Cynical Senators are playing politics with the Child Tax Credit―and with the lives of millions of families with young children.
Some members of the Senate are lining up to block a tax package that will benefit 16 million children in lower-income families via an expanded CTC, despite a broad bipartisan House vote. Why? For some, the answer is simple: pure politics.
Tell the Senate that low-income families are not political pawns!
Expanding the Child Tax Credit is popular and is proven to dramatically reduce child poverty levels. So why are some members of the Senate trying so hard to stop the Senate from moving forward on this bipartisan package, and kill the CTC with poison pill amendments? Maybe because they think they can get a bill with more corporate tax breaks and a weaker CTC in the next Congress. Or maybe they don’t want to hand President Biden a legislative victory on an issue he has consistently championed. Whatever the reason, they are denying low-income families with children a bigger refund check just as millions of families are filing their taxes. We need Congress to act by the end of April to make it easier for people to receive a higher CTC as soon as possible. That’s why we are holding Senators accountable to take up this bipartisan tax package now.
The expanded Child Tax Credit included in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act would lift 400,000 children out of poverty in tax year 2023, rising to 500,000 above the poverty line in 2025. It would also add much needed income to about 16 million children in families struggling to meet basic needs.
Tell the Senate that low-income families are not political pawns!
Click “START WRITING” to send a message to your Senators right now and urge them to reject the stalling tactics of politicians playing political games and pass the expanded Child Tax Credit for low-income families before the end of tax season. Children and families need help now!
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The Tax Day edition. Tuesday is Tax Day, and the human needs community has activities planned. The message behind the activities is that we need to raise revenues reasonably and responsibly in order to invest in a care economy. A care economy will mean hope, opportunity, and prosperity for millions of Americans.
The Biden Administration has announced it will appeal a Texas judge’s ruling striking down a key part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows tens of millions of Americans free access to cancer screenings and other forms of preventive health care. Last week, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor struck down provisions of the ACA that require insurers to provide certain preventive health care services free of charge. If allowed to stand, the ruling could affect all Americans who receive their health care through employer-based insurance or through the ACA marketplace.
I began working at Fresh Market the fall of my senior year, in the heart of the pandemic. Every day, I would go to work, scanning and bagging the groceries of whoever came into my line. Occasionally, the flow of checkout would ebb. Sometimes, I was to blame—I pushed the wrong button, double scanned an item, or couldn’t quite figure out exactly what kind of apples my customer wanted to purchase. Other times, it was something out of my control: the customer input the wrong pin, or they left their wallet in the car. One thing that always stopped the flow was the use of EBT cards.
The Medicaid unwinding edition. Early in the pandemic, Congress gave states more Medicaid money to address COVID-19. In return, states were not allowed to drop people from their Medicaid rolls. That ends tomorrow. Beginning April 1, five states – Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, and South Dakota – will start ending Medicaid coverage for those who have not demonstrated their continued eligibility. Almost every other state will follow in May, June, or July. And by roughly one year from now, millions will have lost access to health care.
President Biden joined past and present leaders in Congress and health care advocates throughout the country this week in marking the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The White House’s celebration of the ACA’s birthday on Thursday was a two-pronged effort that focused both on the law’s success – more Americans have access to health care than ever before – and on threats to its well-being
“The union is not some third-party entity that makes decisions for people, the union is the workers.” This is what the vice president of a local union in Orlando, Florida told me the first time I met him as he recruited me to help the food service workers at my private college in a wealthy suburb of Orlando. Prior to meeting him, I knew nothing about unions and was in the dark about the way the college’s food supplier treated its workers.
At a recent rally near the base of the Washington Monument, immigrant advocates gathered to demand that the Biden Administration back off its plans to institute an asylum ban for many applicants as well as a possible return to the practice of family detention, frequently used during the Trump era.
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for a comprehensive look at President Biden’s FY24 budget proposal.
The show us your budget edition. President Budget released his budget proposal last week. Broadly speaking, it is based on four values: lowering costs for families, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, investing in America, and reducing the deficit, all made possible by ensuring that the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations pay more of their fair share.
Biden’s commonsense budget proposal takes strong moves forward to level the grossly unequal economic playing field in this country. It shores up tattered programs for poor, low-income, and middle-income American families, no matter what we look like or where we live. As an expression of values, its proposals to invest in families and workers, protect Social Security and strengthen Medicare reflect the values of most of us.
Every weekday during the semester, I wake up by 8 a.m. to get ready for class at my small, primarily white, liberal arts college in the wealthy Orlando suburb that is Winter Park. Once I step out of my apartment, my first destination is the on-campus café where I pick up my Chai Latte on the way to class. The young woman that works the morning shift on weekdays knows all of us students by name and always remembers my order. Despite all that she does to make my campus a welcoming environment for me, I had never considered what it was like for her as a food service worker at a private university. It wasn’t until I learned of a union organizing effort among cafeteria workers that I realized the need for reform.
A 26-year-old man with severe open wounds on both legs is injecting fentanyl three days a day. A 22-year-old woman injection drug user just found out her boyfriend with whom she shares needles tested positive for HIV and hepatitis C. Two 14-year-old boys in Utah buy online what they think is Adderall; the counterfeit pills are really fentanyl and they die within hours after swallowing the pills. Americans saw 110,315 fatal drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in March 2022 — 294 deaths per day.