Barbara Kennelly: “this summer during the Presidential election, everyone, Republicans, Democrats, promised the American people a child…”

“this summer during the Presidential election, everyone, Republicans, Democrats, promised the American people a child credit. We certainly should keep that promise. However, when we look at the bill that has passed out of the Committee on Ways and Means, the promise is not kept for many people. Working families can lose a child credit if they have day care expenses. What a message to send out to the 70 percent of working parents, two-parent families, with young children. Average families can lose both the child credit and the educational credit because they are thrown into the alternate minimum tax, a great complication in the tax system, but one that was put in there to make sure very well-off families did not zero out, certainly not to get a complicated tax form for people with children. Here we look at the bill. Poor families cannot get the child credit because they do not earn enough money. Hardworking families with children will see their credit disappear before their eyes because they are using the education credit or the child credit. Then we look at wealthy families, and they do not get it because they earn too much money. We agreed on a child credit. We should go back and do it right. Americans need that $500. Americans need that tax credit.”