Far-Right Republicans Tie Themselves In Knots Over Child Tax Credit

WASHINGTON — Far-right Republicans within the House of Representatives are talking out in opposition to a bipartisan invoice increasing the little one tax credit score as a result of it may gain advantage undocumented immigrants.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) mentioned Tuesday that he opposes the tax invoice and even claimed the proposed coverage would encourage migrants to come back to the U.S.

“I’m not going to support child tax credits going to illegals,” Good instructed reporters. “I think that’s incentivizing this illegal invasion.”

The invoice wouldn’t truly develop eligibility for any tax profit to immigrants, nevertheless. The proposal would solely increase advantages for households that already qualify for the kid tax credit score, which requires kids to have Social Security numbers for his or her households to be eligible.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who crafted the tax bundle with Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), has been furiously pushing again in opposition to his personal GOP colleagues since final week.

On Tuesday, Smith known as their gripes “completely false.”

“There’s very few items in the tax code that require a Social security number,” Smith instructed HuffPost. “You have to have a Social Security number as a child in order to get it, so it’s completely not true.”

Smith famous that Republicans themselves added the Social Security requirement for the kid tax credit score of their 2017 tax reform regulation, which expanded the worth of the credit score by a a lot bigger quantity than the Smith-Wyden proposal.

“It’s the same language that was in Trump’s tax cuts of 2017!” Smith mentioned.

Asked if he favored undoing the modifications Republicans made in 2017, Good merely famous that he hadn’t but been elected to Congress. (Good first got here to Capitol Hill in 2021.)

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday praised the brand new tax invoice — which mixes the $30 billion CTC enlargement with an equal enlargement of tax breaks for company America — however Johnson stopped wanting saying outright that he would vote for it or that it will get a vote on the House ground this week. Republican management beforehand instructed lawmakers that the measure may obtain a vote.

The invoice would probably cross the House by an amazing bipartisan margin, however Johnson might face backlash from Freedom Caucus members who usually oppose passing laws with Democratic votes. A bipartisan vote is what led to the downfall of Johnson’s predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The immigration objection to an basically unrelated tax invoice comes as House Republicans fulminate in opposition to a doable immigration deal brokered between Democrats and Republicans within the Senate. Former president Donald Trump has demanded Republicans kill the deal so he can proceed campaigning on immigration and supposedly ship coverage options as president.

Another Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), acknowledged that Republicans added the Social Security requirement for the kid tax credit score in 2017, however mentioned the state of affairs is completely different now since tens of millions of extra undocumented immigrants have entered the nation.

Norman mentioned it didn’t matter if the kids of undocumented immigrants had been born within the U.S. and are due to this fact U.S. residents.

“The parent shouldn’t get it because the child can’t spend it, it goes to the parents,” Norman mentioned.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) mentioned he appreciated the enterprise tax cuts within the invoice however mentioned his colleagues are involved that the kid tax credit score quantities to “a backdoor into citizenship.”