Deborah Koff Ross: “Mr. Speaker, tonight I am offering a motion to instruct conferees on the child tax credit. As Congress considered H.R.…”

“Mr. Speaker, tonight I am offering a motion to instruct conferees on the child tax credit. As Congress considered H.R. 2, the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act, at a cost of more than $300 billion, one important provision was omitted that affects a majority of the hardworking families in my home State of Arkansas, as well as working families across our Nation. The increase of a child tax credit that could be refundable to include low- to moderate-income families who earn between $10,500 a year and $26,625 a year was dropped from the conference agreement. Wage earners in this group include our men and women in the military, police officers, firefighters, and even our school teachers. Expanding the child tax credit to include the families of these people made up only 1 percent, let me repeat that, made up only 1 percent of the total cost of the tax cut package; but the impact of this omission on the millions of working families who need this relief is immeasurable. I am very proud of our senior Senator from Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, who led the effort in the United States Senate to correct this wrong, to right this wrong; and the Senate did so in a bipartisan way. The vote in the Senate was 94 to 2. Let me repeat that: in the Senate it was a bipartisan vote, 94 to 2. Mr. Speaker, it is simply wrong.”