced with new policy.
“There's big decisions to be made in 2025,” DeLauro said. “And please make no mistake, the corporate lobbyists are going to come out of the woodwork. They're going to try to make the tax breaks that Republicans implemented in 2017, they're going to try to make it permanent, which gave the biggest tax benefits to the richest 1% of the people in this country and the biggest corporations. We cannot let that happen again.”
DeLauro also predicted the current child tax credit would revert to $1,000 with partial refundability.
She said her bill would include a plethora of support for working families.
“It indexes the value of the credit to inflation. It establishes a baby bonus. It ensures children receive the same value of the child tax credit in the first year of their life,” DeLauro said.
DeLauro was joined by Elena DiLorenzo of Shelton. DiLorenzo, who received the payments in 2021, said the extra money helped her pay her rent and for her two son’s extracurriculars.
“With the child tax credit, my boys were able to be with their friends and have just equal opportunity. My kids now play sports. They wrestle, they play football, and we play soccer and baseball,” DiLorenzo said.
DeLauro voted against a bill with a version of the credit earlier this year. She said it was encouraging to see that a version of the credit had bipartisan support but that the version proposed gave tax breaks to big businesses and didn’t help enough working families.
The bill, proposed by Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), passed the House with bipartisan support but was held up by Senate Republicans earlier this month. DeLauro was one of only 22 representatives to vote against it.
“It does not provide any security for working families, for middle-class families, and it is, in my view, and I've said this publicly, it was pennies, pennies for kids, and an unbelievable tax credit for the biggest corporations who pay no taxes,” DeLauro said.
Her focus is now on passing the full expansion of the child tax credit in 2025.
