Stimulus: Will Biden Cut Child Tax Credit, Free Community College from Build Back Better?
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Vance Cariaga
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If President Joe Biden wants to save his troubled Build Back Better plan, he’ll likely need to pare it down to gain favor with Congressional moderates. Among the programs that could be on the chopping block are enhanced Child Tax Credit payments and free community college.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Biden said he is “not sure” enhanced CTC and free community college will be able to stay in the bill, CNBC reported.
“There’s two really big components that I feel strongly about that I’m not sure I can get in the package,” Biden said. “One is the childcare tax credit, and the other is help for cost of community colleges.”
The original Build Back Better plan included a proposal that would make community college tuition-free for two years. Another proposal was to extend the enhanced CTC for five years. The enhanced tax credit, which initially passed through the American Rescue Plan, let eligible families get half of the CTC in advance monthly checks that were distributed from July to December 2021.
But Build Back Better has faced problems getting Congressional support. As GOBankingRates previously reported, the original bill ran into a major stumbling block in December when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) said he would oppose it. Manchin’s opposition was a huge setback for the social safety net program because every Senate Democrat vote is needed to squeak out the 51-vote majority required to pass the bill into law.
Despite the setbacks, Biden sounds determined to pass the legislation in different chunks, CNBC noted.
“They are massive things that I’ve run on, I care a great deal about,” Biden told the media gathering. “I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now and come back and fight for the rest of it.”
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