On the recordJanuary 14, 2014
I am here to speak in opposition to the offset in Ayotte amendment No. 2603. The bipartisan budget that passed in December included a Republican provision that changed the annual cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, for military retirees. I opposed that provision, and I believe there is bipartisan support for repealing it. The main question that needs to be debated is how to pay for that repeal. Amendment No. 2603 would pay for fixing the military retirement COLA problem by denying the refundable child tax credit to millions of eligible U.S. citizen children. That amendment asks, in effect, whether military retirees are more deserving of help than U.S. citizen children who are on the edge of poverty. That is a false choice. That is not the right approach. The child tax credit is one of our most important programs to reduce child poverty. Tens of millions of families claim the child tax credit each year--more than 35 million families in 2009--both using Social Security numbers and individual taxpayer identification numbers. According to the Congressional Research Service, the child tax credit reduces child poverty by approximately one-fifth. For such an important and widely used program as this, we should be careful that any changes we make to the program do not harm low-income children and working families. Many of these low-income families are headed by women. Any large program is susceptible to fraud and misuse.…
