Parents and caregivers with the Economic Security Project gather outside the White House to advocate for the Child Tax Credit in advance of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on September 20, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Larry French/Getty Images for SKDK)
Congress Needs to Help Struggling Families More Than Corporations
Lawmakers are considering year-end tax breaks for corporations. A little help for families like yours and mine would go much further.
Right around the time I heard lawmakers were considering a year-end package of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, my 12-year-old son's bike broke. It felt like just another thing I couldn't fix for him.
Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
Yet here are our lawmakers "fixing" things for those with the fewest problems. That's unacceptable when there are so many ordinary families who need help.
I know what it's like to pull myself up by my bootstraps--I've had to do it again and again. But I also know how far even a little help can go.
I grew up in Brazil, where my mother instilled in my siblings and me the value of hard work and education. I worked my way into law school, where I met a man from the United States. We fell in love, married, and had a child. I moved with him to Virginia to go to college and raise our family.
It felt like I was doing everything right... but things went wrong. When my husband developed a substance abuse problem and became aggressive, I had to flee with my child to a local YWCA for refuge.
I dropped out of school to get more jobs and scraped together enough to pay for rent, apply for Pell grants, and get back into school. But when I got back together with my husband during a period of sobriety for him, we ended up worse off than before. He lost our money and the car, leaving me with car payments and no transportation.
Yet I kept going with classes and work, biking my son to his school. I house-sat, couch-hopped, got a cheap car, and worked for DoorDash. I finally graduated and started work as a research fellow in neuroscience.
But the bills kept coming, not least for my $58,000 in student loans. I still didn't have enough to feed my child properly or buy those little extra things he wanted or needed. I lived in constant fear of any small financial emergency. The food pantry became a saving grace for us.
Then, in 2021, Congress passed an expansion of the Child Tax Credit.
Suddenly I had a reliable, monthly infusion of cash that meant we could eat consistently. It meant we didn't face repeated eviction notices. It meant I could put gas in the car, buy my son dress pants for choir, and apply to graduate schools. It meant something I could finally count on.
It meant everything. I got into Stanford's Ph.D. program in neuroscience, where I got childcare subsidies on campus, a full-tuition scholarship, and campus jobs.
Those payments sent us on our way. But they stopped suddenly a year ago, when all 50 Senate Republicans plus Democrat Joe Manchin refused to extend this program that had cut child poverty in half in just six months.
So, my son's bike is broken and I can't get it fixed. The food pantry is again our lifeline--and we're not alone in that. The loss of the expanded Child Tax Credit is associated with a 25 percent rise in food insecurity nationally.
I again live in fear of any emergency. I'm stressed out and my child feels so much guilt that he won't ask for basic things he needs.
This is a policy choice, affecting tens of millions of struggling American families who've done all they can to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
If lawmakers want to cut taxes for corporations and the rich, then they'd better do the right thing and give ordinary working families a boost, too. A little help makes all the difference in the world.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just four days to go in our Spring Campaign, we are not even halfway to our goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Right around the time I heard lawmakers were considering a year-end package of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, my 12-year-old son's bike broke. It felt like just another thing I couldn't fix for him.
Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
Yet here are our lawmakers "fixing" things for those with the fewest problems. That's unacceptable when there are so many ordinary families who need help.
I know what it's like to pull myself up by my bootstraps--I've had to do it again and again. But I also know how far even a little help can go.
I grew up in Brazil, where my mother instilled in my siblings and me the value of hard work and education. I worked my way into law school, where I met a man from the United States. We fell in love, married, and had a child. I moved with him to Virginia to go to college and raise our family.
It felt like I was doing everything right... but things went wrong. When my husband developed a substance abuse problem and became aggressive, I had to flee with my child to a local YWCA for refuge.
I dropped out of school to get more jobs and scraped together enough to pay for rent, apply for Pell grants, and get back into school. But when I got back together with my husband during a period of sobriety for him, we ended up worse off than before. He lost our money and the car, leaving me with car payments and no transportation.
Yet I kept going with classes and work, biking my son to his school. I house-sat, couch-hopped, got a cheap car, and worked for DoorDash. I finally graduated and started work as a research fellow in neuroscience.
But the bills kept coming, not least for my $58,000 in student loans. I still didn't have enough to feed my child properly or buy those little extra things he wanted or needed. I lived in constant fear of any small financial emergency. The food pantry became a saving grace for us.
Then, in 2021, Congress passed an expansion of the Child Tax Credit.
Suddenly I had a reliable, monthly infusion of cash that meant we could eat consistently. It meant we didn't face repeated eviction notices. It meant I could put gas in the car, buy my son dress pants for choir, and apply to graduate schools. It meant something I could finally count on.
It meant everything. I got into Stanford's Ph.D. program in neuroscience, where I got childcare subsidies on campus, a full-tuition scholarship, and campus jobs.
Those payments sent us on our way. But they stopped suddenly a year ago, when all 50 Senate Republicans plus Democrat Joe Manchin refused to extend this program that had cut child poverty in half in just six months.
So, my son's bike is broken and I can't get it fixed. The food pantry is again our lifeline--and we're not alone in that. The loss of the expanded Child Tax Credit is associated with a 25 percent rise in food insecurity nationally.
I again live in fear of any emergency. I'm stressed out and my child feels so much guilt that he won't ask for basic things he needs.
This is a policy choice, affecting tens of millions of struggling American families who've done all they can to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
If lawmakers want to cut taxes for corporations and the rich, then they'd better do the right thing and give ordinary working families a boost, too. A little help makes all the difference in the world.
Right around the time I heard lawmakers were considering a year-end package of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, my 12-year-old son's bike broke. It felt like just another thing I couldn't fix for him.
Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
Yet here are our lawmakers "fixing" things for those with the fewest problems. That's unacceptable when there are so many ordinary families who need help.
I know what it's like to pull myself up by my bootstraps--I've had to do it again and again. But I also know how far even a little help can go.
I grew up in Brazil, where my mother instilled in my siblings and me the value of hard work and education. I worked my way into law school, where I met a man from the United States. We fell in love, married, and had a child. I moved with him to Virginia to go to college and raise our family.
It felt like I was doing everything right... but things went wrong. When my husband developed a substance abuse problem and became aggressive, I had to flee with my child to a local YWCA for refuge.
I dropped out of school to get more jobs and scraped together enough to pay for rent, apply for Pell grants, and get back into school. But when I got back together with my husband during a period of sobriety for him, we ended up worse off than before. He lost our money and the car, leaving me with car payments and no transportation.
Yet I kept going with classes and work, biking my son to his school. I house-sat, couch-hopped, got a cheap car, and worked for DoorDash. I finally graduated and started work as a research fellow in neuroscience.
But the bills kept coming, not least for my $58,000 in student loans. I still didn't have enough to feed my child properly or buy those little extra things he wanted or needed. I lived in constant fear of any small financial emergency. The food pantry became a saving grace for us.
Then, in 2021, Congress passed an expansion of the Child Tax Credit.
Suddenly I had a reliable, monthly infusion of cash that meant we could eat consistently. It meant we didn't face repeated eviction notices. It meant I could put gas in the car, buy my son dress pants for choir, and apply to graduate schools. It meant something I could finally count on.
It meant everything. I got into Stanford's Ph.D. program in neuroscience, where I got childcare subsidies on campus, a full-tuition scholarship, and campus jobs.
Those payments sent us on our way. But they stopped suddenly a year ago, when all 50 Senate Republicans plus Democrat Joe Manchin refused to extend this program that had cut child poverty in half in just six months.
So, my son's bike is broken and I can't get it fixed. The food pantry is again our lifeline--and we're not alone in that. The loss of the expanded Child Tax Credit is associated with a 25 percent rise in food insecurity nationally.
I again live in fear of any emergency. I'm stressed out and my child feels so much guilt that he won't ask for basic things he needs.
This is a policy choice, affecting tens of millions of struggling American families who've done all they can to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But Congress has a chance to right this grievous wrong by restoring the critical enhancements to the Child Tax Credit.
If lawmakers want to cut taxes for corporations and the rich, then they'd better do the right thing and give ordinary working families a boost, too. A little help makes all the difference in the world.