The message from GOP senators: Suffer, little children

The modern GOP is supposed to be pro-family, pro-tax-cuts and anti“waste, fraud and abuse.” So why are Republican senators trying to tank a bill that is all three?

In January, lawmakers hammered out a kids-and-companies tax deal: Congress would extend a few business tax breaks that had recently expired in exchange for expanding the child tax credit. The bipartisan compromise turned out to be a very good bill, painstakingly negotiated by serious lawmakers from both chambers of Congress.

Among other virtues, the legislation would improve the living standards of 16 million low-income kids and lift 400,000 children out of poverty in its first year. It would increase incentives for research and development. And the icing on the cake: The whole thing would be paid for by curbing a pandemic-era tax break that has produced an avalanche of fraudulent claims.

The politics of the bill are also good: It has been endorsed by virtually every relevant stakeholder of nearly every political persuasion imaginable — business groups, pro-life organizations, parents’ alliances, anti-poverty advocates, conservative coalitions and progressive ones. It also offers Republicans a chance to prove their pro-family bona fides after Dobbs.

So when the bill sailed through the House with broad bipartisan support, it renewed hope that our dysfunctional legislature might be able to govern sometimes after all.

Alas, that hope was premature. Today, Republican senators are trying to kill the legislation, with some of its GOP supporters saying it’s on “life support.”

Their colleagues’ objections are all over the place, and none of them particularly compelling. Some worry about handing President Biden a win so close to the election. (I’d argue the 400,000 kids lifted out of poverty would be the real winners, but to each their own.) Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-iowa) said this explicitly in January: “Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be reelected.”

A related explanation is that Republicans hope to win control of Congress and the White House this November, after which they could abandon their silly, kid-conscious compromise with Democrats and just push for bigger tax breaks for businesses.

If that’s the strategy, it’s a strange one for many reasons. Among them: The bill includes tax breaks that had lapsed in the past couple of years, and the business community has been adamant about retroactively restoring them now. Not next year, when Republicans might or might not have more power.

“Many employers, especially small businesses, have struggled with the unexpected tax bill created by the lapse in these provisions,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told me. “Asking employers to wait until the next Congress is effectively asking them to make a loan to the federal government in the hopes that they might get paid back in 2025 or 2026.”

Some senators allege more substantive concerns. For instance, Mike Crapo (Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, complained that the child tax credit measures might discourage parents from working, even though the bill has an explicit earnings requirement (i.e., it is available only if families work). When Crapo identified the specific provision that bothered him, his Democratic counterpart, Committee Chair Ron Wyden (Ore.) offered to take it out of the bill.

Yet Crapo has not been mollified. He and his Senate colleague Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have also complained about the bill’s cost.

Specifically — it’s hard to believe I’m actually writing this — they’re mad that it doesn’t cost anything.

Seriously. They have both said they don’t want to set a precedent of paying for tax cuts, since congressional Republicans have a multi-decade-long record of not doing so. As Tillis said in a committee hearing, “We have to have a discussion about whether or not we’re setting a precedent on future tax provisions having a pay-for. We have not normally done that, but we’ve done that in this bill.” He then explained that when it came time to extend the expiring provisions of the Trump tax cuts next year, he was worried Democrats might demand they be paid for (heaven forbid).

As a reminder, the pay-for in this bill is the elimination of a fraud-riddled pandemic program, whose continuation would waste tens of billions of dollars. Usually, ending a program like this is something Republicans would cheer. But not, apparently, if it threatens their ability to add to the debt in the future. (And let’s be honest, this “precedent” of paying for a tax break does not exactly seem binding.)

No matter. If Republicans do retake the Senate majority, Crapo is likely to be the next chair of the Senate Finance Committee; even Republican lawmakers who support this bill are now loath to cross him, Hill staffers have told me.

One thing in common among all these obstacles to the bill’s passage: They have nothing to do with the well-being of poor kids, the original reason so many people of all ideological stripes were excited about this bill.

Perhaps some politicians misheard “Suffer the little children” as simply “Suffer, little children.”